A homecoming for Great Race team A homecoming for Great Race team (July 02, 2004)

by Jeb Bing

I t's been a long road for Stefani Turcol and her husband Tom to find their way back to Pleasanton, where both grew up, but tonight's Great Race gives us a chance to see them again. In fact, they're managing the event - Stefani as National Events Manager for Rally Partners Inc., which now owns the vintage car event, and Tom as her helpmate in handling overnight accommodations for this 14-day, 50-city tour. Designating Pleasanton as the final stop before the Great Race ends tomorrow in Monterey was actually Stefani Turcol's idea. When Rally Partners hired her last year to run the show, she picked Jacksonville, Fla., to start the 22nd annual transcontinental race, and for the finish line 4,200 miles later the city of Monterey, where her mother Tari Guertin and her brother John moved after many years in Pleasanton.

Plotting four stops a day as the cars moved across the country, her old hometown of Pleasanton was ideally located for the last night's stop. Plus, it is giving Stefani, a 1994 graduate of Village High School, and her husband, who now live in San Marcos, Texas, a chance to see their friends again. Brother John Guertin will be waving from his 1935 Ford Phaeton as he joins the other drivers parading down Main Street. Other former Pleasanton residents will also be here as part of the Great Race team. Bob Kenny, a 21-year member of the Pleasanton Rotary Club and past recipient of the Chamber of Commerce's "Spirit of Free Enterprise" award, will be on hand for the ceremonies along with Frank Kohne, who grew up here and has charge of the show's sound system and positioning the cars for public viewing.

After graduating from Village High, Stefani Turcol lived with her mother, who had moved to Monterey. In 1997, she married Tom, a school chum through middle school and high school, had the first of their two children - Thomas, now 7, and Jessica, 5 - and they moved back to Pleasanton for six months. Tom joined the Army and they moved to Colorado and then to Fort Polk, La., for the next three years. After Tom's discharge, they moved to Phoenix, where Stefani went back into sales as a vendor for national sales of NASCAR Collector Series of racing merchandise. NASCAR is a long-time sponsor of the Great Race, so when a group of 11 investors formed Rally Partners and took it over, they knew of Turcol's passion for racing and particularly vintage cars and asked her to join their team.

Hers is clearly not a desk job. Starting well before the current event is over, she's already been on the road to select new routes for next year's race. For this year's event, she plotted out the 4,200-mile route for the summertime two-week cross-country trek to allow drivers to travel 170 to 480 miles a day while also visiting 50 medium- to small-size towns, from Florida to California and including Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah and Nevada in between. I last caught up with her in Hays, Kan., one of four stops a day the drivers make. She said the flag-waving crowds, energized by Mayor Sunell Koerner, filled Hays' downtown Main Street beyond expectations and that in Manhattan, Kan., local bands, high school cheerleaders and patriotic banners added to the festivities. With the Great Race promising a cash prize of $10,000 to the "best welcoming" host city, Pleasanton's committee hopes to do even better. By turning out later today to cheer the drivers on Main Street, you can help make this the winning city.

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