50th year as a Hog Days event

KEWANEE — A life-long love for the car Henry Ford made for the masses inspired Ray Behnke to come up with the idea for a Model T race that marks its 50th year as part of Hog Days.

Behnke, a Kewanee postal worker, died in 1994 after a long fight with multiple sclerosis. Now, his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, along with the descendants of others in the first race, keep the tradition alive every Labor Day weekend. The cars will be lining up for inspection at 11 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 2, in the Preferred Home Health parking lot on West South Street. The road rally begins at 11:30. The public is invited to look over the cars before they leave and watch from the Menard's parking lot across the road as between 30 and 40 Model T and Model A Fords make two 40-mile laps from Kewanee to Galva, Bishop Hill and back. Some drivers also allow people to "hitch a ride," to get an authentic feel for the open road.

The idea sprang from an off-the-cuff comment Behnke made at a meeting of Henry County's Illinois Sesquicentennial sports committee in Cambridge. Behnke's son-in-law, Bill Scott, said Ray just went "to see what was happening." Each town was expected to come up with an activity to be held during the state's 150th anniversary. Annawan had rolle bolle, Bishop Hill had baseball, and so on. When they came to Kewanee, Behnke, who hadn't come with anything in particular in mind, said "We're going to have a Model T race." The committee was ecstatic. It was unique, it was historical, and it was a race so it qualified as a sport. Plans were made to hold it during Kewanee's big annual event, the Hog Capital of the World Festival on Labor Day weekend. There would be a 150-mile race on Sunday, Sept. 1, including almost every town in the county, and a shorter 50-mile race on Monday, Sept. 2. According to Star Courier stories, Henry County Ford dealers sponsored the trophies, although Scott said his father-in-law paid for them out of his own pocket for the next few years until the Hog Festival Committee assumed the expense. The 150-mile Sesquicentennial race started at Bracken's Shopping Center on the south edge to Kewanee at 10 a.m. and, after covering a route all the way to Colona and back, which included two stops, cars crossed the finish line on Route 81 at Baker Park around 3 p.m. The shorter, non-stop 50-miler on Monday began at the entrance to Northeast Park on Route 78 and ended on Route 81 at Baker after traveling through Annawan, Atkinson, Geneseo and Cambridge. The Boiler City CB Radio Club calling in the race's progress and any breakdowns. Today, local ham radio operators still perform those duties.

The first race had seven entries — Behnke, John Boss, Jr., Joe Ostrowski, and George Cernovich, all of Kewanee; Richard DeWolf, of Colona; R. C. Smith, of Morrison; and Don Englemann, of Chicago. When the exhaust smoke cleared, Behnke had won the aluminum piston division of the 150-mile race, with Joe Ostrowski winning the cast iron piston division. In the Labor Day short race, Behnke, again, took first with George Cernovich second. All three were driving 1926 Model T's.

Behnke's idea of a Model T auto race stemmed from the Montana 500, a 500-mile, three-day endurance race from town-to-town in the Big Sky state. It has been held every year since 1961 and drew 20 cars to this year's race in June. Behnke had been a spectator at a few of the annual races when he attended the Sesquicentennial meeting in 1968. He loved the simplicity and endurance of the "tin lizzy," as it was called. He could reel off stats on not only the Model T, his personal favorite, but every "letter" car Ford made from the Model A to the Model S and Model N.

The year after Behnke's Model T race debuted during Hog Days, he took his 1926 roadster, a car he had literally pieced together with random parts, and entered the Montana 500 in 1969. He went back to the grueling race in 1970, '72, '73, '74, and '77, finishing every year placing 12th or 13th most years. In 1992 and 1993, a year before Behnke's death, Scott drove the race in what had become known locally as the 1926 "Montana car," placing 10th and 12th with Ray "coaching" from a follow-behind van.

Over the years, Labor Day weekend traffic on local highways became busier and the race was changed to a non-timed rally for safety reasons. In 2004, organizers broke with Ray's "Model T's only" rule and allowed Model As to join in since the number of road-worthy Model T's was declining. In 2008, the 40th anniversary of the Ray Behnke Memorial Rally, a record 51 cars took part in the event. Model T's were made between 1908 and 1927 with a top speed of 40 to 45 m.p.h., while Model A's, built between 1928 and 1932, could reach 65 m.p.h.

With the third and fourth generations of the Behnke/Scott, Cernovich and O'Neill families, and others still involved, the rally remains strong. This year, one entry is coming from Sparta, Mich., to take part in the fun, learning about it on the Hog Festival Committee's website. After the rally, drivers and their families will meet for potluck and prizes at the Elks Club. Most of the cars will be parked out front on Tremont Street for public viewing and photos.