In their haste to catch me, the brothers and Rachael hadn't stopped for fuel yet, so when they pulled into the first station after the checkpoint, I continued on in the scout position. I found myself on US-30W, which looking at google maps in hindsight, would've taken us directly into the town of Mansfield where the second checkpoint was located. The Hot Rod Drag Week staff however, decided to include a little back road adventure in an attempt to add sixteen miles and about thirty minutes to the overall route.
What follows is the tale of how that excursion cost the Gebhart contingent twenty-five miles, an hour and forty-five minutes, and one heated argument.

US-30 is a nice divided four lane, that allowed me to sip down my coffee as the 428 happily pounded out the tempo at 3000 rpm. We covered the twenty-five miles to Wooster effortlessly, then took the OH-3 exit towards Loudonville. OH-3 was divided four lane for the first four miles or so, then merged into a small country two lane with mature trees once again removing the moonlight. I backed the small block down to 2700 rpm and hunched over the wheel to get a better view of the road ahead. Fifty-seven miles into our supposed seventy-two mile trek between checkpoints I came upon a problem; the route sheet called for a right onto OH-97W which was to take us on what was planned to be a breathtaking and scenic jaunt through the Mohican-Memorial State Forest. The road was closed, with large orange and florescent barriers across the entire entrance, and a detour sign pointing back in the direction I had just came from, so I pulled the Valiant over on the shoulder, shut it off and leaned back in the seat to wait for the others.
Rachael parked behind me about ten minutes later, and I explained the situation to her, so she pulled out her phone and started looking for alternative routes. Boone and Dale showed up another fifteen minutes after that, then we all huddled around Rachael's phone and the decision was made to drive the four miles back to Loudonville to take OH-39 which essentially made a loop around the state park we were supposed to drive through.