Ticket Has Racer Overheated : Driver Vows He’ll Fight It to the Finish

Everyone has been slapped with a traffic ticket that cost plenty. But take a look at the one Dennis Holland got.

The Newport Beach car buff and his 15-year-old daughter, Julie, were chugging along in his 1909 Buick racer up a remote road in northern San Diego County last month in the Great American Race, a 4,000-mile cross-country event for antique cars.

In the lead, and with about 20 miles to the finish line, the father-daughter duo figured that they had first place and the $15,000 grand prize for their division all wrapped up.

Then Holland saw the flashing red lights of a California Highway Patrol car. The officer stopped and cited him, saying he made an illegal left turn. The resulting six-minute delay could not be made up, Holland said, and he and his daughter finished fourth.

Holland admits being miffed about losing the money. But, he said, it’s the principle of the thing that he finds really galling. As he sees it, he did nothing to deserve the $78 citation, and he has vowed to fight the ticket.

“I basically feel I lost the race for Julie,” said Holland, who will take up the matter in court on Sept. 22 in the mountain community of Ramona.

“If I can get that ticket dropped, it puts the blame--in my eyes anyway--on the CHP,” Holland said. “Twenty years from now, I’d still feel like I lost the race for her unless I can prove I wasn’t a negligent driver.”

Officer Harry Jones, who issued the ticket to Holland, was out of town on vacation this week and could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for the branch office Jones reports to in El Cajon said he was not familiar with the particulars of the case but, he noted, participants in the Great American Race are nevertheless obliged to observe the rules of the road.

“My feeling is this: How is he exempt from the law?” CHP Officer Bob Melton said of Holland. “The contestants in that race are all supposed to obey the laws like anyone else.”

Although the unfortunate turn of events for the Hollands helped several other contestants get ahead, their competitors were far from pleased that one of their brethren got waylaid by the law.

“It sounds to me in talking to Dennis that this was a real Mickey Mouse ticket,” said Fred Reiss, a Redlands accountant who navigated a 1914 Model T to third place. “It couldn’t have happened at a worse time. It really is unfortunate. If it didn’t cost them first place, it at least cost them second or third.”

Free Representation

Holland’s run-in occurred at 7 a.m. July on a rural stretch of California 78 east of Ramona at its junction with California 79.

As he turned onto State 79 to head north toward the finish line in Fallbrook, Holland, according to the CHP, cut across the double-yellow dividing line separating the lanes.

Holland, for his part, questions whether he ever even hit the line. Even if he did, he argues, the intersection was clear of traffic at that early hour and the move would not have endangered anyone.

Jerry Bame, a Huntington Beach lawyer and antique car enthusiast, agrees. After hearing about what happened to Holland, he offered to represent him in court for free. Holland accepted.

“I feel that he was unjustifiably given a ticket,” said Bame, who owns a 1913 Ford racer. “I just feel bad for him. It seems uncalled-for. The officer should have been out there helping the drivers of these historic cars instead of doing what he did.”

Whatever the outcome in court, the CHP could have picked a less tenacious foe than Holland.

Holland, it seems, is not one to shy away from challenge. He once spent 13 1/2 years building a 100-foot sailing ship in his yard, he said. The vessel, dubbed the Pilgrim of Newport, was launched in 1983. Holland and his wife, Betty, have been using it for weekend charters to Santa Catalina.

Since buying the Buick in 1980, Holland has spent countless hours fussing over it. Before he set off in the Great American Race, he put in about 2,000 hours stripping the automobile and making various repairs, he said.

This year’s race began in Virginia and took a serpentine path West across the country. It was the third Great American Race for Holland, but it was the first for his daughter.

Julie, a sophomore at Harbor High School in Newport Beach, pushed her father to enter again, after a five-year hiatus. She even sent for the entry form and inquired about the particulars of the event, the family said.

Although a novice to the art of navigating in a road rally, which typically features vague route directions and requires split-second timing between checkpoints hidden along the route, Julie caught on quickly, her father said.

They really showed their stuff, however, during the Grand Championship Run, a test of skill on the final two days.

As they were heading into the last day, in which they had to drive a twisting route from downtown San Diego to Fallbrook, they had a nine-second lead in their quest for the Grand Championship title for pre-1916 cars and the $15,000 prize.

Julie, in fact, was already counting the winnings, her father said. Holland had planned to put some of the money into the car, but he was going to give the bulk of it to Julie, an honor student and athlete with her eyes set on college.

Then came the fateful turn. And the ticket.

“I had no idea we did anything wrong,” Julie said. “We weren’t going that fast. I just started to cry. I didn’t think it was right. . . . It wasn’t like there were people standing in the middle of the road or tons of cars. We were the only ones in sight.”

Holland said he dashed back to ask the officer whether he could get under way, explaining about the road rally, whose rules specify that the cars must stay 5 m.p.h. under the speed limit at all times. As the officer was writing the ticket, the Hollands’ competitors were roaring through the intersection.

Holland said he managed to regain about four minutes once he was back on the road, passing several of his competitors in the process. But the two were still two minutes behind when they hit a check just before Fallbrook. The loss was more than enough to cost them victory.

“Four thousand miles of driving--across dangerous roads, literally through sleet and hail at times--and then it comes down to this,” Holland groused as he mulled over the events of that day. “It’s just not really right. Julie wanted to win so bad, and it was me who got the ticket. I want to clear it up so I feel like I didn’t lose the race for her.”

Julie is not about to blame her father, however. Although she is eager to see him get his day in court, she is looking forward to next year and a new race.

“I had the best time, even though we lost,” she said. “Hopefully next year, we’ll make up for it.”