Cranked Up by Antiques on Wheels : Autos: Thousands of old-car aficionados enjoy the final lap of the 10th annual Great American Race in Costa Mesa. The drivers started in South Carolina.

This isn’t exactly the Indy 500.

For starters, some of the cars predate World War I. And the top speed is a cakewalk for county freeway drivers--a wimpy 50 m.p.h.

Nevertheless, thousands of antique car fans showed up Saturday in Costa Mesa to watch the final lap of the 10th annual Great American Race.

About 70 cars--ranging in age from 1910 to 1941--crossed the finish line here at Avenue of the Arts and Anton Boulevard after starting out in Charleston, S.C., on June 21.

The race was 4,475 miles long.

The Great American is scored much like a golf game--the driver closest to zero points wins. Stability, rather than speed, is the objective.

Sponsors figure out the ideal time it would take to finish the race. Participants are then judged as to how well they match up with that time.

For instance, Saturday’s big winners were Dick Burdick and his navigator, Wayne Bell. They were just 21 seconds away from a perfect score.

Burdick, of Rosanky, Tex., and Bell, of Lake Oswego, Ore., drove a 1924 Bentley, worth about $400,000. They took home a $50,000 prize for coming in first in the Championship Class.

Burdick, a heater cable supplier, won the same race in 1989 and 1990.

He fell in love with antique cars after one of his company’s distributors showed him a Model-T Ford. Burdick, 63, traded five rolls of heater cable for the car.

“That got me started, and I just went berserk,” he said.

Participants in Saturday’s race were clocked at secret checkpoints several times every day. The only instruments allowed were a clock, stopwatch and speedometer.

Each team--consisting of a driver and a navigator--plan their route down to hundredths of a minute.

For instance, stopping and then starting up again takes about 12-hundredths of a minute. Navigators are responsible for making those kinds of calculations.

“Anybody can drive. That’s what I always say,” joked Bill Secrest, a navigator from South Shore, Ky.

Secrest and driver David Reeder took first place in the novice category.

They drove a 1931 Packard Speedster.

“The car doesn’t do too well in the hills,” Secrest said with a smile.

Alan and Mary Travis of Phoenix came in first in the Overall World Class with a 1910 Knox, the oldest car in the Great American Race.

Travis’ Knox was first owned by Kentucky horse owner Elizabeth Dangerfield. The car was raced for two years in the early 1900s until her boyfriend--a silent screen actor--wrecked it.

Dallas-based Interstate Batteries has been the race’s chief sponsor for the past 10 years. The company started the race as a promotional vehicle, deciding against participating in the Indianapolis 500.

“It was so expensive, and you get such little exposure,” said President Tom Miller.

Some of the cars can still be seen today near the finish line at South Coast Metro, from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.