Smoke on the Quarter Mile

Very Hard — logic-grid deduction puzzle

Three drivers raced down a desert drag strip, and one of the starter's notes about the night was wrong.

Out past the last gas station, a straight strip of blacktop ran into the Nevada desert, and on cool autumn nights the whole valley came out to watch. Three local drivers took turns roaring down the quarter mile, one after another, while the crowd whooped from lawn chairs along the fence. Each driver brought a car with its own coat of paint, kept a lucky charm on the dashboard and wore a favourite jacket. The old starter waved the flag for every run and jotted notes in a battered notebook. By morning nobody could agree on who had done what, and the starter admitted with a sheepish grin that one of the notes was wrong.

Clues

  1. Starter's note A: Two of these three happened and one did not: Rita made the first run, the roadster took the third run, and so did the black car.
  2. Starter's note B: The coupe was painted black.
  3. Starter's note C: The coupe took its run before the pickup.
  4. Only one of the starter's notes A, B and C was wrong.
  5. If the black car had the horseshoe on its dashboard, then the roadster had the rabbit's foot.
  6. The driver in the corduroy jacket kept the horseshoe on the dashboard.
  7. Of the coupe and the roadster, one was driven by Dale and the other by the driver in the denim jacket.
  8. If Rita drove the pickup, then Rita wore the corduroy jacket.
  9. The roadster, the car on the second run and the silver car had three different drivers.
  10. The third run went to the cherry car.
  11. Only one of these was true: the driver in the leather jacket made the third run, the driver of the black car wore the denim jacket, or Dale drove the pickup.

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