Many were called.....
Check out the POR....
Love the NYC cops at 2:50.
This ‘race’ sounds extremely stupid!
How can such a thing be viewed as anything but insane and wrong-headed?
People could be killed and maimed....looks to me as bad (or even worse) than drunk driving :-/
I’m pretty sure Brocks widow still has “Moon Trash” the Dodge van “trans-con medi vac” ,, The Jaguar XJ-S was found at a junkyard about to be crushed and was saved by the “Gas Monkey” crew.
The people behind the (never released) movie 32 hours 47 minutes http://www.32hours7minutes.com/ probably have some good info ...
I had sent in an entry for the US Express in 1981 and had a car I was building for the trip when my partner backed out... people today just don’t understand how oppressive 55mph is.
There is another trophy run, done by a fella on an Fjr1300 Yamaha i believe with an oversized fuel tank, rode from Fairbanks to Key West.
Car and Driver had an article many years ago about Brock Yates and Dan Gurney trying to break their old record. Unfortunately, the law caught them about a mile from the beach.
Here is their arrest interview:
Police: Mr Yates, you realize that driving 109 miles an hour on a city street constitutes a serious offense?
Yates: Uh, yes.
Police: You look very tired. Have you been on the road long?
Yates: You could say that.
Police: How long would that be?
Yates: Uh, about 27 hours and 44 minutes. Up until your man nailed us.
Police: Where were you coming from?
Yates: Uh, back east.
Police: How far back east?
Yates: Manhattan.
Police: Kansas?
Yates: Not exactly.
Police: New York?
Yates: Uh, you could say that.
Police: (long pause)You are saying that it took you and Mr Gurney 27hrs and
44 minutes to drive to 190th street in Redondo Beach?
Yates: Well, we had to stop for gas.
Police: Mr Yates, are you aware that it’s nearly 3000 miles from
New York City to Redondo Beach? Are you on drugs?
Yates: Legal. All legal.
Police: Will you submit to a test?
Yates: (Subject held out a pale arm)You want blood? Take all you want.
Police: (after blood is drawn)You are suggesting that you and Mr. Gurney drove 3000 miles in less than 28 hours?
Yates: Of course not. That’s impossible.
Police: Meaning what?
Yates: Meaning that our route was only 2870 miles long.
Police: That still means that you were averaging over 100 miles an hour up
until the time you were apprehended.
Yates: I told you. We had to stop for gas.
Police: Mr Gurney told the arresting officer that you never once exceeded
175 miles an hour. Surely you didn’t run that fast on public roads?
Yates: Well, the Daytona is 20 years old. I mean, what the hell do
you expect? We could only get about 7 grand in fifth gear.
That’s barely 170.
Police: That’s outrageous.
Yates: Don’t blame the car. We thought it would run quicker too.
Police: You miss my point. Was this some kind of race you were in?
Yates: Not exactly.
Police: A test?
Yates: Not really. It was sort of a favor to an old pal.
Police: A favor?
Yates: You see, Gurney is a pal. I ran into him at a big race at Watkins
Glen. Kirk White was there too.
Police: Kirk White?
Yates: Another pal. He owns the car. The Ferrari Daytona.
Police: So?
Yates: So this is the same Daytona that he lent us in 1971.
Police: I don’t understand.
Yates: The Cannonball. Gurney and I ran the first Cannonball in
that same Ferrari. In 1971. Don’t you read the papers?
Police: I was a junior in high school. What does all this have to do
with your speeding charge?
Yates: It was like this. First I was just going to give Dan a ride to the
airport. The we got to thinking. It’d been 20 years since the 1971
run. A few guys had beaten our record of 35 hours and 54 minutes...
Which we did in a bloody snowstorm, with no CB, and no radar
detector or any other sissy stuff. (Subject showed sign of
considerable stress during this portion of the interrogation.) So
Gurney and I decided to show this new generation of weenies how to
do it.
Police: So you reran the 1971 Cannonball? Is that what you’re telling me?
Yates: Uh, you could say that. Or you could say that I was just giving
Gurney a lift home.
Police: Were you arrested at any other time during this trip?
Yates: Uh, no.
Police: Not even stopped?
Yates: Well, we had sort of a counseling session in Ohio, but the cop let
us go.
Police: How fast were you going?
Yates: We were a little nervous about being low on fuel so we were
only going about 140. The officer took that into consideration.
Police: He let you go?
Yates: Sure. Ohio troopers are real understanding. He even gave us this
little badge here. (Subject displayed miniature Ohio trooper badge).
A nice gesture from some grand guys.
Police: No other stops? No other attempts to stop this madness?
Yates: A trooper in Missouri turned his flashing lights on, but we were so
far ahead of him and so much faster that we figured he had better
things to do than to drive all that way to catch up with us.
Police: You’re supposed to pull over when you see flashing lights.
Yates: Only when they’re in front of saloons and massage parlours...just
kidding. A little joke there.
Police: Very little.
Yates: Sorry about that.
Police: Okay. So what you’re telling me is that this was the same Ferrari
that you and Mr Gurney drove 20 years ago?
Yates: The very same.
Police: Do you know that the speed limit on 190th is 35.
Yates: You’re kidding.
Police: Can’t you read?
Yates: Sure. But I thought that only applied to school zones.
Police: Did Mr Gurney do much of the driving?
Yates: If you had one of the great racing drivers of history in your car,
wouldn’t you let him drive?
(at this point, Dr Lemley Watts returned with the results of Mr Yates’s
blood test. The doctor noted a high level of fatigue, and even higher
levels of fat, carbohydrate and caffeine in the subject’s bloodstream.
Enough, in the doctor’s own words, to “fuel the Missouri in a heavy
sea.”)
The Interview was continued the following day and went as follows:
Police: Was your corrective detention area comfortable?
Yates: You mean the cell? Yeah. Except for the guy in the upper bunk who
thinks he’s Charlie Manson’s personal trainer.
Police: Do you feel remorse for what you’ve done?
Yates: Tons.
Police: For violating speed laws, humiliating police officers, endangering
the public. All that?
Yates: Uh, no.
Police: What?
Yates: I’m remorseful because we had a hell of a run going there. We’d
have broken 28 hours for sure.
Police: A hundred miles and hour. Coast to coast. I don’t know what decent
citizens are to think.
Yates: Tripped on the threshold of immortality.
Police: Look, seriously. how fast did you go really? I mean, is this a hoax
or what?
Yates: I told you. We never went over 175. It was the gas stops that killed
us. Now that I think about it, that’s a metaphor for life: every time you get up to speed, you’ve got to stop for gas. Ain’t life a #%!@?
I saw an episode of Gas Monkey, where the the Gas Monkey guy found, and bought the Jaguar XJS from a salvage yard.