Posted on 06/27/2020 4:59:03 AM PDT by tlozo
You'll be forgiven for stifling a yawn as we delve into the details of yet another Cannonball record. And although the overall New York City-to-Redondo Beach, California record has allegedly been broken again by some folks who have not yet emerged from the shadowy world of hearsay and conjecture, that's not the one we're going to tell you about today. What we're here to talk about is a record that's so stupid it's brilliant, and so crazy it's just about what we've come to expect as the elapsed times on these ill-advised adventures have crept ever closer to the 24-hour mark.
We're talking about a solo run. One man, one car, a whole lot of gasoline, and an alleged 25-hour, 55-minute elapsed time. Thats an average speed of nearly 108 miles per hour.
If you've been following our coverage, you'll know that a lot of people got excited last November when Arne Toman, Doug Tabbutt, and Berkeley Chadwick destroyed a coast-to-coast time that had stood since 2013, behind the wheel of a superbly prepared, blisteringly fast 2015 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG sedan that carried them across this nation in 27 hours and 25 minutes...
Fred Ashmore, 44, of Hancock, Maine, rented a Mustang GT, removed its passenger seats and other interior accessories, strapped in enough extra fuel tanks to bump the car's capacity to around 130 gallons, and made the trip from the Red Ball garage in Manhattan to the Portofino Hotel & Marina in Redondo Beach with only one stop for fuel.
"The Mustang GT will not go any faster than 159 miles per hour," he told Road & Track. "Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying."...
(Excerpt) Read more at roadandtrack.com ...
“A Parliament of Whores” - A lone journalist explains the entire US government. By PJ O’Rourke
The funniest (and most accurate) book explaining the government ever written. It should be required reading in colleges.
Probably the same road.
“at the peak of the mountain, you could see a kind of pass or a cut-thru in the trees?” Yes, that I remember.
“Coming down towards Jerome, was there a old scary fenced-in compound, kind of shoddy...with a lot of signs telling you to keep out?” That I do not remember.
What I remember most about Jerome was it was cut into the top of the hill, it looked like it had been an old mining town, a very small town, a really old town that had seen better days, and the towns folks were trying to make “artsy” type shops or something like that to attract visitors.
My eventual destination was back down in Phoenix, where I’d catch a flight out the next day, but I decided to go take a look at Prescott first. Somewhere below Jerome and before I got to Prescott, I ran my rented Mustang through a car wash.
I found this link today:
Artsy is exactly how I’d describe Jerome...seemed like a lot of older hippies around. Oddly, the visit to Jerome was suggested by my attorney...first name Jerome.
I think the only things I did in Jerome were: I got a cold drink somewhere, and I looked briefly in some artsy shop. I remember parking on a street where I could only park on one side, the same side as the buildings, and the other side of the street was a steep hillside. Some big investor might be able to “reinvent” Jerome. It does actually have a scenic spot with its location near the top of Cleopatra Hill.
In 2009 I drove from Santa Cruz CA to Denton TX in roughly 23 hrs. Ashmore was FLYING lol
Wow! And he ran it with a rental car. That’s a first.
I had to look it up. About 780 pounds of fuel. Good guess at 1000. I was going to say probably at 1000 with the tanks, but he pulled out the seats so that may have offset them.
I still like the story of the three guys in the Mercedes under NORMAL TRAFFIC conditions. A lot of planning and ingenuity. They used white tape to make the marker lights and rear lights look more like a Honda Civic(?) than a fancy Mercedes. “Yeah - we figured if it made them confused for two seconds that would be to our advantage.” I think they said they thought it might have worked on one cop that they passed.
They had a smoke machine installed. They declined to say if they used it or not iirc.
Drove from Seattle to Las Vegas years ago. Three little kids in the mini-van, before the days of GPS. I’m not sure if we even had a cell phone. (20 years ago.) Plenty of food and water and stuff.
There was a road that went by some old volcano cone but still continued in the approximate direction as the main two-lane road. It quickly went from gravel to dirt. I bet we were on that dirt road for 4 hours or so. Never saw another car or house until it turned back to gravel.
Saw the old volcano, and I don’t recall my wife complaining too much. A memorable trip. Really stupid in hindsight, so glad it worked out.
Hah. I bet there were even street signs out on that dirt road. That was one of the funny things about the dirt road we were on in Arizona. You’d pull up to a crossroad intersection, and there’d be road/direction signs. Absolutely nothing in sight for 360°...almost a lunar landscape. Just weird.
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