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. That’s 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 ...
Most rental companies are smart enough to check the tires when you take them back.
Public roads are not straight lines.
What? It's a rental.
“How much did they benefit from less traffic due to Covid-19?”
That is exactly why there has been so many attempts this past year. This one is a late 2020 entry, and maybe the fastest.
Which is why, since I travel infrequently, I always take the rental insurance rather than let the credit card company, my insurer, and the rental company argue back and forth over who is going to pay, since I’m the ultimate available pocket.
Also, you don’t get blamed for the last guy’s dents.
How did he never get pulled over?
Cops were busy arresting looters and monument wreckers and such.
“Another thing about a rented car is that it’s an all-terrain vehicle. Mud, snow, water, woods – you can take a rented car anywhere. True, you can’t always get it back – but that’s not your problem, is it?...”
LOL
I used to travel a lot and rent cars a lot. I had a National Car Rental Emerald Club account. You make a reservation for a particular type of car - econo, mid-siz, van, SUV, whatever - and then when you pick up your car you just go to the Emerald Isle and pick out a car you want. But if they are out of the type car you reserved, you can pick any car you want no matter the type.
In Arizona once I got a great looking red Mustang ‘cause that was all they had left in the Emerald Isle. After a few days of business I went touring around some Arizona sites and wound up taking some back roads from the Grand Canyon area down to Prescott. My next to last road started out paved, became gravel, and then became a hill climbing dirt and mud road. The Mustang looked like hell by the time I got to Prescott. It’s just me, I know, ‘cause I did not have to but I did run it through a car wash (I at least HAD to wash the mud and dirt off the windshield).
A friend of mine works for a company that produces car commercials. He told me that a few years ago, they were filming a truck commercial where they were supposed to jump a truck over a chasm.
The stunt driver wrecked the truck during practice, so they went and rented one for the actual ad then returned it.
Another story.
I used to work for a company that supplied acoustic materials to the auto industry. They were testing a way to quiet the read footed area on a minivan.
They rented one, completely stripped the interior, removed the floor pan, replaced it with one treated for acoustics, added a bunch of instrumentation, replaced the interior carpet and seats and took it for a drive.
As I recall, they did this several times.
Then they returned the rental. Thy had it for 2-3 months and only put a few hundred miles on it.
He wore a mask.
I can believe this right now is a great time to travel. Little traffic and easy to get and maintain speed without worries of being pinched in or blocked for any length of time.
Traveled to NC a few weeks back and averaged 70mph the entire time, normally I end up averaging around 60 mph during the entire trip. Could have easily averaged 100mph or more if I had wanted to try it. Cruise the entire way and thing I actually had to hit my breaks because I could not pass slower traffic maybe 10-20 times at most and only for a few minutes total.
That’s a shit load of AA Duracell’s.
Things that will never be done in an electric car for $200.00
There have been a lot of records due to the less traffic. I prefer the ones from a few years ago that took lots of planning and coordination. Including finding friends of friends that where cops that would block on-ramps at just the right time.
Oh - and smoke bombs to mask them!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPZfpS2uEp4
These new guys are cheating imho.
This boob left so much money on the floor by not papering that Mustang with video. I tried to watch the youtube upthread and after 2 minutes of yak he reveals, “oh no video i didnt want to mess with it.” So it’s just stills of a motionless Mustang sitting in a garage you gotta be ——— kidding. Dude you could have iphoned live multi-cam video into the cloud for less than a grand and kept them powered for 25 hours easily.
He had to drive fast because the rest stops were closed. That second cup of coffee was ill advised.
Sorry...I refuse to believe it.
Get a credit card that has primary rental car insurance. Amex has it for a low flat rate not daily. A couple other cards have it included. Most of them have secondary insurance and that creates the problems.
With my Mastercard, it is free
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