Michael Garrett, Pilar Garrett  - Poolesville, MD  - 63 Ford Falcon Convertible

Charles T. Goolsbee, Chuck Goolsbee - Vail, CO  - 65 Jaguar XKE

John Horton, Robert Brooks - San Francisco, CA - 69 Mercedes 280 SE

Daijiro Inada Tatsuya Tanaka Sinjuku-Ku, Tokyo, Japan 1971 Nissan Fairlady

Wes McNay, Franz Lorist - Menlo Park, CA - 1970 Plymouth Superbird

Kevin Montero, Andrew Frankl - Ottawa, Ontario, Canada - 68 Ferrari 365 GT 2+2

Rick Clayton, Nicholas Frankl - Ottawa, Ontario, Canada - 68 Ferrari 365 GT 2+2

Gennie Obert, Jaime Waldron - Santa Cruz, CA - 68 Saab

Kenji Okazaki, Kentaro Hiroshima - Sinjuku, Tokyo, Japan - 1970 Dodge Challenger

Dan Radowicz, Ron Wren - Danville, CA - 1950 Cadillac Coupe

Noel Roscrow, Ali Roscrow - So. Australia, Australia - 1950 Cadillac Sedan

Simon Rubin, Stan Bauer - Palos Verdes, CA - 63 Jaguar XKE

Carl Schneider, Marci Haas - Eureka, CA - 68 Cadillac

Dick Selland, J.W. Walker - Seattle, WA - 59 Continental Mk IV Convertible

Martin Swig, Mark Walton - San Francisco, CA - 53 Cunningham C4R

Richard Taylor, David Pierce - Phoenix, AZ - 71 Saab 96

Hendrikus Wisker, Dave Coleman - Round Hill, VA - 66 Porsche 911

Sherman Wolf, Scott Wolf - Amherst, MA - 67 Ferrari 275 GTS

Brock Yates, Pam Yates - Wyoming, NY - 71 Dodge Challenger

Steve Louden, Howard Frank - Lake Villa, IL - 74 Pontiac TransAm

Brock Yates, Jr. - Phoenixville, PA - 71 Dodge Challenger

Sam Turner,- 40 Ford Sedan Delivery

Jim Von Gunten - 71 Mangusta

Kohei Saito, Naoki Shimanaka - Journalists

Tadashi Saito - Photographer

A personal Journal of Automotive News and Opinion

On the first weekend of this month, which included April Fools Day, David Heinz of Tampa, Florida and David Yarborough of Charleston, South Carolina drove a black XJS Jaguar from Darien, Connecticut to Redondo Beach, California in the rather astounding time of 32 hours and 51 minutes. This feat by a pair of mannerly and otherwise quite sensible British Leyland automotive dealers won the fifth running of the Cannonball Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash and established then as the fastest transcontinental drivers in history.

Therein lies a story.

It started on a black, rainy night at the Lock, Stock and Barrel Restaurant in Darien. Forty-six vehicles ranging from an R90S BMW motorcycle to a 1948 Rolls Royce were spread around the parking lot. Perhaps three thousand people milled through the area, turning the pretenses for a secret start into a bad joke. A band was playing. Kids were running around. The one who observed this scene was just like the Gumball Rally nearly got slugged. The local Darien police were lurking in the background, promising their blessings provided no laws were broken. Scouts were observing that no serious concentrations of State Police could be found on nearby Interstate 95, although that organization had ironically announced a weekend of massive enforcement on the Merritt Parkway a few miles to the north. Somehow the event had bulged all out of proportion. What had been planned as a starting field of twenty had doubled in size when more and more qualified entrants came out of the woodwork. Thanks to friends in high places and some simple good luck, the New York Times had barely missed writing advance stories on the Cannonball, which would have blown the entire affair. As it was, everyone on the East Coast seemed to know what was going on. Word came that a small group was hanging around the Red Ball Garage, the old starting spot in Manhattan. Press people seemed to be everywhere, blazing away with Nikons and scribbling notes. The Barrel was clogged with drinkers and diners, a goodly number of the latter being Cannonballers partaking one final meal prior to a day-and-a-half of candy bars and warm Coca Colas. A substantial number of manufacturer’s reps were on hand to unofficially cheer the proceedings. The merry men from Cincinnati Microwave appeared, complete with test equipment, to insure that their Escorts being used in the event were operating perfectly. (Almost all of the starting field carried these state-of-the-art units.)

We had received repeated intelligence that the vaunted California Highway Patrol was awaiting our arrival with a certain perverted eagerness. An anonymous phone call had informed us that unnamed Connecticut officials were displeased with the Cannonball and planned undetermined countermeasures. A snowstorm was said to be building in the Rockies. Interstate 80 through the Western Pennsylvania Mountains was riddled with foot-deep potholes and the nuclear accident at the Three-Mile Island facility near Harrisburg threatened to cut off the Pennsylvania Turnpike. And there was always the fear of the crazed storm troopers who compose the Ohio State Police.

Into this obstacle course slipped the crazed forty-six. As the perpetrator of this affair, I felt like old Lord Raglan watching the charge of the Light Brigade. The first away was Bob Kovaleski, Oscar’s Kid, at the wheel of a white Z-28 carrying the Polish Racing Drivers of America emblem. (By Tradition, the PRDA always gets the "Pole" position.) Urged on by the good luck kiss of Rae Cameron, the lovely lady whose organizational zeal permitted uncounted multitudes of problems to be solved, and a lusty cheer from the crowd, Kovaleski Company slipped into the rainy night.

Others quickly followed; Hollywood stunt men and general handymen Loyal Truesdale and Keith Patchett buttoned up their leathers, cranked their BMZ into life and fled into the darkness. Jim Mullen and his willowy wife, Joan, howled away in their elegantly tatty but wonderfully noisy 1962 Short Wheelbase Berlinetta Ferrari. The Mullens have a number of new Ferraris in their extensive car collection but Jim, a Boston advertising executive, felt it only right and proper that the Cannonball be done in the old SWB. The 1948 Silver Wraith slipped away quietly with a chauffeur Edwin Harmston at the wheel and its elegantly dressed owners, Mr. And Mrs. Stephen Kendall-Lane of Mayfair, London nibbling at provisions form the Fortnum and Mason in the back seat. The Kendall-Lane’s had arrived for the Cannonball via Concorde and had rested for the event in their suite at the Waldorf-Astoria. Trailing discreetly behind them was a new Mercury Park Lane Station purchased to serve as a support vehicle on the journey. Mark Pritch, a feisty little man from Long Island who, in company with Bondurant School instructor Bill Cooper, pledged he would break the record of 35 hours and 53 minutes, bustled off in his jet-black Ferrari 308GT. A silver 6.9 Mercedes-Benz handled by a lean Boston Marathoner and Harvard teaching fellow named Tom Hickey moved out sedately. Hickey and his associates, Al Alden and Dick Field, were immaculately dressed in sports coats and ties, which was perhaps the best cover of all. However others were tried. The California Chevy Suburban team led by Jim Sensebaugh appeared in muted gray and white government colors with large "Satellite Tracking, Radiation, and Warning, Stay Clear" signs on its flanks. The team was equipped with Geiger counters and delighted in scanning unwitting gas station attendants across the nation. The trick was particularly effective in the Harrisburg area. Lou Sellyei and Gary Arentz, a couple of MD’s from Reno, Nevada drove off in a XKJ carrying a box containing a pair of pig eyes. The emergency eye bank scam. Not bad. Two teams went the drive-away route, one with a 1977 Chrysler, the other with a 1972 Thunderbird provided by the same New York operation that had supplied a Sedan DeVille in the 1971 run and the winning Coupe DeVille in 1972! Dennis Menesini, the super-modified driver, had appeared in Darien several days early with his massive 454 Chevy dual-wheel crew-cab and Charlie "Batman" Robison. Dennis, who is the fiercest-looking five-foot, eight-inch 225 pound man one is likely to encounter, set the tone for the event when he confronted the stuffy desk clerk at the local Howard Johnson’s and demanded, "Where’s all the goddamn hookers?" Motor Trend staffer Fred Gregory and Oui editor Peter Brannan tried to drive the same Herb Adams Pontiac Fire-Am that competed in the Daytona 24 Hours but a broken suspension and numerous carburetor fires prior to the start and a terminal oil leak shortly thereafter left them no choice but to fly to California carrying the car’s trunk lid as a souvenir of disaster. In all, 123 crazies, wastrels, rich men, poor men, beggarmen and thieves got underway in the participating vehicles. Among them were notables like Jacques Villeneuve, Gilles brother (Gilles was an enthusiastic entrant with his old Formula Atlantic car owner, John Lane, until his Long Beach GP schedule interfered), Indy car pilot John Mahler, human fly extraordinaire George Willig, Sports Illustrated writer Sam Moses, Offshore powerboat champions Sandy Satullo and Charlie McCarthy, Karting champ Terry Baker and my partner, Hal Needham, whose plan to run a bogus ambulance was perhaps the best number ever to be tried in the Cannonball.

The "TransCon Medivac" Dodge ambulance was built at great expense and in much haste by Bill Mitchell of Cheshire, CT. It carried a monster overbored 440 Chrysler Magnum modified to produce about 380 reliable horsepower by Dick Landy in Los Angeles. Special sway bars and shocks from Quickor Engineering in Beaverton, Oregon aided high-speed stability while a vast collection of bogus flashing lights, medical decals, uniforms, etc. added to the camouflage. With a 60-gallon fuel capacity and an estimated 125-mph top speed, we thought we had a winner. With my wife, Pamela on a Gurney stretcher, hooked up to oxygen and an IV bottle, and attended by a mildly crazed radiologist friend of Needham’s, we knew we had a winner. However, like all heavily modified machines, the TransCon was not properly tested by the time it reached Darien. A badly adjusted Holley 850 carburetor crapped out less than 100 yards from the start, and we lost a full hour while a couple of local mechanics valiantly made emergency repairs (torching the lock off their garage door in the process).

Somehow the entire field slipped through Connecticut and New York without notice (the ambulance’s flashing lights were magical on the crowded Cross-Bronx Expressway). However the Mullen’s old Ferrari faltered near the George Washington Bridge and they were forced to stagger back to Darien for repairs. Paul Fassler and Bob Ziegel, a pair of bon vivants in a flame-red Porsche 930 Turbo, got lost in New Jersey and blew their chances for victory early in the going.

Most of the field split across rainy, fog-bound Interstate 80 and into the jaws of the bright-eyed morning shift of the Ohio State Police. Mark Pritch crossed the border in the beam of K-55 and was arrested for a panic-stopped 80 mph. Overcome by the urgency of the moment, he was nailed twice more in the next five miles, developing in that brief interval a first-name relationship with the Smokies, a much-lightened wallet and absolutely no chance of winning the Cannonball. Charlie McCarthy was among the casualties in Ohio, but set some sort of dubious mark by leaving a bond of $900 for his speeding citation (he was later fined $90). Others fell to the state police here, giving Ohio the honors, along with Missouri, of accounting for a lion’s share of the 50 speeding tickets issued along the way.

An examination of the map will reveal that most of the serious westbound routes trace their way through some parts of Missouri. Moreover the schedule of the Cannonballers caused them to hit this state in broad daylight, when the highway patrol was operating at peak strength. Missouri was the Cannonball’s MIG Alley. Several dozen worthies were zapped, including 1972 winner Yogi Behr. Poor Behr was sleeping while his driving partner, Rod Dornsife, outran a patrol in their 928. They exchanged seats and Behr drove back on the Interstate and into the arms of the enraged law. As the British so politely put it, Yogi was "detained" for five hours while the situation was clarified. While compiling the exact movements of the 40-odd vehicles in a scatological event like the Cannonball is impossible, it seems that Sunday afternoon, April 1, 1979 was a day of high-speed madness on Interstate 44 in Missouri. Those competitors who carried police radio scanners in their vehicles reported crazed chatter on the part of the Smokies as they sped up and down the road in search of squadron of cars rocketing through their state. The ominous black Jaguar of Heinz and Yarborough was a particularly prized quarry that slipped through their net. One Smokey was heard to growl, "If we catch that black jaguar, we’re gonna put it in the crusher and its driver’s in jail!" Fortunately for Heinz and Yarborough, they had no monitor and were not privy to such bellicose talk. "If we’d have heard stuff like that, we’d have probably slowed down," mused David Yarborough after the finish.

The TransCon Medivac effort was essentially finished by the time it got to Missouri. After starting with a one-hour penalty, the B&M TorqueFlite automatic puked a seal in Illinois, triggering endless stops for fluid fill-ups. Before the thing quit entirely in Palm Desert, California, and we were hauled to the Portofino on the back of a Kenworth flatbed out of Las Vegas, we had loaded six gallons of transmission fluid, uncounted cans of sealer and a few quarts of 40 weight engine oil into the transmission. However while it was running the ambulance seemed immune to detours, the police, traffic jams and general highway hindrances. One can only speculate how we would have fared if the project had enjoyed more development time before the start.

The second night shrouded the runners as they sped into Texas and New Mexico. There the old bugaboo of yapping truckers appeared as in had in 1975. Enraged by bright quartz-halogen headlights or simple speed, not a few eighteen-wheel drivers set out to sabotage the Cannonballers, either by squawking warnings on the CB (to be counter-measured in some cases by competitors simply keying their 100-amp linears and blowing them off the air) or blocking the road. Things got nasty on several occasions, with second-placer Tom Hickey’s 6.9 being run onto the shoulder and the third-place Trans-Am of Jerry Pierce and Mike Snyder almost becoming the sausage in a monster truck sandwich in Arizona. However Terry Bernius and Tom Cripe reacted to the challenge by announcing to the truckers that they were engaged in a protest against the 55-mph speed limit. This elicited massive support from the truckers, who began calling the tiny Lotus Esprit "the Snowplow" and beckoning it on with blinking turn signals.

Exhaustion let to paranoia. Bob Kovaleski blew his chances for a high finish when he convinced himself that a roadblock lay ahead in Arizona and doubled back 50 miles to avoid the non-existent barrier. In the meantime the old Rolls Royce was rolling serenely ahead, although its windshield wipers (fabricated at the last minute from old bits) failed and its drivers were reduced to operating them by hand. Cannonball veteran Wes Dawn, who has competed in every Dash since 1972, teamed up with Jeff Martini in a new El Dorado and tried, for the second time, to beat the system by running I-80 to Salt Lake City and then cutting south on I-15—surely the long way around. Their journey started badly when they hit an accident scene in Ohio and sat in the jam-up until Dawn and Martini leapt out, grabbed brooms and helped sweep up the debris.

In the meantime Hickey, Alden and Field and their 6.9 Mercedes were becoming the children of destiny on the Cannonball. Operating without an Escort, making only rudimentary use of the CB and waiting for credit card receipts at their gas stops, they were stopped but once by the gendarmes and were maintaining an incredible 85 mph-plus average speed. At one point in Arizona they smoked by the fourth place finishers, Mark Whiteside and Stephen Fog and their Trans Am at perhaps 140-mph. All this in an area swarming with police. While this was going on, the oldest vehicle in the race, a 1936 Ford panel truck, entered by Hemmings Motor News, was struggling through a series of minor disasters. After a blitz of electrical troubles early in the going, drivers Terry Erich, Dave Brownell and Justus Taylor settled into a routine of stopping every 50-60 miles to lubricate a noisy generator bearing. While cruising nicely at 85-90 mph for most of the distance, BMW worthies Truesdale and Patchett rode into a snow squall near Winslow, Arizona and were forced to hold up in a motel until the weather cleared.

It was deep in mountains of Arizona that Dennis Menicini and the crew of the Chevy "dualie" had their moment of truth. After missing the turn to the famed "Ash Fork Cutoff"—the fastest but most dangerous route to California—Dennis and Co. arrived in the tiny town of Jerome, Arizona with a pack of kids driving a 1967 Chevelle. Traveling several miles with the Chevelle’s high beams frying their rear view mirrors, Dennis then suggested to Batman, who was driving, that he switch off the tail lights and spike the brakes "to see if those assholes behind us are paying attention." This action prompted the Chevelle to narrowly miss ramming his truck before it skidded into the tumbleweed. Less than pleased with this gesture, the kids overtook Dennis and heaved a beer can at his truck. Dennis responded by giving chase, because nobody throws anything heavier than a dirty look at his truck. Suddenly the local cops were in the hunt as well, helped along by Dennis’ CB report that his vehicle was under siege from a bunch of crazy teenagers. Promising to put things right, the Mountie rocketed off in pursuit of the Chevelle while Dennis cooled it at a prudent double-nickel. A few miles down the road they overtook the cop and the Chevelle, which was sidelined with a badly blown engine. Still angry about the beer can, Dennis leapt out of his truck and rushed the driver of the Chevelle, a husky kid with a large nose. Dennis stuffed his business card (M&H Custom Fabrication, Custom Oval track wheels and Accessories, Sparks, Nevada) into the stunned kid’s mouth while growling, "If you want more trouble, here’s my address. Next time I’ll pinch your head off and shit in the hole." With that pleasantry off his chest, Dennis and Batman fled towards California.

Because of their pace, the first six cars, all of which shattered the old record of 35 hours and 53 minutes, slipped into California in the black hours of Monday morning, when the CHP forces are minimal. However much of the field arrived after the 5:30-6:30 shift change, when a whole armada of Chippies, complete with their new Z-28’s and old 440 Magnums were supposed to be waiting. But what was happening? Could this be the California Hype Patrol? Were these Bears, Grizzlies or Pandas? Cannonball car after car flogged across the border with its crew’s eyes probing for black-and-whites, only to find clear horizons in all directions. Sixth placer Rick Doherty and his Mazda RX-7 were nailed for 90 mph, but little else affected the front-runners in California. Chris Romaine and Terry Baker, driving a pristine red Ferrari 308 GTS ran the entire distance without being arrested or even warned (what does that do to the theory about cops and their attraction to flashy sports cars?) and averaged 91 mph from the California border to the Portofino—including about six miles of urban, stop-and-go traffic.

The finishers straggled into the Portofino for much of Monday. By Tuesday the English Truck Magazine entry of Andrew Frankl and John Hitchins—a miniature, Capri-V6-powered dual axle cab-over-tractor had arrived, has had the BMW motorcycle (the other motorcycle entry, an 850 shaft-drive Suzuki, was ridden, pony-express fashion, by five riders from the Western-Eastern Road Racing Club and finished in a credible 43 hours and 32 minutes). Finally, as the thoroughly zany victory banquet was underway and Chris Pook of the Long Beach GP was accepting a $2500 donation on behalf of the Cannonball for the Gunnar Nillsen Cancer Fund and old teammate Dan Gurney was presenting the winner’s trophy, it was over and an amazing week-long celebration was about to commence.

If anything was proved by this affair, it is that good drivers in good automobiles can drive practically as fast as they can go with high levels of safety and only modest interference from the law. The 55-mph speed limit can easily be compromised, as it is by literally millions of drivers each minute of the each day.

Of the 46 starters, only one minor accident resulted, John Harrison’s Lotus Esprit skidded on an off-ramp in Illinois and slightly bent the steering rack.

With the fifth Cannonball having been completed, this means 107 different vehicles have run something over 300,000 miles at an average speed in excess of 75 mph without any serious accidents.

Because of speedometer errors, plus a variety of routes, it is impossible to determine the exact mileage of each of the competitors although 2,850 miles seems to be a solid average for the distance between Darien and Redondo Beach. Based on that distance, the winners, Heinz and Yarborough, averaged just under 87 miles per hour for the distance. The first six finishers, all of whom broke the old record, average over 82 mph.

Although the previous record of 35 hours and 53 minutes was broken by more than three hours, the general running speed of the winners was not that much different from the of Jack May and Rick Kline, the old record holders, or the previous quick-timers, Gurney and Yates (35:54). All three cars cruised in the 110-120 mph range, ran short bursts of 140 mph (although the 1971 Gurney effort of 170 mph on I-10 in California remains the all-time top-speed mark). Better roads, better routes, better weather and better anti-Smokey technology made the difference.

Somebody estimated that the cars running in the 1979 Cannonball consumed somewhere between 9,000 and 12,000 gallons of gasoline, which ain’t good, but the point is we have a capability for using our Interstate system for really rapid long-distance travel, which probes efficiency levels nobody has bothered to examine. Moreover better aerodynamics, tires, engines lighter weights, etc., give the potential for 100 mph Interstate cruising speeds with 20-plus miles per gallon.

Every one of the fast runners in the Cannonball is convinced a coast-to-coast trip in less than 30 hours is perfectly possible. That means an average speed of 95 mph. A number of entrants used police scanners, although many, including the first five finishers, believe the devices to be electronic overkill. By the time one drives, operates the CB, tunes the Escort and visually looks out for hazards, the function of programming the police scanner can create an unbearable mental overload. Add to that the fact that Smokies do very little chatting while on radar patrol and the scanner becomes of debatable benefit.

While many folk have found the Fox XK II to be less efficient as a radar detector than several other units, one entrant found it to have a hidden value. He carried one after discovering that it would beep whenever a VHF transmitter was keyed in the area. Now if somebody would only market a tiny alarm that would sound a warning whenever a police frequency transmitter was used, the electronic warfare battle would swing even more in the speeder’s favor.

The radar battle rages on. Most of the casualties on the Cannonball came at the hands of Smokies operating K-band guns that give little or no warning, even with the Escort. In several instances guys were zapped at 110 mph and managed to hard brake to an official read-out of 82 mph—which wasn’t quite good enough.

Perhaps the most satisfying moment in all my years of fooling around with John Law was our encounter with a pair of New Jersey’s finest fascistos in an unmarked cruiser on I-80. We had been running our bogus ambulance at imprudent speeds in the fast lane, flashing our batteries of lights at the recalcitrant, when overtaken by a pair of typically officious and rude patrolmen that infest the Garden State. We leapt out, Needham and I, resplendent in our paramedics’ uniforms, to be met by an angry cop who barked, "Where the Hell are you guys going in such a hurry?" "California," I replied, trying to be cool. "What?" yelped the cop in amazement. "We ain’t got much time," said Needham. "You got a patient in there?" asked the other cop. "Yep. And she isn’t in very good shape, " said Needham gravely. "Well, well, er, why don’t you fly her out there?" "You better ask the Doc," I said flinging open the side door of the van. There sat our Doctor pal beside my wife, Pamela, who looked ashen on the stretcher, an IV plugged into her arm; her face covered with an oxygen mask. "What’s this all about?" asked the Doctor crisply. The cops groped for questions while the Doctor explained that the patient had a rare lung disease that prevented her flying in pressurized cabins and was being transported to the UCLA Medical Center in LA for emergency treatment. Checkmated on all fronts, the cops had no choice but to let us go on. When and if the motion picture Needham plans on the Cannonball ever reaches New Jersey, one can only muse at the reaction these two will have when they see the incident repeated.

The behavior of some truckers was regrettable but in some ways understandable. There are techniques for the polite but high-speed passage of an eighteen-wheeler (blinking of lights, slowing down off the rear quarter, then easing past, more blinking of lights, etc.) to keep them under control. However if the Cannonball is ever run again the word will be passed through Overdrive magazine, which may turn the hostility into widespread cooperation once the intent of the Cannonball is made clear.

What is the secret automobile for the Cannonball? There is none, although cars capable of stable 130-140 mph top speed, 400-500 mile range, comfortable, silent accommodations for two men, relatively low frontal area (for radar protection), powerful brakes and good all-around visibility are imperative. Of course all this is negated by Dennis Menicini’s great effort with his big Chevy truck, and one is left to puzzle why Porsche’s continue to be shut out of Cannonball’s high finishes. This year’s top finishing Porsche was 14^th. Even more interesting is the fact that a BMW has never entered, much less finished the Cannonball, although Gerald McWhoter’s 27^th place in his Corvette was the best—and only---placing for that marque.

The post-race party, as mentioned, lasted for a week. The side effects, in terms of liver damage, hangovers, expense and significant attitude changes were considerable. For example, Jim Mullen, who ran so well with his elegant wife Joan in their aged SWB Ferrari, reports, "Joan has gone a little bonkers about this Cannonball stuff and is ready to abandon her career for driving about like a maniac and drinking like one. How long does the fever last?" It was Mullen who also made this observation about the entire affair; "To paraphrase Barnum’s comment about trained fleas, it isn’t that we did it well that’s amazing, it’s that we did it at all."

The Cannonballers made two public, authorized appearances in California, one at Ascot Speedway—where they shared billing with California Lt. Governor Mike Curb--- and during a special pair of parade laps at Long Beach on the day of the GP. These brief moments on a track (the first since I-10) caused a certain unleashing of energies, prompting the flagmen to waggle their yellow flags to keep things under control.

Good old British Leyland. Here they were with a XJS that had been driven farther, faster than any Jaguar since the glory days at LeMans twenty years ago, and they were petrified to touch it, even after the Cannonball was over. Heinz and Yarborough, both Jaguar dealers, asked the company for at least some token aid and comfort to permit them to spend a few extra days in California and afford the opportunity to showcase the car at Long Beach. But the powers-that-be, obviously fearful of bruising the image of infallibility Jaguar has created in America, would have none of it. The car was driven home, removing it from view from 100,000 automobile fans.

Does the establishment love the Cannonball? Not quite, but there are some swingers in amongst them. Mayor Dave Hayward of Redondo Beach presented me with the key to the city, which some might liken to giving Idi Amin the Nobel Peace Prize, and a number of (more than two) police officers have said they want to run in the next Cannonball (Oops, did I say next Cannonball?)

In addition to a variety of trophies and awards to the high finishers, a number of citations were reserved for those whose accomplishments in the Cannonball were notable, if not conventional.

Friends of OPEC Award: To Dennis Menicini for averaging 5.4 mpg and consuming 590 gallons of gas in their Chevy crew-cab.

Diamond Jim Brady Moderation Award: To Stephen Kendall-Lane and his 1948 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith.

The Bandit’s Highway Safety Award: To Mark Pritch for collecting three speeding tickets in a five-mile stretch of Ohio’s Route 80.

Champion Balloonfoot Award: To Terry Bernius and Tom Cripe for averaging 28 mpg in their Lotus Esprit.

Last But Not Lost Award: Andrew Frankl and Tom Hitchins for a leisurely time of 65 hours and 55 minutes.

The Diehard Award: To Fred Gregory and Peter Brannan for repeated mechanical failures before and during the run and arriving at the finish only with the trunk lid of their Fire-Am.

Tow-Away Award: To Hal Needham for entering a vehicle that only went 100 yards before it’s first breakdown.

Worst Time Award: To Shelby GT 350 drivers Rich Kopec and Bob Key, who attempted to pawn themselves off as cops with a borrowed badge and ended up in handcuffs in Ohio.

In The Tank Award: To Steve "Yogi" Behr for five hours in the Lebanon, Missouri slammer—a new Cannonball record.

Balls Out Award: to Chris Romine and Terry Baker for averaging 91 mph through California in an all-out effort to break thirty-six hours, which they did, by two minutes.

Night Owl Award: To Joan Mullen, who while co-driving with her husband Jim in their SWB Ferrari, set a modern-day female record by not going to the john for 28 hours and 10 minutes.

Doctor Strangeglove Award: To BMW riders Loyal Truesdale and Keith Patchett, for all kinds of reasons.

The Allison-Yarborough Good Sports Award: To Dennis Menicini and crew for their near punch-out in Jerome, Arizona.

Pirelli Paris to Peking Award: To Tom Hickey, Al Holden and Dick Field.

The following companies, organizations, etc. donated products and souvenirs and time to the various participants, for which we are all grateful: Pirelli, Style Auto, Carrera Shock Absorbers, Sears, Bell Helmets, Bolus and Snopes, Craig Electronics, Budweiser, Pepsi-Cola and the King Harbor Association of Redondo Beach.

Also special thanks must be extended to George Lysle, proprietor of the Lock, Stock and Barrel Restaurant in Darien, CT and Mary Davis, the owner of the Portofino Inn in Redondo Beach, CA for their invaluable aid and enthusiasm in making the Cannonball a success.

Ideal. Flawless coordination, you might say. Since the first Cannonball was run, in May 1971, those tinsel-town kulture freaks have given up Two Lane Blacktop, Vanishing Point, Sugarland Express, The Getaway and a trash can full of other get-it-on, open-road races and chases. And now, as the frosting on this pile of bent and smoking wreckage, we present Death Race 2000, wherein the thrill-seeker auto-cultists of the future have become so jaded that they score a Coast-to-Coast race on the basis of the number of people they snuff along the route, which apparently includes everything from blasting through playgrounds to T-boning senior citizens on park benches to collecting Salvation Army bands on street corners. Who said, "life imitates art"?

Here we are, with the fourth Cannonball history despite that the farce known as the 55mph speed limit, with all the starters having completed the 2900-mile run at a total average speed of 70.7 mph—while they traveled over 52,000 high-speed miles without so much as mussing anybody’s hair. During the for Cannonballs that have been run, the 149 participating drivers, riding in 61 vehicles ranging from quarter-century-old Studebakers to 175-mph Ferraris. Have logged over 160,000 miles of extremely fast driving and have caused no recorded inconveniences to the world at large.

So why am I sitting here waiting for the first idiot letter from some decent, concern, responsible, safety-minded law-abiding motorist to berate us for advancing the cause of highway murder and compare the Cannonball to Death Race 2000? Because I can see some stiff winding up with his pitch already, and there’s nothing to do but wait for it to come wobbling over the plate, but it does point up to one shadowy benefit of the Cannonball: Everyone who gets involved in this weirdo deal agrees that the Cannonball is a litmus paper for personalities: The good guys love it, the stiffs hate it. That’s a completely reversible view, depending on your personal outlook, but the Cannonball remains a solid measurement for discovering kindred souls.

The Cannonball had a lot of kindred souls, as it turned out. Over 60 made serious applications to compete, which meant they were willing to pay the $50 entry fee plus $200 to be donated to charity. (Because several entrants donated more than the minimum, we were able to forward $3850 to a variety of public-service organizations ranging from the American Cancer Society to the Jacksonville, Florida YMCA in the name of Cannonball competitors.) Based on arbitrary judgments involving driving credentials, type of car, personal stability and general karma, we finally selected 22 teams for the starting field, although four were unable to run because of business conflicts, car problems and sundry ailments. Eighteen automobiles running the gamut from pickups to Porsches, Bristols to Buicks, containing 50 men and 2 women ranging in age from 21 to 55, gathered on the roof of the Red Ball Garage in midtown Manhattan on a sunny day in late April to start the fourth Cannonball.

The last tow Cannonballs had been held in November of 1971 and 1972, when snow made the run through the Rockies look like a motorized Ice Follies. Because that part of the run comes at night, sometimes during the twenty-sixth/twenty-eighth hour—when fatigue is a factor—we thought a springtime start might be safer. We also figured it would be faster. That theory was in substantial conflict with almost everybody who had been reading about speeding-arrest programs by various highway patrols along the Cannonball route---especially Ohio’s and California’s---and the general limitations of the 55-mph national limit. But our optimism about a faster Cannonball was based on three advantages that the competitors would enjoy over their predecessors: 1/ they would probably be able to drive on roads bare of snow or ice; 2/ for the first time, the Autotronics Snooper radar detector would be a major factor in the event; and 3/ only Boy Scout troops and cab companies were using citizen-band radios during the 1972 Cannonball, but that was before the great trucker’s strike and the development of the incredible national network of highway entertainment, random roadway bullshit transfer and Smokey Bear detection that now operates in every corner of the nation. This system works so well that a Smokey on an Interstate can’t fire up his Ford without 40 guys with radios blabbing the news all over the country. Like the man in the big Kenworth said to us, "That’s for sure, guy; we see a Bear and we’ll definitely put him on the air." For these three reasons, plus an ever-increasing body of knowledge about the best routes, not only across the country but in and around New York and Los Angeles (which can eat up over three hours of the total trip time), we felt a lot of people were going to turn the Cannonball into a very fast event.

We were partially correct: The Old record was broken, but the rest of the field was far behind; the second and third place cars were two hours slower than the winners, meaning that the fifth car in 1971 and the third-place car in ’72 recorded better times than the number-two finisher this year. Yet the average speed of the 18-car field surpassed by over two mph the overall average of 68.2 mph recorded by the 27 finishers in 1972. If the speeds were off slightly, it was hardly the fault of Smokey and his friends. Less than a dozen arrests and warnings were issued for the entire field, although the winners set another record with Big Casino in the Cannonball speeding fines: a $250 donation to the Sate of Ohio. Everyone arrived at the Portofino convinced that law enforcement was much lighter than they had expected, and that the law officers encountered along the way were for the most part good guys. A substantial percentage of the Smokeys that I, for one, have met have been empathetic to high-performance cars and driving, and are embarrassed and distressed about having to enforce the 55-mph limit. They were operating within a lunatic system, and if given their choice, a lot of them would scrap their radars and Vascars and begin to operate as genuine helpers on the highway.

As far as safety was concerned, it was all that anyone could have hoped for. Eighteen cars started; 18 cars finished. Nobody even got a wheel in the dirt, despite the fact that speeds over 120 mph—a velocity that the National Safety Council suspects means certain death in the first few feet of travel—were used by at least six of the faster cars. The only casualties were three jackrabbits nailed by the winning Ferrari in Arizona, a possum that cleaned part of the spoiler off the third-place Challenger in Indiana and about 60 trillion bugs pulverized in Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas.

Based on finishing positions, here’s the way it went:

1/Jack May and Rick Cline, Gainesville, Florida; 1973 Ferrari Dino 246 GTS; 35 hours, 53 minutes (new record); average speed, 81.0 mph: This whole operation was lean and clean; Cline and May are small, slightly built guys who fit perfectly into their slippery, fast and efficient little Dino. They left New York about an hour after the rest of the starters and blasted west, using the Ferrari’s 140-mph top speed when they could. Both of them have extensive racing experience (Cline is a top engine-builder in Southeastern road-racing circles) and the trip was completed without bother except for the Arizona rabbits and the Ohio arrest. Says May, "That Ohio cop was a super guy. I actually think he was basically sympathetic. He sure was helpful in showing us the fast way back to the Interstate from the justice of the peace." Their record would have even better had they planned a better route through the Los Angeles morning rush-hour traffic. Slow running, capped by getting lost a few miles from the finish, cost them the chance to break the old record by a big margin.

2/Jack McCoy, Peggy McCoy and Gary Johnson, Modesto, California; 1973 Chevrolet pickup; 37 hours, 50 minutes; average speed, 76.7 mph: Runnin’ steady, that was the secret. Jack McCoy, one of the best stock-car drivers in West Coast history, did what you’re supposed to do in the Cannonball—ran 90 to 95 mph, chose a quick and efficient route, stayed our of trouble and made rapid refueling stops to blow off a lot of competitors who had 20- to 50-mph advantages in top speed. McCoy was the last to leave the Red Ball Garage, a few minutes after midnight, and eased through the deserted streets of New York and the open expanses of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, gobbling up time. Co-driving with fellow racer Gary Johnson (McCoy supplied the vehicle for the Cannonball, Johnson will return the favor for the Baja 1000) while his wife Peggy navigated and watched for cops, McCoy made a nearly perfect run.

3/Steve Behr and Brock Yates, New York; 1972 Dodge Challenger; 38 hours, 3 minutes; average speed, 76.3 mph: A dazzling dumb performance by not one but tow former winners in a really good car. The Cotton Owens Challenger, which finished second in the 1972 event, was even better this year. Work by super builder-designer Ron Nash—suspension and brake modifications, a Holley 800-cfm carb, Crager headers, Goodrich T/A radials, transmission oil cooler and other trick parts plus prototype Cibie driving lights and an experimental Autotronics Super Snooper radar unit with a maximum range of five miles—made the car a quiet, sure-fire, 130-mph winner. That was effectively nullified by a hectic departure (a fantastic collection of food was left at curbside, meaning a Coast-to Coast diet of M&Ms and Cokes) and a half-hour hideout behind a gas station after a trucker was heard broadcasting a description of the car to the Smokeys. Running behind schedule, route improvisations were made that lost even more time.

4/Wes Dawn, Hollywood, California; Gil Nickel, Park Hill, Oklahoma; 1973 Mercedes-Benz 450SL; 38 hours, 16 minutes; average speed, 75.8 mph: This was Wes Dawn’s third Cannonball, and he is one of a hard-core cadre of six who have run in three or more C-balls. After bumming a ride in 1971 in an MGB that crapped out in Columbus, Ohio, Wes ran seventh in 1972 in a Vega (getting five tickets along the way). This year, he and Gil Nickel took the northern route across Interstate 80 to Salt Lake City, then south through Las Vegas. Dawn and Nickel may have established a record of sorts by running the heavily patrolled road between Vegas and Los Angeles in three hours flat, averaging just over 100 mph.

5/Leo Lynch, Sewickley, Pennsylvania; Dan Rowzie, Alexandria, Virginia; 1973 Porsche Targa; 38 hours, 39 minutes; average speed, 75.1 mph: This silver Targa, with its three-liter RSR engine, was easily the fastest car in the Cannonball. Leo claims to have run in excess of 160 mph with it on numerous occasions, although its speed was somewhat neutralized by three tickets and another trucker’s CB alert to the Smokeys that forced them into extended hiding in a HO JO’s restaurant in Pennsylvania. (Lesson learned on the Cannonball: Don’t hassle the truckers by passing them too briskly. They will fink to the cops—based on the logic that if the Smokeys are chasing somebody else, they can put the hammer down.)

6/Sandy Satullo and Sandy Satullo II, Fairview Park, Ohio; Jack Pearson, Westlake, Ohio; Jack Howlett, Rocky River, Ohio; 1975 Buick Electra; 38 hours, 45 minutes; average speed, 74.9 mph: One thing about the Cannonball: If you’re in it, you can win it. Satullo, one of the best offshore powerboat racers in the world, figured that his box-stock ’75 Electra, in all its metallic-silver, flattop-sized splendor, had as good a chance as any car. Save for a fuel cell, CB, radar detector and four very serious motorists, it was like any other Buick swishing along the Interstates. They made six stops, got 12.15 miles to the gallon and, like Dawn and Nickel, tried the northern route. They maintained a low profile, did nothing foolish and come home ahead of far faster machinery.

7/Jim Atwell, Alexandria, Virginia; Chick Stanton, McLean, Virginia; 1975 Porsche Carrera; 38 hours, 56 minutes; average speed, 74.5 mph: This pair had a practice run of under 37 hours under their belts and were considered top contenders until they made a common mistake: They overestimated the intensity of the 55-mph enforcement. They simply ran their immaculate Carrera too slowly during the opening hours, which destroyed their chances for a high average speed. Atwell, a retired Army colonel, and Stanton, a Porsche-Audi salesman, swear they won’t make the same mistake again.

8/Ray Walle, Princeton, New Jersey; Jeff Martini and Pierre Honegger, New York; Tom Kozlowski, San Diego, California; 1975 Mazda RX-4 station wagon; 39 hours, 22 minutes; average speed, 73.6 mph: This was what you call your E-Z Wider Racing Team. If you don’t know what E-Z Wider makes, don’t ask. Ray Walle (a Mazda dealer and road racer), Jeff Martini (a New York staffer for Rolling Stone), Tom Kozlowski (a freelance photographer) and last minute addition Pierre Honegger (a Time magazine stringer) wedged themselves into a Mazda wagon and, operating as tow teams—one slept while the other drove—motored steadily, picked up one ticket and arrived feeling amazingly fit.

9/John Buffum, Burlington, Vermont; Vicki Buffum, Shelburne, Vermont; 1972 Porsche Carrera Rally; 40 hours, 19 minutes; average speed, 71.9 mph: John Buffum is a fine all-around competition driver and particularly good professional rallyist; he and Steve Behr share the honor of being the highest-placed Americans ever to finish the Monte Carlo Rally. Teaming up with his ex-wife Vicki (still good friends and all that) in a lightweight, beat-up factory-racer Carrera with a string of campaign ribbons that includes a fourth in the wicked African Safari Rally, they treated the run more as a reconnaissance than a race. The car developed a transmission oil leak, and its noise and stiff suspension badly fatigued John, who did most of the driving. This could not be considered a completely serious attempt by Buffum, and if he returns, don’t expect him to finish as far back as ninth.

10/Fred Olds, Grosse Point, Michigan; Steve Fernald, Indianapolis, Indiana; Bob Hourihan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; 1975 Volvo 164E; 40 hours, 31 minutes; average speed 71.6 mph: Hourihan is currently the top-seeded American rally driver, while Olds and Fernald are both active competitors on the pro rally circuit. Olds was a co-driver with Behr and Bill Canfield in the Cadillac that won the 1972 Cannonball. Time lost repairing a broken alternator destroyed their chances.

11/Brad Niemcek, New York; Bob Turkovich, Laurel, Maryland; Time Carlson, Boston, Massachusetts; Ken Regan, New York; 1974 Ford van; 40 hours, 37 minutes; average speed, 71.4 mph: Appropriately, the Polish Racing Drivers of America fielded an entry driven by one Pole, one Slav, a thoroughbred Wasp and an Irishman. Niemcek, one of the pioneer Cannonball enthusiasts, brought along motorcycle racer and mechanic Turk Turkovich and last-minute stowaways Tim Carlson, a young journalist doing a story for New Times, and Ken Regan, a photographer for Time. "We got psyched by the 55-mph limit," says Niemcek. "We just started too slow and never made it up."

12/Dave Shugars, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Dennis Weglarz, South Lyon, Michigan; Ron McConkey, Milford, Massachusetts; 1974 Pontiac Trans Am; 40 hours, 43 minutes; average speed, 71.3 mph: These are three engineers, on vacation from the emissions laboratory at the proving grounds at what we will enigmatically describe as a Big Three automaker, ran an immaculate Firebird with one of the rare 455 super-duty engines and a tall 2.60 final drive. Unfortunately, a speeding bust, shock absorber troubles and set of radials that were excellent in the rain but limited top speed to 110 mph ruined their chances for a high placing.

13/ Tom Morton, Newburgh, Indiana; Paul Fischer and Vern Menke, Elberfield, Indiana; 1972 Ford Torino station wagon; 40 hours, 53 minutes; average speed, 70.9: Morton and Fischer finished eleventh in the same Torino in 1972. The lack of auxiliary fuel tanks held them back this time.

14/Tom Nehl and Bill Warner, Jacksonville, Florida; 1971 Porsche 911T; 41 hours, 35 minutes; average speed, 69.9 mph: Tom Nehl, a regular competitor on the Camel GT racing circuit, and Bill Warner, a photographer, simply—in Warner’s words—"underestimated the difficulty of the Cannonball." They ran at a relatively modest pace, figuring those less prudent would be arrested and they would cruise to a high finish.

15/Richard Gould, Highland Park, Illinois; Robert O’Brien, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; John McGovren, Beckenham, England; 1974 Olds Cutlass; 41 hours, 35 minutes; average speed 69.7 mph: Gould and O’Brien, friends since meeting at the Jim Russell Racing Drivers School, had planned to run a Honda Civic but changed to unmodified Cutlass for added speed and comfort. This produced room for John McGovren, a photographer covering the run for several European magazines. Like Nehl and Warner, they gambled on running too slow a pace.

16/Fred Feiner, Brookville, New York; Richard Cannata, Mashpee, Massachusetts; Richard Harris, Hewlett, New York; 1951 Studebaker sedan; 44 hours, 23 minutes; average speed, 63.6 mph: Who cares how fast they went? These three guys and their faded-green Studebaker four-door (which they also ran in 1972) would have been runaway winners of the Style and Spirit Award, had there been one.

17/Bill Brodrick, Algonquin, Illinois; Pal Parker, Maggie Valley, North Carolina; William Jeanes and Craig Ammerman, New York; Time McGrail and Jerry Scarlato, Cincinnati, Ohio; 1975 Travco 270 motor home; 45 hours, 35 minutes; average speed, 63.6 mph: Wizard Bolus & Snopes tactician William Jeanes explained the debacle this way: "Our complicated strategy was built around beating the Bristol. This we succeeded in doing. But how did we know that the Bristol was going to finish in last place?" Led by grizzled Cannonball vets Brodrick and Parker (both on their third run) and aided by C/D Feature Editor Jeanes, trucking expert McGrail and Associated Press Assistant Sports editor Ammerman, and victulated by Cincinnati restaurateur Scarlato—who provided a Coast-to-Coast menu of Neapolitan delights—the Bolus & Snopes entry overcame a refrigerator that tended to spill its guts on sharp left-hand curves and finished a mere 54 minutes behind the motor home record they set in 1972.

18/Anatoly Arutunoff, Tulsa, Oklahoma; Bill Pryor, Nashville, Tennessee; 1969 Bristol 410 saloon; 49 hours, 32 minutes; average speed, 58.6: This classy duo, operating Arutunoff’s blowsy old Bristol, which he uses to tow his Morgan to sports-car races, came within a whisker of establishing a new record: the first morals charge inveighed against the Cannonball. It happened sort of like this: Arutunoff, a graduate of Duke University, and Pryor, a Tennessean, devised a secret network of rural Southern roads they figured would bypass every sheriff, highway patrolman and constable east of the Mississippi. Their route took them through Charleston, West Virginia, where a pretty young lady at curbside asked for a ride across town in their freaky car. While obliging her, they were stopped by a local gendarme who wanted to warn them about a loose rear license plate but ended up asking what they were doing with that young flower of Charleston womanhood in their automobile. Four hours after the girl quietly drifted away, they had convinced the police back at the station house that neither harboring a fugitive nor violation of the Mann Act was their primary mission. So much for avoiding the cops.

So the 1975 Cannonball is history, and with it came a lot of laughs and a serious confirmation of what we’ve been saying all along: Fast cars with good drivers play no negative role in traffic safety, and the present system is as silly, obsolete and counter-productive as trying to make the Volstead Act work. Despite the dragooning of the federal government to enforce the 55-mph limit, the states have neither the money, manpower nor desire to do much about it.

Will we do it again? Maybe, just maybe, because with the right route, the right car, the right crew, a good CB, the new Super-Snooper and perhaps—egads!—a radar-jammer, there’s a 34-hour Coast-to-Coast trip waiting.