New Cannonball record. Coast to Coast in 27 hours 25 mins!

OK, I understand that many will decry this as illegal, irresponsible, dangerous and a danger to our hobby.  Fair enough, you are correct.  But damn it I've love the idea of Cannonball type runs (and Wangan/Midnight))  from the first time I saw the movie.  No one thought 32 hours would be beaten, then came Alex Roy and did it in 31h 4mins in 06, then came the certainly unbeatable time of 28h 50m by Bolin in 2013.  Now these guys Arne Toman and Doug Tabbutt, with a spotter named Berkeley Chadwick.

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a30085091/these-guys-just-drove-an-e63-amg-across-america-in-a-record-27-hours-25-minutes/

YOu have to like how they used silver tape to help make their AMG look a bit more like a mid 00's Accord.  Classic.  Other than the normal phalanx of radar detectors, police scanners etc. they also had a 'aircraft collision avoidance' system which I assume is ADSB so they could look for Police patrol aircraft.  Lot's of thought, time and money went into this.  Excellent on them.

Stupid, reckless, dangerous?  Certainly, but I'd love to try something similar.  IT hasn't escaped my notice that I75 through Mi is just under 400 miles, I've often wondered what a concerted effort could do that in.  

This reminds me that parts i10 between San Antonio and El Paso need to have a 150mph speed limit. As well as many other roads in the mid west. 

That's certainly getting it done.

It's disappointing they took it from Ed Bolian, who seems to be one of the coolest dudes in the automotive online world. His record was a team of 3 in a older Mercedes, with a pretty limited budget. A team of 21 people with what seems to be an unlimited budget is meh. You broke the record, but with a 700hp mercedes and 15-20k of electric toys, and 18 people supporting you, you better beat the record. 

Pretty impressive, top speed they hit was 193.  I'm curious, if all the roads were empty and safely blocked off and people were allowed to just go and race, what would the record be?  I'm guessing low 20s.

Traffic Collision Avoidance System = TCAS.  That said, ADS-B Out from aircraft in the area should be usable for what the team wanted to get from the system, I believe.  I've not read the article to see if it mentions which system they used.  The phrases used to describe it in the couple of mentions this got makes me think it's TCAS.

lnlogauge said:

It's disappointing they took it from Ed Bolian, who seems to be one of the coolest dudes in the automotive online world. His record was a team of 3 in a older Mercedes, with a pretty limited budget. A team of 21 people with what seems to be an unlimited budget is meh. You broke the record, but with a 700hp mercedes and 15-20k of electric toys, and 18 people supporting you, you better beat the record. 

I agree. 

It's like a college football team playing a high school team.............yeah, you were supposed to win 62 - 0.

I'm torn on this whole topic. I do think it's cool to see all the prep and effort that goes into it, and considering that I break the speed limit literally every day, it's pretty hypocritical of me to scold them. Still, there is a difference between flowing along with traffic at 80 when the limit is 70, and 193.

On the Reddit discussion of this, Jack Baruth referred to it as "the non-motorsport of swerving around children and elderly people on the way to spending an IMSA season's worth of cash on being King Of The Wannabe Torettos" Which is pretty funny, quite accurate, but also misses the point a bit. Just because you spend a bunch of money, that doesn't make this an easy task.

Lets see how fast they can do it with a toddler in tow.  I bet their time quadruples and that AMG would gain about 4lbs in lost fries.

I thought this was the most batcrap crazy thing I'd read yesterday until I read something about a 1000 mile motorcycle trip on $2k bikes, where they weren't allowed to put their feet down.

https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/texas-iron-butt-challenge-1000-miles-24-hours-zero-stops

Berkeley Chadwick? What did Chadwick ever do to you? 

In reply to Tom_Spangler :

I get your concerns and I love the Jack Baruth quote, but remember Jack is one of, if not THE automotive writer of our times when it comes to crafting a phrase.  I tend to come down on the side of 'I'm OK with this' as the people who do it spend untild amounts of time and money on planning and prep to make it as safe as possible while understanding that it's illigal and there is an element of danger.  Yes, if a couple of highschool kids jump in mommy's AMG, try and mimic it and kill themselves, or even worse others, then this could blow up on everyone.  But I applaud for the big middle finger to authority and big brother these runs are.  Finally as to spending a IMSA seasons worth of money, he may be talking spectating, but implying the costs of this are in any way similar to running even a grid filler GTD team, he's smoking some good herb.  

In reply to lnlogauge :

They are into the land of diminishing returns, it takes a lot of effort in time and dollars to achieve the next increment of performance.

My thought went to a spotter airplane. I don't know anything about private planes, but could you fly VFR, coast-to-coast, at 100 - 200 mph (assuming you might have to loop back a few times), without stopping? Or could you do it with one stop in Kansas? That might be what's needed to break this number. 

I also thought about train travel. Let's say we upgraded the tracks from NYC to LA to TGV specs. That's roughly 2450 miles of track based on current layout. If you had a daily non-stop at 200 mph, you could do the trip in under 13 hours.

I wanna see sub 26 hours in an EV 

I'm OK with the upping of firepower and effort needed for these runs.  I feel it's very 'get off my lawn' to complain about progress.  50 years ago you could design and build an F1 car in your garage at home.  25 years ago you could trophy at SCCA NAt's in stock class with a set off $200 KYB's and 4 BFG Comp T/A R comps.  10 years ago you could 'beat' the cannonball time with binoculars and a radar detector.  Times move on, the anti get's upped.  IF people want a simpler time then they can set a new separate record for 'no outside support' run with nothing but WAZE and a radar detector if they like, but the ultimate is the ultimate.

I greatly respect the difficulty and preparation, but averaging over 100 MPH is a lot.  I'm ambivalent...feels like a super narcissistic endeavor. 

I feel the record deserves an asterisk **. 

I get a little nervous passing cars at 100 mph. Can't imagine how it feels passing cars to maintain a 103 average. The truckers probably don't appreciate it and will rat you out to the highway patrol. At the very least they would be talking about it on the CB. Although they say the CB was worthless.

I wonder how many close calls they had with cars pulling into the fast lane that didn't see them coming a quarter to half a mile back at more than 100 mph. 

sergio said:

I wonder how many close calls they had with cars pulling into the fast lane that didn't see them coming a quarter to half a mile back at more than 100 mph. 

Probably not many.  No one in America ever gets out of the fast lane.

Doug is a local guy.  I've often wanted to go for it, but much like drifitng the roundabout in the center of the next town over, I don't have FU money to bail me out when I get busted.  This country is a playground for people with money and the rest of us are just in their way.  

Where did it start and finish ?

The original one finished at Portofino inn , Redondo Beach

californiamilleghia said:

Where did it start and finish ?

The original one finished at Portofino inn , Redondo Beach

Yup, and they started from the Red Ball garage as far as I know.

How many times were they stuck behind traffic, say with one truck passing another with a .5mph difference? In order to accomplish this task, I imagine they were either 130mph+, or blocked by others and travelleing near the speed limit. It's one thing to want speed limits raised, or to drive in a spirited fashion, it's another to radically exceed rational spectrum norms.

I don't have a problem with the cost of their endeavor. I can't imagine the small number of spotters made that much of a difference. If anything that's sort of a "community" effort. I don't know if the fact that their car was expensive impacted their time all that much. Could you do the same thing with a 2005 Chrysler 300? Probably.

I feel like what Yates & co did originally was more of a middle finger to the 55mph speed limit. I can respect that, 55mph is too slow, albeit cars, tires, etc. still sucked back then. I don't see 70-80mph limits as authority telling you what to do, it's more about joe public not killing each other by driving beyond their limits.

Tom_Spangler said:

I'm torn on this whole topic. I do think it's cool to see all the prep and effort that goes into it, and considering that I break the speed limit literally every day, it's pretty hypocritical of me to scold them. Still, there is a difference between flowing along with traffic at 80 when the limit is 70, and 193.

On the Reddit discussion of this, Jack Baruth referred to it as "the non-motorsport of swerving around children and elderly people on the way to spending an IMSA season's worth of cash on being King Of The Wannabe Torettos" Which is pretty funny, quite accurate, but also misses the point a bit. Just because you spend a bunch of money, that doesn't make this an easy task.

I think his point is more that for the amount of money they spent they could have gone racing rather than endangering the public. So dumb.