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

In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :

Well, what really kills is rapid deceleration...

Just like it is not the fall that kills you, it is the sudden stop.

So they got their 15 hrs of fame.

Now lets move on.

In reply to iceracer :

I almost posted that same "sudden stop" quote.

ebonyandivory said:

Red herring? The only red herring here is members assuming these Cannonball participants are anything but EXTREMELY rare. Lightning can also kill you but I'm pretty sure you're not ranting about lightning even though it kills ~50 people per year while as far as I know zero deaths can be attributed to the Cannonball run.

You can search it out if you want, but the son of a rally competitor I know was driving a 911 in a cannonball-type event (I think it was Gumball) in Europe, around the mid-2000s IIRC, and killed a whole family in a car that pulled out too close in front of him. If he wasn't doing Gumball speeds they might've had a better chance of seeing his car and surviving the impact, and the driver might've had more time to brake.

I totally understand your point. I also am NOT saying this is a "safe sport" and that I actually condone it. I also have no issue with the participants paying their proper serious restitution if they get caught.

I will say pointing out a single fatal crash on another continent over a decade ago doesn't directly reflect the relative safety or danger of the American Cannonball Run. 

Of course the anger I'd feel toward the driver if any of my family members were killed in such a way wouldn't be alleviated knowing the driver was using spotters and navigators so I really do understand your and many others' opinions.

I guess my point could be summed up by saying I'm in several orders of magnitude more at risk of a serious crash by a "normal" car piloted by a "normal" driver than I am in ever even sharing the road with one of these participants. The odds of them killing me driving to work has never even crossed my mind.

I hate to think I caused any anger to other GRM members in posting my opinions. They're just my opinions and I absolutely love the debate.

^^^ Most of us don't approve of street racing because all the "normal" people driving their kids to school etc. haven't agreed to be rolling chicanes in someone else's race. Seems unfair to ask them to risk their safety so that a couple of brats can treat public roads like their personal playground.

You could argue that the very early days of the Cannonball were an exception because there was a process to vet the drivers. Besides that, there was at least the pretense of some sort of social responsibility behind it:

If you read Brock Yates's book, the early races were a challenge to US automakers to up their game and improve handling/braking/aero. They weren't really protesting the 55 MPH speed limit (that came later). Rather, they were criticizing US automakers for building cars like the Pontiac GTO: huge power, but numb steering, crappy brakes, sloppy handling, and zero aerodynamics. In contrast, the Europeans were engineering and building cars like the Mercedes 450 SEL 6.9 that could safely cruise at autobahn speeds all day long.

Modern Cannonballers strike me as much closer to street racers than Dan Gurney, who won the '71 event in a Ferrari 365GTB/4. Guys like Alex Roy seem like self-entitled douchebags who are doing it for their own glory.

LanEvo said:

^^^ Most of us don't approve of street racing because all the "normal" people driving their kids to school etc. haven't agreed to be rolling chicanes in someone else's race.
 

Guys like Alex Roy seem like self-entitled douchebags who are doing it for their own glory.

I can't even pretend to disagree with this

Comparing the relative danger of this to anything else is a total fallacy. It's not a choice you get to make and they're not mutually exclusive. Just because I'd rather live with a drunk driver nearby than having a nuclear bomb dropped on me doesn't make either ok and doesn't make it my choice. Both are bad, just different levels of bad. Also saying that they only endangered a small portion of the public is a lot like saying that it's ok because someone only attempted to murder 1 person, rather than trying to commit a mass shooting.

They seriously endangered the public and I'd throw the book at everyone involved if I could. Going 193 mph on public roads is moronic. Doing it for internet glory doesn't make it ok, if anything it's worse.

I know as a community we probably like to drive faster than "normal", but there's a time and a place for that and open public roads are not that place and this sort of behaviour threatens the whole community and our access to venues where we can go play in relative safety.

Obviously endangering innocent people is an awful thing to do and deserves appropriate punishment.

I'm not trying to argue with anyone's about that but, and maybe this should be the final time, I want to clarify. My thoughts are since the chances of a loved one getting killed by a drunk driver or someone driving on drugs or texting while driving are incalculably higher, I have zero concern of getting that dreaded late night call that one of my family members was injured or killed in a horrific Cannonball Run accident vs the former.

In reply to ebonyandivory :

Road racing started in Europe where cars raced from town to town. Yes spectators were killed but I might remind everyone that the 1955 LeMans race was a circuit race and it managed to kill 80 people.  
No one goes to a modern race expecting to be killed or injured but it still happens. 
 

I won't  try to justify the Cannonball run because it's very risky to innocent people.  But innocent people are regularly killed by speeders or drunk drivers.  Or  lousy drivers, suicidal people, Weather, poor roads, police officers chasing speeders,  etc etc etc. 

Face it the world is not safe.  Picking out one event and making them the focus of your rath seems just a little too disingenuous.  

And celebrating this one event is counter productive. If the media all collectively agreed to atop publicizing this stuff then that would remove a huge incentive to do it. Why not start publishing the local street race results too?

Gurney and Yates drove the only BLUE Ferrari Anerica in the USA at that time,

FWIW