While we old-timers may recognize the name Cannonball Run from the Burt Reynolds movie of the same name, the informal illegal road race is very real—albeit usually with fewer shenanigans and mustaches in recent years. The advent of COVID-19 gave wannabe Cannonballers something that had not been seen since before the race’s initial attempts: shockingly empty highways. While we will go into some more detail into about how today’s racers accomplished their feat in part two of this series, lets first take a look at how this—once again, very illegal—event started.
The Original Cannonball Run: Car and Driver’s Ode To The Highway
The original Cannonball Run (formally known as the “Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash”) was put together in part as a protest. The United States highway system of the 1970s was expanding at an incredible rate which was then unmatched in scope anywhere else in the world. Cars were becoming faster and more fun, but the highway traffic laws were unfortunately growing and developing along with the highways and the cars. Thus the Cannonball Run was born. The founders, Brock Yates and Steve Smith—then both under the employ of Car and Driver magazine—decided that they wanted to prove that it could be reasonable to drive at once safely and above the (then) legal top speed limit of 55 mph, just like the Germans on their Autobahn.
The original Run was a solo “race” beginning on May 3, 1971, with just just one car in the competition. Yates, Smith, Brock Yates Jr. and Jim Williams drove a custom Chevy Sportsman Van (lovingly named Moon Trash II) from the Red Ball Garage in Manhattan in New York City to the Portofino Inn in Redondo Beach, California in 40 hours and 51 minutes (which is around an 85 mph average speed). And if you could drive 2,800 miles in that short of a time in a car with all of the aerodynamics of a loaf of bread, just think of what you could do with something that had a little more zip.
1971-1979: The Cannonball Run Chaos Intensifies
After its inception in May of ‘71, the Cannonball Run race occurred 4 more times. The first occurred again in November 1971, then 3 more subsequent races in 1972, ‘75 and ‘79. Each of these other races were somewhat more like the iconic Burt Reynolds movie than the original race. This time there were multiple competitors, though in the efforts of evading the law, they did not set out at the same time. The shortest total time to complete the race was the winner, despite who arrived at the Portofino Inn first. The rules were simple. Drive from the Red Ball Garage to the Portofino Inn in the shortest amount of time you can. Your car must be driven the whole way (no towing it), and it must be the same car from the beginning of the race to the end. The rest—including car type, number of drivers, potential route and any modifications of that car—were entirely up to the contestants.
Though the winners of the next 4 races were in cars that were a bit more expected (and shaped slightly like a less loaf-of-bread) than that of a Chevy Van, several of the other drivers still chose to keep it “interesting.” In the second race which was held in November of 1971, a Ferrari Daytona was the winner with a time of 35 hours and 54 minutes, but the other illustrious racers included two different vans, an AMC AMX, and to the delight of everyone involved, a Travco Motorhome. The 1972 race was won by a Cadillac Coupe de Ville with a time of 37 hours and 16 minutes. The de Ville raced with even more vans, a mishmash of Fords, a Mercedes 280 SEL, a Pantera, another Travco Motorhome (which came in 20th out of 34 overall) and a Cadillac Limousine, among others.
The winner in ‘75 was a Ferrari Dino 246 GTS with a time of 35 hours and 53 minutes. The Dino competed with a Porsche 911, a Volvo 164 E, a Mazda RX-4 and the Travco Motorhome in its final appearance (among others). In the final “official” race, the declared winner was a Jaguar XJS with a time of 32 hours and 51 minutes. Some of the Jag’s competitors included a Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, a Ferrari 308 GTS, and a Porsche 930 and a 928, with a grand total of 46 cars in the final race. For a more complete list of the drivers and cars that participated, a handy sortable list exists.
Wait a Minute, Isn’t The Cannonball Run Ancient History?
Here is what’s even more interesting, the Cannonball Run still exists in spirit as the (still illegal) Cannonball Run Challenge. People take the same route from NYC to LA to try and beat the best time, but in much more covert way. And the early months of COVID-19 changed the field temporarily in a way never seen before. Check back for the second and final part of our series about the Cannonball Run to see how the Challenge fares in the current century.
