In case you’ve never heard of it, the Cannonball is a race from New York to Los Angeles that racing aficionados are constantly trying to win. There are no official rules or regulations because…well, it’s pretty much illegal; in order to break the record for the fastest cross-country time, you have to break a whole lot of traffic laws.
Just like the movie The Cannonball Run, remember?
But the fact that it’s illegal doesn’t stop people from trying to break that illustrious record all the time. And some guys in a 2015 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG just demolished the previous record, in place since 2013, by driving from New York to L.A. in 27 hours and 25 minutes.
The previous record? 28 hours and 50 minutes.
The two drivers, Arne Toman and Doug Tabbutt, and their “spotter,” Berkeley Chadwick, left the east side of Manhattan at 12:57 A.M. on November 10 and reached Redondo Beach, California in literal record time.
They drove on I-80 through Nebraska, took I-76 to Denver, I-70 to the middle of Utah, and then took I-15 to Southern California’s interstate system. They drove a grand total of 2,825 miles, and Toman and Tabbutt averaged a very illegal 104 miles per hour during the journey. Incredibly, they managed to spend only 22-and-a-half minutes on fuel stops. I’m assuming they ate and went to the bathroom in the car.
Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B5oTLg5JdrP/
The group was obsessed with beating the previous record, so they outfitted the car with a custom-fabricated fuel cell and all kinds of electronic gadgets. Berkeley Chadwick acted as the spotter using gyro-stabilized binoculars to look out for police.
Here’s a cool video about the newly-broken record.
Let’s see how long this record stands…
