Canonball

FA-18C · 10-15-2002, 11:53 AM

Hit Barnes and Noble this weekend and picked up the story of the Canonball Baker memorial dash as told by its creator and competitors. What a hoot! Recommended for a quick read, don't expect any suspenseful storylines, just good fun, especially recounting the first winners, Dan Gurney in a Ferrari...so,
who's in????

HawgRyder · HawgRyder's Garage

Way back in 1966 I think....my roomate and I prepped a Climax powered TR3 for the Cannonball.
Unfortunately...we got called up to take a stroll through Asia for a year and a half.
Never did get to participate.
By the time we came back...the run had been shelved....I believe the convening body was an editor from Car & Driver if I remember correctly.
I was very dissapointed at the time...but time wounds all heals...or whatever.
With the competition that year it would have been lots of fun....and having military ID ... we may have gotten away with more than some of the competition.
Bob

pwd72s · 10-15-2002, 07:03 PM

Bob..if I'm not mistaken, the first cannonball was years after 1966...and the final cannonball? Long after Nixon pulled our guys out of Vietnam...Chris, you read the book...care to give the time span? The first winners..Yates/Gurney in a Daytona, if I remember right...

Oldporsche · 10-15-2002, 08:19 PM

The latest version has the Brock Yates trip actually visiting several race tracks across the united states. As usual the big bore stuff is did pretty well.

Good luck,
David Duffield

Typical Fish · Typical Fish's Garage

A little help...

Where can I contact the modern day counterpart? E-MAIL me.

ChrisL · 10-16-2002, 02:21 AM

Search for Gumball3000.

Chris.

FA-18C · 10-16-2002, 04:56 AM

The intial run was in 70, a solo run to QA the idea, the next year it was Brock Yates and Dan Gurney winning in a Ferrari Daytona, V12 power! At one point Gurney had the Daytona at 172, nice ride! As a side note, their time for the first win was one minute slower than the fastest time over all the races, not bad considering the state of the interstate freeways at the time. I think they came in at 35 hours and 54 minutes from NYC to California, the race ended at the Portofino Inn.

makaio · 10-28-2002, 07:00 PM

I purchased this book a few days ago, for some reading at night at work. Anways, I was reading the section from all the C&D readers from the 70's, and there's a letter in there from our own PWD72S.

.

I thought it was cool!

MrKJBlue · MrKJBlue's Garage

I was planning to do the gumball3000 next year, san fran to miami, but have heard there is to be a european gumball as well next year, so will be looking in to that.

Mischief3000

Right click and save. Its a big file but well worth it. some good 996tt's

JWest · 10-29-2002, 07:20 AM

Also read the book "Sunday Driver" by Brock Yates. He details the Cannonball along with many other racing stories.

Couple things were memorable to me. Clean-cut and innocent Dan Gurney getting his first ticket after doing 130 past a parked cop. On the way home from the Cannonball in the Daytona Brock recounts some boys coming up on him in a GTO or a 442 or something. He toys with them and just when they think they can keep up with a Ferrari, he downshifts to 4th at 120mph and lets the V12 scream - leaving the poor boys in the American iron in the dust.