2018-02-23 18:58:03 +00:00
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---
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created_at: '2013-08-03T20:23:56.000Z'
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title: The Pedal-to-the-Metal, Totally Illegal, Cross-Country Sprint for Glory (2007)
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url: http://www.wired.com/cars/coolwheels/magazine/15-11/ff_cannonballrun
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author: nsp
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points: 92
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story_text: ''
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 72
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story_id:
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story_title:
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story_url:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1375561436
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_nsp
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- story_6153244
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objectID: '6153244'
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2018-06-08 12:05:27 +00:00
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year: 2007
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2018-02-23 18:58:03 +00:00
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---
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2018-03-03 09:35:28 +00:00
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**And so the clock starts and the taillights flare, and they’re off
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again, strapped** down, fueled up, and bound on an outlaw enterprise
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with 2,795 miles of interstate and some 31,000 highway cops between them
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and the all-time speed record for crossing the American continent on
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four wheels.
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2018-02-23 18:19:40 +00:00
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2018-03-03 09:35:28 +00:00
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The gear is all bought and loaded. Twenty packs of Nat Sherman Classic
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Light cigarettes, check. Breath mints, check. Glucose and guarana,
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Visine and riboflavin, Gatorade and Red Bull, mail-order porta-pissoir
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bags of quick-hardening gel, check.
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2018-02-23 18:19:40 +00:00
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2018-03-03 09:35:28 +00:00
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Randolph highway patrol sunglasses, 20-gallon reserve fuel tank, Tasco 8
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x 40 binoculars fitted with a Kenyon KS-2 gyro stabilizer, military spec
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Steiner 7 x 50 binoculars, Hummer H1-style bumper-mounted L-3 Raytheon
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NightDriver thermal camera and LCD dashboard screens,
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front-and-rear-mounted sensors for a Valentine One radar/laser detector,
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flush bumper-mount Blinder M40 laser jammers, redundant Garmin
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StreetPilot 2650 GPS units, preprogrammed Uniden police radio scanners,
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ceiling-mount Uniden CB radio with high-gain whip antenna. Check. Check.
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Check.
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2018-02-23 18:19:40 +00:00
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2018-03-03 09:35:28 +00:00
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At the moment, the driver and copilot of this E39 BMW M5 are illegal in
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intent only as they obediently cow along the tip of Manhattan, funnel
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into the Holland Tunnel, and spill out into New Jersey along a six-lane
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mash-and-merge. The speedometer reads a cool 60 miles per hour; the
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clock reads 9:12 pm.
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“Unacceptable,” Alex Roy says. The 35-year-old driver is addressing both
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the numbers and himself. Then, after 20 sickening minutes in
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construction traffic, Roy says it to the darkened highway, pushing up
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over 110 mph while his copilot squints along the scabbed blacktop for
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the deer that might end their lives and the policemen who might kill
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their trip.
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The quest itself — to cross from New York to Los Angeles with
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unthinkable brevity — is a drive, yes, in the same way that the moon
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shot was a flight. This is an engineered operation that has been
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financed, scenarioed, calculated, technologically outfitted, and (via
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digital video and triangulated time-stamped texting and GPS verification
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and support teams on both coasts) will be monitored and recorded (for
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proof, posterity, and a documentary film).
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Rain Driving – Video: Courtesy Gravid Films
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For nearly two years, Roy — a pale, shaved-headed, independently wealthy
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ectomorphic veteran of the Gumball 3000 road rally — has obsessed
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sleeplessly over every detail and thrown money at every possible
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electronic connivance. His mission is intended as a triumph of the mind
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over the base adrenal impulses of common speeders. His route is nothing
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like the careless line a spring-breaker might plot across a Rand McNally
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— it’s a painstakingly GPS-mapped and Google Earth-practiced manifest
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desti-document, waypointed mile by mile for detours, construction, and
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speed traps.
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White lines scroll through the windshield and mile markers tick past the
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tires as Roy flips a series of toggles on the center console, killing
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the brake lights (to prevent telltale flashes if he needs to slow for
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sudden radar), then flips a few more to illuminate the cockpit with
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night-vision-friendly red LEDs. The cockpit glows like a submarine at
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battle stations. Now Roy punches up the digital codes corresponding to
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the New Jersey State Police on the police scanner. The car fills with
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the coded squawk of emergency dispatchers, speeding motorcycles, and
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domestic quarrels.
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“OK, scanner is live,” Roy says. He hits another switch under the dash
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and a light goes green on his steering wheel display. It means that the
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vehicle is now traveling in a sort of force field of infrared light, a
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bubble that deforms the bandwidth of incoming police laser spotters.
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“Jammers are active,” Roy says. “Now let’s have the radar.”
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Roy’s current copilot, an English racer named Henry Fyshe, reaches under
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the seat and pulls out the Valentine One. He plugs it into the bank of
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fused circuits snaking from the car’s power supply and flips the switch,
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and now another instrument joins the cacophony. The Valentine picks up
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incoming radar: mostly the X and K bandwidths. The bleeps of X-band are
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usually just junk picked up from motion detectors and burglar alarms and
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the shipping docks of Port Elizabeth to the south. But the occasional
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croaking blaaat\! means K-band — and almost certainly a police trigger
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gun hitting
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home.
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![](https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/archive/images/article/magazine/1511/ff_cannonballrun2_250.jpg)
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![](https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/archive/images/article/magazine/1511/ff_cannonballrun3_250.jpg)
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The combination of bleep\! bleep\! blaat\! bleep\! is chaos pinpricked
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with information. Listening, sorting, interpreting — it’s all
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exhausting. Then Roy reaches overhead and flips on the CB, adding an
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overlay of truck-driver patois: twangy talk of big-boobie women and
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fishing and traffic on the I-78.
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“Fascinating,” Fyshe says. Compared with the thick southern drawl coming
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from the speaker, his polished Oxbridge English sounds as refined as
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drawing room French.
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“OK, CB is active,” Roy says above the noise. “Now check the thermals,
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please, Mr. Fyshe. We need to start banking time.”
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There’s something very Captain Jean-Luc Picard about Roy. Maybe it’s the
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top-gun lingo and ramrod driving posture. Maybe it’s his bald, ovoid
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skull or his habit of wearing faux-military uniforms during races. Or
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maybe it’s because Roy is actually in command of his very own road-bound
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USS Enterprise. Captain Roy is determined to boldly go faster than any
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man has gone before.
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Roy is attempting to break a legendary cross-country driving record
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known to most people as the Cannonball Run. The time: 32 hours, 7
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minutes, set in 1983 by David Diem and Doug Turner. Captain Roy’s quest
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is definitely illegal and quite possibly impossible. He is one of the
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few drivers wealthy and geeky and foolish enough to try it anyway. So
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far he’s tried and failed twice, but he’s still convinced that his
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careful calculations will allow him to beat the record.
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At the core of his plan are his beloved spreadsheets. Roy, with help
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from a car-crazy former New Jersey transportation department employee
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named J. F. Musial, has spent months loading Excel documents with the
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coordinates of all-night gas stations and open stretches of highway and
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weather projections — hundreds of data points arranged on an x-y axis,
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so that any deviation can be recalculated on the
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fly.
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![](https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/archive/images/article/wide/2007/10/ff_cannonballrun4_w.jpg)
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Photos: Courtesy Gravid Films
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The resulting document is as thick as a stock prospectus — and just as
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unreadable, particularly if you’re driving in the dark at 50 mph over
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the speed limit. But the security blanket of overclocked data calms Roy.
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It’s his hedge against all the uncertainty and risk — of vehicular
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homicide, of jail time, of failure. Racing across the country is a
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foolish and dangerous and ill-advised dream, and Roy knows it.
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But after more than a year of bitter experience, Roy has discovered that
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even an Enterprise‘s worth of Excel spreadsheets can’t control the
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weather or the traffic or the deer or the possibility of mechanical
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failure. Or the police — especially the police.
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So far his failed attempts to beat the record have cost Roy a lot of
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time and money, at least one girlfriend, and even his original, trusted
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copilot. Instead of glory, Roy’s cross-country trips have brought him a
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mechanical breakdown, a police investigation, multiple radio alerts, and
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one arrest. And with each setback, Roy risks blowing the secrecy of his
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quest and putting the brakes on forever. He is quickly running out of
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chances to drive his dream. If he’s going to beat 32:07, he’d better do
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it soon.
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He’s hoping Fyshe is the right partner. Like Roy, Fyshe is wealthy and
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single and an excellent driver. Unfortunately, he’s also far more
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experienced steering his immaculate 1954 OSCA MT4 Maserati through
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Italy’s Mille Miglia endurance race than dodging minivans along
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Jersey’s I-78. Roy is stuck in the middle of a criminal automotive
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enterprise with a copilot who can’t spot an American cop.
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“OK,” Roy says. “Now, see that?”
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Fyshe frowns and peers through the windshield at a dark American town
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car.
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“That’s never a cop,” Roy says. “Just a taxi.”
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Fyshe nods, intrigued. “I see,” he says.
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“Now, see that?” Roy points out a yellow cab, just visible in the
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distance. “The taxi? That’s the type of car.”
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“It’s a taxi?” Fyshe asks.
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“Yes, it’s a taxi,” Roy says. “But in a dark color, that can be an
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unmarked cop.”
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“How can you tell the difference?” Fyshe asks.
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“You just have to,” Roy says.
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“I see,” Fyshe says. But he doesn’t, not really.
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Roy gives it the gas, easing up toward 90 mph, passing two trucks,
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flashing by a Corvette in the slow lane, and pushing up a hill at 93.
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“Ramp check?”
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Fyshe glances reflexively to the right and studies the cars pouring down
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the entrance ramp, looking for lights on top. “Clear.”
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“Now, see that overpass ahead?” At 100 mph now, it’s approaching fast.
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“Check the thermals.”
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Fyshe checks the dash, where the bumper-mounted night-vision camera
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feeds a thermal image to a 7-inch dashboard display. The traffic ahead
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glows in the darkness like the Predator.
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“If a cop is idling around one of those columns, he’ll have his engine
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on and show up as heat,” Roy says. “Unless there’s a concrete barrier
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that shields him. Check the sheet.”
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Roy feels into the side pocket and hands Fyshe a series of color-coded
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sheets. “Barriers — yes, except where marked by DOT signs,” Fyshe reads.
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“It also says the limit is 65 mph here,” Fyshe says. “What are we now?”
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“Ninety-eight.”
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“Jolly good,” Fyshe says, delighted. “But what if there’s a policeman on
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top of one of those bridges?”
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“It’s an overpass,” Roy says. “And there won’t be.”
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“Cameras?”
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“Nope,” Roy says. “The plate covers reflect flash anyway.”
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“In Europe, there are cameras everywhere,” Fyshe says thoughtfully. “The
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police see everything.” He watches the white lines blur into a
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continuous streak, lost in the Wild West of central Jersey.
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The highway crosses the state in an undulating sine wave. At each new
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rise, Fyshe scans the thermals ahead and glances behind to the ramp
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before Roy punches the clear valley at 100 mph, bringing the trip
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average up to 82.3 mph. This is the Jersey nobody ever thinks of —
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empty, three lanes, no traffic or stores or malls — so when K-band
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suddenly croaks on the scanner, Roy knows it’s no false alarm.
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“Where are you?” he mutters. A red arrow glows on his steering column,
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meaning radar from ahead.
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“If he’s behind us and not in sight, hit the gas,” he tells Fyshe. “If
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he’s ahead, ease off until you establish position.”
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Roy crests the hill, eases off the gas, and takes the right lane. He’s
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just a law-abiding citizen now. Standard police protocol is for a
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cruiser to lie at the side of the road just over the crest of a hill,
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exactly when drivers have their foot on the gas and no view ahead. By
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taking the right lane, a speeder approaches a radar gun with the
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sharpest parallax angle — the least accurate for getting a clean read.
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“I don’t see him,” Roy says. “I’ll take this hill easy and — “
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Blaaat\! goes the scanner. Blatt\! Blaat\! Sure enough, the downhill is
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lit by the strobing rack lights of a New Jersey state trooper, ringing
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up some poor schmuck in a minivan.
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“Now that’s a cop,” Roy says. He hits a button on the GPS unit’s
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touchscreen, adding yet more data — the location of this speed trap —
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before confidently stepping back on the
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gas.
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![](https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/archive/images/article/wide/2007/10/ff_cannonballrun5_w.jpg)
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Photos: Courtesy Gravid Films
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Going cross-country fast is not rocket science, but in Roy’s world it
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does require a lot of basic math. To beat the record, Roy has calculated
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that he needs to maintain an average of almost exactly 90 mph from
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Manhattan to the Santa Monica Pier. For occasional spurts, 90 is not
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uncommon on the highway. But for a day and a half of barreling across
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the United States, 90 miles per hour is essentially insane.
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As a Cannonballer makes his way across the continent, the accumulation
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of his time and speed forms a rising and falling curve called a running
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average. For every second spent below his 90-mph target, Roy will need
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to compensate by investing a second going faster than that average.
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Which is why Roy doesn’t want to stop. Every second spent at 0 mph is a
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second he can never recover — even with his BMW’s factory-set 155-mph
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limiter replaced with a Powerchip ECU engine chip. Unfortunately for
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Roy, no matter how carefully he keeps to his fuel-efficiency regimen or
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how large his spare fuel tank, he will need to pull over and gas up at
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least five times.
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Then there’s the weather — projected to be nasty from Indianapolis to
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St. Louis, at least — and the reality that every 12 hours the rest of
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America will pack into their PT Cruisers and steer directly onto Roy’s
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racetrack. The only way Roy and his copilot can even hope to average 90
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mph is to plan (Roy has, fanatically), pray (a friend petitioned a
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Taoist spiritual master for them), and, wherever possible, stomp the
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throttle (they are).
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The trip has just begun, but Roy is already in trouble. There’s a closed
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gas station he hadn’t foreseen, and that surprise construction in New
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Jersey — not to mention a green copilot unfamiliar with American cop
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customs. Each small deviation from the plan ripples through the rest of
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the spreadsheet. His calculations are already starting to crumble, and
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Roy’s 72 mph cumulative average is pathetically low. He needs to put
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time in the bank.
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He grabs the CB mic. “Breaker breaker, I need a bear check, over,” he
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calls.
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“Yeah, you’re clear on the 78 all the way to the Buckeye,” comes the
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voice, and Roy punches it, hitting 130 along a black stretch of road as
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the topography becomes hillier, the trees leafier. He’s brought the
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average up to 78.4 by 1 am and 80 by 2 am when the BMW barrels through a
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tunnel and flicks across trestle bridges into Ohio — the most famously
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perilous state for speeders.
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“Switch the scanner frequencies immediately\!” Roy says, and sure enough
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the CB starts crackling with word of Smokies rolling westbound, then two
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more in the hammer lane, one with a package, another in a plain brown
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wrapper, now trailing just a half a mile marker behind Roy. Only
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unreasonable speed can put distance between them, so Roy takes the CB
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mic. “Breaker breaker, can I get a bear check?” he calls again.
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“Bear check? That something they teach you in trucker school?” comes the
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answer.
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It’s nearly 4 am. Roy gasses through Columbus, then Springfield. The
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billboards snap past the windows like the pages in a flip book. By 4:30,
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the speedometer shows a steady 102 mph, but the overall average is only
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82. It’s far too slow to break the record. At this point, it’s
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impossible to bring it back up.
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“I’m calling it,” Roy sighs, “that’s it.” And so, at 4:20 in the
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morning, some 70 miles shy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Roy puts
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his turn signal on like some average commuter and once again stops,
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2,160 miles short of his dream.
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**Alex Roy’s Cannonball dreams** started with a movie, but it didn’t
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star Burt Reynolds. At the time, the 27-year-old Roy was living in New
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York after his father had called him back from Paris, where Roy had been
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working part-time at a bar and trying to write the Great American Novel
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— set, arbitrarily, in Japan. His father was in the hospital, sick
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with throat cancer, and Roy had traded in his life as an artiste to
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manage the family business, a rental agency called Europe By Car. The
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young heir was at sea, fresh from an unsuccessful attempt to forge his
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own identity and sitting in a trendy Soho bar-cum-theater called Void.
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And then the lights went down, and Roy saw the future.
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Alex Roy’s Cannonball dreams started with a movie, but it didn’t star
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Burt Reynolds. The film was C’était un Rendez-vous. Made in 1976, it’s a
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dashing precursor to every Jackass-inspired digicam stunt ever posted on
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YouTube — nine heart-pounding minutes choreographed to a screaming
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drivetrain. Through a bumper-mounted camera, the viewer becomes the car
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— traveling more than 80 mph as the anonymous driver revs into the
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enormous traffic circle around Paris’ Arc de Triomphe, steers
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hammer-down from the Champs Élysées to Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre
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(through 16 red lights, wrong-way one-ways, stunned pedestrians, garbage
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trucks, and median strips) to meet up with a beautiful blonde waiting
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patiently in the park at the Montmartre church.
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The film was [C’était un
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Rendez-vous](http://archive.wired.com/cars/coolwheels/multimedia/2007/10/vd_cannonball_rd).
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Made in 1976, it’s a dashing precursor to every Jackass-inspired digicam
|
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|
|
|
stunt ever posted on YouTube — nine heart-pounding minutes choreographed
|
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|
|
to a screaming drivetrain. Through a bumper-mounted camera, the viewer
|
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|
becomes the car — traveling more than 80 mph as the anonymous driver
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|
revs into the enormous traffic circle around Paris’ Arc de Triomphe,
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|
steers hammer-down from the Champs Élysées to Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre
|
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|
(through 16 red lights, wrong-way one-ways, stunned pedestrians, garbage
|
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|
|
trucks, and median strips) to meet up with a beautiful blonde waiting
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patiently in the park at the Montmartre church.
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Roy left Void in a state of dazed revelation. From a public-safety
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perspective, he says, he knew Rendez-vous was just short of “a snuff
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film on wheels.” But it was also the single coolest thing he’d ever
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seen.
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The film’s unmasked director and driver, Claude Lelouch, eventually
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achieved immortal fame and respect on the Internet, fueled in part by
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old reports that Lelouch had been arrested after the film’s first
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screening. Standing in a bar on a summer’s night, a life as a feckless
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novelist behind him, another of trying to fill his father’s wing tips
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ahead of him, Roy began to wonder: Could he make his own Rendez-vous —
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in New York? Could he be the great driver, mastering the city and
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meeting the blonde?
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He approached the question with a formula he’d repeat throughout his
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driving career. First he obsessed, talking ad nauseam about Lelouch’s
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film to anyone who would listen. Then he drove his route repeatedly in
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his Audi S4, meticulously recording potholes and potential speed traps,
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then studying the lists on color-coded cheat sheet. He planned to
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recruit close friends from his Manhattan private high school days to
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impersonate orange-vested traffic police to block traffic on race day.
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The original idea was to make a full lap of Manhattan (skipping the most
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northerly and heavily policed sections of the city) in 25 minutes. This
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meant running dozens of red lights at absurd speeds and left little time
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to react to sudden contingencies like pedestrians. The stunt was
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dangerous and illegal, its success dependent on secrecy. But Roy has no
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talent for keeping secrets, particularly about his daring. (He was, in
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fact, using most of the recon runs to impress women.) By the end of the
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year, dozens of people knew about Roy’s plan to Rendez-vous Manhattan.
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But while outlaw street racing may sound romantic, the reality of a
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29-year-old with no experience skidding through the most populous urban
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center in America is terrifying, not to mention feloniously stupid. Even
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Roy’s girlfriend refused to play her part of meeting him at the finish
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line. The idea of actually having to follow through with his big plans
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started keeping Roy up at night; but the humiliating prospect of backing
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down was just as bad.
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In the end, Roy never attempted the 25-minute Manhattan Rendez-vous. But
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he claims to have raced a 27-minute “practice run.” He proudly estimates
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that he hit top speeds of 144 mph while committing 151 moving violations
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— enough to have his New York driver’s license suspended 78 times over.
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And afterward, Roy says, “I never felt better.” He had missed his goal,
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but found his identity. Roy wanted to be known as an outlaw driver.
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**The fastest way to his new goal** was to enter a road rally inspired
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|
by yet another movie — the 1976 cult classic The Gumball Rally. The film
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|
depicted a madcap outlaw road race; its real-life version is a
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|
3,000-mile celebrity-and-socialite-studded international road rampage
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|
first organized in Europe in 1999. There are no qualifying events, and
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|
no experience is required. Entrants need both flash (tricked-out
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Bentleys, Porsches, and Lamborghinis encouraged) and cash (28,000 pounds
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sterling — about $56,425 — for the 2007 rally), as well as the ability
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|
to keep a straight face while agreeing to a code of conduct that
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explicitly prohibits breaking any laws — including the speed limit. But
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while most Gumballers are rich young men paying for 3,000 miles of
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silicon-bimbo’d pit stops and Vegas-weekend-style bad-boy hoo-ha, Roy
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was one of the few actually racing to win.
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He impressed the 2003 Gumball entry committee by topping the already
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well-represented freak factor: He wore a pastiche of authentic
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international police outfits and drove a rare E39 BMW M5 he claimed was
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used by the elite German “Autobaun Interceptor Unit,” complete with
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police sirens and stickers. Roy’s “Polizei 144” shtick added yet another
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layer of slapstick to the Gumball’s air of a movie-come-to-life. Roy
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established a reputation as a fun-loving clown who also happened to be a
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fast, safe driver. He was an instant hit with race fans. His Web site
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|
attracted a small but faithful following that bought $500 Polizei 144
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racing jackets and downloaded clips from his “Spirit of the Gumball”
|
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|
|
trophy win in the 2003 run, held in the US.
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Daylight Cruising
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Video: Courtesy Gravid Films
|
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Most of the comments on his site were typical rock-on fan blurts, but
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one was a challenge to “check out the real deal.” Roy followed a Web
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link and, stunned, met his newest dream.
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Once again, it was a movie — this time a trailer for a
|
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|
|
documentary-in-progress titled [32 Hours 7
|
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|
|
Minutes](http://www.32hours7minutes.com/), covering the transcontinental
|
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|
|
racing record set by Diem and Turner. Here was an automotive stunt that
|
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had remained unequaled for almost 22 years. Anyone who topped it would
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be guaranteed fame and street cred; for Roy, this was Rendez-vous déjá
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vu. He immediately called the filmmaker, a diminutive speed fanatic
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named Cory Welles. Roy had the funding — and the perfect ending for her
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movie.
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**Most people remember** The Cannonball Run as a campy ’80s road comedy
|
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|
featuring, among others, Roger Moore, Dom DeLuise, and Farrah Fawcett.
|
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|
But to gearheads, the Cannonball Run is the original outlaw
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cross-country road race, organized by legendary Car and Driver writer
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Brock Yates. Entrants drove everything from cheap beaters to high-priced
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tweakers, but all had an appetite for white lines, black tar, and speed.
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Officially known as the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial
|
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Trophy Dash (and later as the US Express race) the race set the standard
|
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|
for outlaw driving. This was uniquely American car culture — free and
|
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|
fun and fast. And nobody was faster than Diem and Turner, who hammered
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their 308 Ferrari from a garage on Manhattan’s Upper East Side to
|
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Newport Beach, California, in an unthinkable 32 hours and 7 minutes.
|
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According to Yates and his fellow Cannonballers, trying to beat that
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record today is pointless. Their argument goes something like this:
|
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|
Cannonball records were set back when the free-wheelin’ ’70s hooked up
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|
with the greed-is-good ’80s for fat lines of cocaine and unprotected
|
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|
|
sex. But these, brother, are Patriot Act days — executive-privilege end
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|
times in which no rogue deed goes untracked, no E-ZPass unlogged, no
|
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|
roaming cell phone unmonitored by perihelion satellite. Big Brother is
|
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definitely watching. Big Speed, the old Cannonballers say, is a quaint,
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20th-century idea, like pay phones or print magazines.
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But nobody had telexed Roy or his new filmmaker pal, Welles, the memo on
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this one. Once again, Roy put his formula in motion. First, he planned
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for weeks. Then, with his high school friend Jon Goodrich as copilot and
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cameraman James Petersmeyer tucked in the backseat, Roy left Manhattan’s
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Classic Car Club on December 16, 2005, and drove west, fast. They
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arrived at the Santa Monica Pier in California bleary-eyed, exhausted,
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and frightened — and two hours and 39 minutes shy of the record.
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Roy and Goodrich flew back to New York to revamp their calculations and
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tried again on April 1, 2006. They were zeroing in on the 32:07 space
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shot — until the car broke down in Oklahoma. Roy was devastated. He
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immediately began planning another run.
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But this time, Roy returned to his calculations by himself. Two hairy
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cross-country runs had been more than enough for Goodrich, and he simply
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wasn’t willing to continue risking life, limb, and liberty for another
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man’s dream. By now, though, replacing his copilot was the least of
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Roy’s Cannonball problems. Despite the nondisclosure agreements, word
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was getting around. Back in September 2005, Roy’s bearded and bullying
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Gumball 3000 frenemy, Richard Rawlings, had bet him $25,000 on a
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cross-country race — and another $25,000 that Rawlings would do it in
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less than 25 hours.
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Roy refused the challenge, but it clearly meant time was running out.
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Sooner or later, somebody was going to try to break that record. If they
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succeeded, went on Leno, stole the glory — that would be bad for Roy.
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But if they got caught trying, that was even worse. Roy was sure that
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the police would then crack down, and the window of opportunity for his
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cross-country sneak would slam shut forever.
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In fact, that window was closing already. After so many high-speed
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cross-country runs, Roy wasn’t famous — but his antics were. He was
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already well remembered in Arizona, where he’d been arrested for
|
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|
speeding during a 2004 rally called the Bullrun wearing jackboots,
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German police togs, and a regulation leather police belt with handcuffs.
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(The concerned police psychiatrist asked Roy, “Do you know what year
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this is?”) Ohio presented another problem. While running nearly 120 mph
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in a 55 zone on the return trip from the aborted Cannonball run with the
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English copilot, he’d been hit with radar by a westbound state trooper,
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leading to a tense, 20-minute Smokey-Bandit chase deep into farm
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country. Roy managed to escape, but the Ohio state patrol would be
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unlikely to forget the blue BMW loaded with weird antennas.
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Roy faced similar problems in Pennsylvania and Oklahoma. On the April
|
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2006 trip, Pennsylvania police dispatch reported a BMW without
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taillights speeding down the interstate. Then, waiting in the airport
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after the Oklahoma breakdown, Roy made the mistake of running his mouth
|
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off on a cell phone. The traveler in line behind him couldn’t help
|
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noticing the strange bald man and overhearing words like night vision,
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escape, cops, and spotter plane. He called in a potential homeland
|
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security threat.
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Roy eventually made it home, but Oklahoma authorities tracked his car to
|
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|
the local BMW dealership. The cops impounded the vehicle — still loaded
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|
with GPS units documenting his street racing — for three days while they
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investigated Roy.
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“Needless to say, my attorney wasn’t pleased,” Roy says. “Actually, I
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think stupid was the word he used.”
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By fall 2006, the run-ins had reached critical mass. Before long, Roy
|
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feared, state authorities would connect the dots and shut him down for
|
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|
good. Within a month, winter snow might kill his time, and spring might
|
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|
be too late. If Roy was going to break the record, it was now or never.
|
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|
But first, he needed a new
|
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|
copilot.
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|
![](https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/archive/images/article/magazine/1511/ff_cannonballrun6_250.jpg)
|
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|
**It’s a typically rainy September** evening, only nine days before his
|
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|
|
next scheduled departure, and Roy is bug-eyed, chain-smoking and pacing
|
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|
|
the length of his 2,571-square-foot bachelor pad in Manhattan’s Cooper
|
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|
Square while his race team waits on his L-shaped couch, drinking his
|
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|
|
liquor and watching Battlestar Galactica on a massive projector screen.
|
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|
|
Each surround-sound kinetic energy weapon rattles ice in the drinks.
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Roy checks his watch and then his desk, where three GPS units and four
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computer screens each display the time. Standing with his hands on his
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hips in front of the rotating world-map screensaver, he looks less like
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Captain Picard and more like a chain-smoking Lex Luthor.
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“It’s not like him to be late,” he says. “What if he’s incapacitated or
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dead?”
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In choosing a new copilot, Roy considered lots of drivers (including
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me), before finally settling on a straitlaced 32-year-old finance-sector
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type named Dave Maher. From the first meeting, it was obvious that Maher
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and Roy would make a particularly odd couple. Roy is a fast-talking
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geek, as dead-eyed serious about the patches he Velcros onto his race
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uniforms as a Star Trek reenacter is about having the right blades on
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his Klingon battle d’k’tagh. Maher is quiet and has never watched
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Battlestar Galactica. He likes sports involving inflatable balls and has
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a penchant for red wine and amateur track club events for his 1996
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Porsche 911 Turbo.
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But both of them wanted to go fast, and something that Maher mentioned
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when they talked about the cross-country attempt struck a chord deep
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within Roy: a need to have something “that money couldn’t buy.” Maher
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had the job, and the odd couple became a team.
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Roy wears his phone on his belt like Batman or a paper-products
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salesman, and now it begins to vibrate. He snaps it to his ear. “We’re
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all here waiting,” he says to the doorman. “Yes, send him up.”
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Maher arrives in a suit and tie, a bottle of excellent wine in hand,
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ready for a civilized party. Instead, Roy hands him his latest
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timetable. It is the product of 150 hours of work, a whopper version of
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all previous calculations. Roy has titled it “31:39 Driveplan .9d
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(Merciless Assault Reprisal -11).”
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He hands the stack to Maher, who flips through the pages. The copilot
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looks like a kid on the first day of summer facing a pile of required
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reading.
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“Ultimately, this drive is a math calculation,” Roy says. Maher looks
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blank. Roy points to a series of cells in the spreadsheet. Maher scans
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it, then turns the page, searching. “See,” Roy says, “that’s the average
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we’re looking to hit: 90.”
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“I know this average,” Maher says quietly. He flips through more pages.
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“I’m looking for the extended stretches of big speed, the long
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stretches where we can really hit it and make time.”
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Roy straightens. “Well, those don’t really exist,” he says. “You’ll see.
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It’s very rare to run over 100 for even a minute or two… “
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“Oh yeah?” Maher says smiling. “Well, I’m about to change that.”
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Alex Roy discusses modifications to his BMW M5
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Video: Courtesy Gravid Films
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**And so, on the Friday before** Columbus Day weekend, the clock is
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punched and the taillights flare and Roy once again rolls through the
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Holland Tunnel and across New Jersey. They cross the empty tarmac of
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Pennsylvania and into Ohio, gas up maniacally, and are back on the
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highway with Maher now doing 120 through the most famously cop-heavy
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state in the union. By Akron they’ve been driving all night, and the
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trip is just beginning. More Red Bulls are popped, vitamins taken,
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cigarettes lit, and then comes the sun, shockingly bright. Roy finds the
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Visine, then trains his attention on the shaking landscape. This is a
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criminal game of I Spy, using binoculars designed for battle — Steiners
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with independently autofocusing lenses — but at Maher’s speed they just
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beat uselessly against Roy’s eye sockets.
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“You know, I just have a very hard time spotting like this,” Roy says.
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“We have to bank time,” Maher says.
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“It’s averaging 91.3 mph,” Roy says. “The projections say we’re good.”
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“Your projections are conservative,” Maher says. His eyes never leave
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the road. He looks strangely relaxed doing 130 mph. The radar is
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exploding with undercover police, and yet he’s doubling the speed limit
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for the sort of sustained periods that Roy knows are potentially fatal
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to this quest.
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“We need to go as fast as possible, every chance we get,” Maher says,
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glancing at Roy. “Otherwise, we are definitely not going to make it.”
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“OK,” Roy says. But he doesn’t mean it. Maher’s stomach for risk isn’t
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found anywhere on Roy’s spreadsheets, and this is way outside his
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comfort zone. “But I’m telling you, Dave, you get caught and — “
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Now the radio explodes with a fresh voice. “Cowbell Ground, Cowbell
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Ground, this is Cowbell Air, over.”
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“Yes\!” Roy says. He grabs the mic. “Cowbell Air, this is Cowbell
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Ground, go ahead.”
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“We have a visual,” the voice from above says. This is Roy’s secret
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weapon, a small Beechcraft twin-engine spotter plane piloted by Paul
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Weismann, a high school friend, along with another pilot named Keith
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Baskett. They’re scouting for cops, traffic, and construction during the
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vulnerable daylight drive across the Midwest.
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“How are we looking, over?” Roy asks.
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“You’re looking very fast and very nice,” comes the voice from above.
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“All clear, boys, put the hammer down.”
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Maher pushes the car, passing even the gutsiest speeders at nearly
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double speed. The white line is a ticking blur, the overpasses are
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distant, then here, then gone, and Texas is just a flat fuzz in the
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rearview. Near Oklahoma City, they stop for the Chinese fire drill of
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piss, pump, and go, and now Roy takes the wheel again, gunning to fly.
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The GPS says that even with gas stops, they’ve crossed half the country
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at 93.6 mph.
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The highway ahead is fairly open, but the left lane is not, and this
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time, inspired by Maher’s driving or the average or both, Roy does what
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he needs to do to keep the pace — passing one car on the right, pushing
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inches from the bumper of a 16-wheeler, then cutting left again to take
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the lane. And as if on cue, a female voice cuts in on the police
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scanner. “Report of a blue BMW speeding, weaving in and out of traffic,
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and driving recklessly. Be advised, unable to get tags… “
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Scanner report in Oklahoma
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Video: Courtesy Gravid Films
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“That’s us\!” Maher says.
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“Shit\!” Roy says.
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He cuts the brake lights on the panel and slows to double digits.
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“What do we do?”
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“Well, we’re stuck in traffic.”
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“Where do we hide?” Roy asks. The land is flat to the horizon.
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“We don’t hide anywhere,” Maher says.
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Blaaat\! Now the cockpit fills with the awful croak of K-band from a
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dead-on police trigger radar. “God damn it, where is that guy?” Roy
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mutters, then suddenly sees him — an SUV highway patrol car headed
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eastbound, and no median between them.
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“Oh my God, he’s braking\!” Roy shouts. “He’s crossing\! We have to get
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to the next exit and hide.”
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“I don’t know if we’re going to have a lot of room to hide out here,”
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Maher says.
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Roy glances back and forth, mirror to road and back again. Already, he’s
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soaked through his shirt, his bald head raining sweat onto his
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sunglasses. The exit is coming fast. “Should we get off?” he asks.
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“Should we get off right now?”
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The scanner again, a male voice: “Blue BMW on up ahead of me.”
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Then another voice — a second car: “Dark-blue BMW, tinted windows —
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looks like it has some antennas on it.”
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“I’m going,” Roy says. He pulls up the exit ramp, taking the rise,
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rolling the stop sign like a normal driver, nothing in his mirror yet,
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then moves quickly to the right.
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But this time, there’s no getting away. It’s farmland, flat forever —
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North by Northwest, a house in the distance, animals. Roy pulls to the
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side. He hops out of the car. He unzips his fly.
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“I’ll tell him we had to piss,” he yells.
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The male voice on the scanner again. “They’re ahead of me,” it says.
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Roy looks. Nothing. “Hey\!” he says. “He thinks we’re still going\!”
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Roy zips up and turns, and now he sees it: a black-and-white coming up
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the ramp behind him. “Oh no,” he says. The car pauses at the top of the
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ramp, then turns toward him. “Here he comes… “
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Sitting in the passenger seat, Maher now looks around at the piles of
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GPS units, the maps and plans and scanners, the squawking boxes. He’s
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sitting in an electronic crime scene. “Maybe I should turn something
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off?” he asks.
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“Turn it off, turn it all off\!” Roy shouts. He reaches into the center
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console to kill the main power just as the police car approaches. “What
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the… ?”
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It’s a black-and-white, all right: one of those ad-wrapped VW bugs with
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a giant GEEK SQUAD sticker where the sheriff’s star might be. Suddenly,
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the sweat on Roy’s head is cool and soothing.
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“Maher,” Roy says, “how come you can drive like that for seven hours and
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no one calls, and I do it for three minutes and then someone calls?”
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“Because I’m Irish,” Maher says.
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They’re off the highway for a total of two minutes. Even with the time
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lost to a dead stop, their overall average on the GPS stands at 95.7 mph
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— well above record pace. But there are storm clouds on the horizon,
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which become hard rain by New Mexico. The traffic clots, and the smeared
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windshield glows red with truck lights. With the darkness, the rain
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becomes blinding, blunting the vision of the thermal cameras. They enter
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Arizona in traffic, with a soul-killing 22 mph on the GPS and a forest
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of lightning on the horizon.
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Maher pounds the wheel in disbelief. “No\!” he shouts. “I’ve been
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driving so hard… No\!” He cuts into the breakdown lane to make a
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desperate run for it. Even an unsafe pass isn’t possible. “No\!” he
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repeats.
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Mile after mile, their hard-won average withers, and the adrenaline dies
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with it. The rain is impossible. Maher is exhausted. “Maybe I’m seeing
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stars,” Maher says.
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“No, you’re seeing the real thing,” Roy says. The weather is clearing.
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By Arizona, the pavement is dry. Maher gives it his last surge of
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energy, climbing to 122 mph, 142, 160 before the gas light demands they
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stop for fuel. It’s 12:03 am local time. They’ve been on the road for 29
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hours and 27 minutes. The effort of this last sprint has pushed Maher to
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the breaking point. He staggers from the car on failing legs. The Casio
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counts the seconds as Roy plugs in the nozzle and stands, tweaked and
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muttering in front of the mini-mart like a meth kid getting a Big Gulp.
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“You’re done,” Roy says. He falls into the driver’s side and guns it
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back onto the highway for the final 131-mile stretch from Barstow to the
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Santa Monica Pier.
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“I’m not sure that we’re going to make it now,” Maher says. His fingers
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fumble with Roy’s projection chart, suddenly interested, but it’s an
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unintelligible jumble of numbers. “You’ll have to be above 100 the whole
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time, or we’ve driven a day and a half for nothing.”
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“I’ve got it,” Roy says. He stares ahead like a machine. “Just watch the
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road.”
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**After 7,700 miles and three** attempts to cross the country at warp
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speed, Captain Roy has experienced something like a Maher mindmeld. As
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in any marathon, exhaustion and fear make quitting seem smart. You can
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say you tried, blame the weather, and find a hotel. But breaking a
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record — any record — takes something more, something personal. Right
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now, it will take everything. There’s no room left for strategy. Roy
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simply has to hit it hard.
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The radar is crazy with bleep\! and blatt\!, the spreadsheets litter the
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cockpit like dirty floor mats, but Roy hits it anyway. He doesn’t need
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charts anymore. He is the chart, and Excel and Google Earth and Garmin
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MapSource and something more, too, a guy with something to prove.
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He passes a minivan in the carpool lane at 102 mph and merges onto
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California’s I-10 headed into Los Angeles with blocks of lit towers to
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the right and oncoming halogens kaleidoscoping his bleary corneas. But
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Roy sees only the road ahead and the best path through it, the racing
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line that shaves fat off the hips of the curves as he apexes them at 100
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mph, now 117 past Crenshaw Boulevard, La Brea Avenue at 115. The curve
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and acceleration is a physical sensation in the gut, and now the city is
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10 miles out, now 8, and Maher says, “Cop\! No — taxi\!” while Roy hits
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117 past Cloverfield Boulevard, peels off on the exit to a light gone
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green, the next one green — one, two, three more — through the gate of
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the Santa Monica Pier, where wooden planks rattle beneath the car.
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|
[**1**](#correction1)
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It feels weird to slow, crazy to stop, but it’s over. The car stops, but
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the buzzing of speed and road in their heads does not. Maher finds the
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door, and his legs, and jogs up under the empty lights of the big Ferris
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wheel. It’s exactly 1:30 am. He punches their card into the time clock,
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flown from New York, and gives the ticket to Roy.
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And this, of course, is the end of Roy’s Cannonball run. There are
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people here — friends and family and a camera crew. The cameraman closes
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|
in and asks the questions that you ask: Your thoughts? Why did you do
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|
it? And there are jokes and platitudes about Mount Everest and the final
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|
frontier, but no real answers.
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|
Why? Because drivers drive. Movies have endings. Records are broken.
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|
Perhaps there will be fame, blogs, even an appearance on Conan. Does all
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|
that balance against the thousand what-ifs — the nearly cracked axles
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|
and the reckless driving, drunk on exhaustion? The crimes that Roy and
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|
Maher have committed, state after state, number in the hundreds. There
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|
will be months before the statutes of limitation run out, months before
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|
this story can finally be published. Roy and Maher have plenty of time
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|
to think about what they’ve done and why.
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But for now, the pilot and copilot can only stand with glasses of
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|
champagne undrunk. Too tired to know if they are even happy. Or to fully
|
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|
comprehend that their time, 31 hours and 4 minutes coast to coast, has
|
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|
|
beaten the record by a full hour and three minutes. Or that this record
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|
will surely be beaten, again, sometime, by some other drivers, most
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|
probably for reasons they won’t understand, either.
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Correction: \[9pm EST 10.23.07\]. The BMW Alex Roy drove was not
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turbo-charged, as originally reported.
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Contributing editor Charles Graeber (<charlesgraeber@gmail.com>) wrote
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about tornado-car builder Steve Green in issue 13.10.
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[Go Back to Top. Skip To: Start of Article.](#start-of-content)
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