November 1971 – The Cannonball

November, 1971

The Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, widely known as the Cannonball Run, was an unofficial, unsanctioned automobile race from the Red Ball Garage on East 31st Street in Manhattan, New York City to the Portofino Inn in Redondo Beach, California in the shortest time possible. Those were the only rules.

The event was conceived by car magazine writer Brock Yates and Car and Driver editor Steve Smith. The second running of the race was in November of 1971. Eight vehicles participated, including Tony Adamowicz, Oscar Kovleski, and Brad Niemcek in a Chevrolet Sportsvan. Yates teamed with Dan Gurney and chose a Ferrari Daytona 365 GTB/4 instead of a van. The Ferrari would finish first in 35 hours and 54 minutes – an average speed of approximately 80 miles per hour. Gurney stated: “At no time did we exceed 175 miles per hour.”

Tony’s patch from Briggs Chevrolet

The first Cannonballs were clandestine. But the secret leaked and top drivers like Tony and Dan Gurney bailed, fearing somebody would get hurt. Eventually, the event became the subject of a comedic Hollywood movie, forever obscuring that it had once been a semi-serious political protest of the 55 mph speed limit.

But the law took its toll. Four of the eight teams received a total of 12 speeding tickets along the route. The most remarkable among them was a citation given to Gurney in Arizona. Nevertheless, Dan Gurney and Brock Yates, editor of Car & Driver (on the right, below) drove their Ferrari Daytona across America, completing the transcontinental trip in a record total elapsed time of 35 hours and 54 minutes.

Under the rules set by Yates, the teams were allowed to pick their own vehicles and their own routes. Tony’s team, The Polish Racing Drivers of America, asserted its right to the “pole position” and left first. Their Chevy van was equipped with five 55-gallon drums of fuel fed into the standard fuel tank through a specially fabricated system, a wide variety of spares and tools, a bunk for sleeping, a portable toilet, a portable telephone and an ample supply of Polish Kishkies.

Brock Yates refused to acknowledge the impropriety of winning an event he organized himself, and Gurney reportedly viewed this victory as among the more important in his illustrious driving career. The only cash awards were those paid to the respective states whose laws were allegedly broken.

The leading ticket-takers were the third-place finishers who received six of those tickets, and narrowly escaped jail for allegedly stealing gasoline at one point in their journey to California in a brand new Cadillac – in a time of 36 hours and 56 minutes. The Cadillac, by the way, was a “drive to deliver” type, they’d picked up in New York for delivery to an unsuspecting owner on the West Coast.