Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. Chuck here for another Saturday Stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know Selects edition. This week I picked How the Cannonball
Speaker 1: Run Worked. October two thousand nine. This was a fun one,
Speaker 1: The Cannonball Run. We certainly talked about the movie and
Speaker 1: the sequel. It was one of my fabes growing up,
Speaker 1: but it was based on a real race. The Cannonball
Speaker 1: Run is, or was, Jeez and name sure still going on.
Speaker 1: This has been a while since we recorded this one.
Speaker 1: It is a a road race, a cross country road
Speaker 1: race that seems too strange to be true that people
Speaker 1: would actually get in their cars in the United States
Speaker 1: and drive super fast and elude the cops all across
Speaker 1: the country in order to win. I don't even know
Speaker 1: if there was money involved, a trophy Bert Reynolds mustache.
Speaker 1: Only you can find out by listening to how the
Speaker 1: Cannonball Run worked. Right here, right now, Welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me
Speaker 1: as always is our good friend Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
Speaker 1: Are you Chuck, your good friend? How are you feeling
Speaker 1: right now? I'm find a lot. I'm sitting yeah, Chuck
Speaker 1: is right red right now. Everybody, it's kind of weird looking.
Speaker 1: Thank you Martin for that are super fan and Seattle,
Speaker 1: thank you. But he's not a superman. He's a buddy.
Speaker 1: He has be He was such a fan that he
Speaker 1: actually became a friend. He's a friend that we haven't
Speaker 1: met yet. Yeah, so Chuck, take us back to one
Speaker 1: in the time machine. Yes, the way back machine. You're ready,
Speaker 1: Here we go. Okay, all right, Josh, I'm ten years old,
Speaker 1: knee high to a grasshopper. Disco is dead. Margaret Thatcher
Speaker 1: is the Prime Minister of England. I take issue with
Speaker 1: the disco being deadline. I don't know that disco ever died. Man,
Speaker 1: you cannot make the argument that all modern R and
Speaker 1: B pop soul is all disco. Doco is alive. Margaret
Speaker 1: Thatcher is the Prime Minister of England. Ronald Reagan is
Speaker 1: in office. Just as Jimmy Carter has exited. Walter Cronkite
Speaker 1: resigned from the CBS Evening News desk. That was the
Speaker 1: said day the first AIDS case was made public in California.
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen in the band played on? My
Speaker 1: brother worked on that. That was a great made for
Speaker 1: TV movie. It really was. It was really good and
Speaker 1: he had a great experience working on that. So find
Speaker 1: people in that movie. Major League Baseball has just gone
Speaker 1: on strike in the summer for what will be the
Speaker 1: first of eighty times over the next five years. Right,
Speaker 1: so America is depressed, but not for long, No, because
Speaker 1: one Mr Burt Reynolds is about to dash across the
Speaker 1: silver screen in a little movie called Cannonball Run. Great, great,
Speaker 1: great movie. It was a great movie. I haven't seen
Speaker 1: it in forever. I think I probably saw it in
Speaker 1: like n seven. It was one of the first movies
Speaker 1: we rented, along with Beverly Hills, Cop, very hockey and
Speaker 1: corny but still beloved. What's What's Yeah, everyone takes it
Speaker 1: as a comedy because it is a comedy. But this
Speaker 1: is not to say that it started out as a comedy. Actually,
Speaker 1: it was supposed to be serious and Burt Reynolds part
Speaker 1: was originally written for Steve McQueen, who died before he
Speaker 1: could film the movie. Sadly, it was supposed to be
Speaker 1: a serious movie and it didn't turn out that way.
Speaker 1: Why would anybody want the Cannonball rutten to be a
Speaker 1: serious movie? Well, because it was in fact based on
Speaker 1: a real race. What what true? Based on a real race?
Speaker 1: As you know? Yeah, I I do know after reading
Speaker 1: this article. I think I had heard that before, but
Speaker 1: I had no idea the details. I didn't either until
Speaker 1: I wrote it. This was really amazing, Like I have.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna come out and say, I have a
Speaker 1: man crush on a seventy year old Mr brock Yates.
Speaker 1: He's a cool dude who I would have loved to
Speaker 1: have hung out with. I bet he's still a very
Speaker 1: cool dude and hung out with in a strictly platonic sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe a little makeing out, but aside from that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I bet he's still away cool guy. I get that
Speaker 1: impression he is. He Um, this is this is kind
Speaker 1: of what I gathered about brock Yates from researching this
Speaker 1: and reading your article. Go and say who he is.
Speaker 1: He was a pretty much the premier automotive journalist of
Speaker 1: his Age magazine. Eventually. Yeah, but I think he started
Speaker 1: out as a journalist and something of a gonzo journalist.
Speaker 1: I take it, um, but yeah, he he was very
Speaker 1: well known and respected in the field. Um, and in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen seventies America was at a fork in
Speaker 1: the road, if you will, so to speak, and brock
Speaker 1: Yates represented one direction and that was the out, just go,
Speaker 1: and if you die, that was your number was up.
Speaker 1: Kind of mentality behind the wheel that is, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: damn the torpedoes full steam ahead. Right on the other
Speaker 1: side of the road. At on the other side of
Speaker 1: the fork was a guy named Ralph Nader who was
Speaker 1: still there on that other fork. He is, um he
Speaker 1: for those of you who don't know who Ralph Naders.
Speaker 1: He's run for president a couple of times. Um. He
Speaker 1: got George Bush elected in two thousand four. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: But he's also a very dedicated consumer watchawt. He has
Speaker 1: for many years lived in a tiny, little one room apartment.
Speaker 1: He uses a hot plate. Um. He just he lives
Speaker 1: his very meager life so no one can say you're
Speaker 1: corrupt because he goes after everybody else. And in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, in the early nineteen seventies, he was going
Speaker 1: after the automotive industry, right he went after He wrote
Speaker 1: this book called Unsafe at Any Speed and it was
Speaker 1: basically about have you read it? I've read parts of
Speaker 1: it through research and stuff. Yeah, Okay, um so, you
Speaker 1: know then it was basically about how the automotive industry
Speaker 1: was producing these incredibly dangerous vehicles right and at the time,
Speaker 1: we didn't really have much of a speed limit. So uh,
Speaker 1: as a as a result of his book, we like
Speaker 1: seatbelts became mandatory, new safety design had to be instituted
Speaker 1: by car manufacturer's a big deal. Um So, America's at
Speaker 1: this fork in the road brock Yate style one and
Speaker 1: and Ralph Nader on the other, and America went down
Speaker 1: the Ralph Nader. I think what you're referring to is, uh,
Speaker 1: the national speed limit. That's part of it, definitely, But
Speaker 1: I think even more than that, it's a more of
Speaker 1: a you know, the way you and I were raised,
Speaker 1: where like we could do anything we put our minds to,
Speaker 1: and we were special. I think that that came out
Speaker 1: of that collective decision to go towards safety rather than
Speaker 1: you know, fun at any cost, reckless, abandon exactly, devil,
Speaker 1: make care sure. But yeah, the national speed limit was
Speaker 1: definitely one part of that. Yeah, that was which was
Speaker 1: that has since gone up quite a bit in certain areas,
Speaker 1: of course it has, But even more than safety, do
Speaker 1: you know why they set the speed limit at gas consumption. Yes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the the Arab oil embargo had just taken place. OPEC
Speaker 1: was like, hey, US, we're not real happy with you
Speaker 1: for siding with Israel during the Yam Kippur War, so
Speaker 1: we're gonna cut off your oil. And they did, and
Speaker 1: prices spiked and the US said, okay, we need to
Speaker 1: rethink our dependence on foreign oil. Had a huge rippling effect.
Speaker 1: But one of them was setting the speed limit at
Speaker 1: fifty which is too slow. It is too slow, especially
Speaker 1: in the opinion of somebody like brock Yates. I thought,
Speaker 1: you're gonna say, Sammy Hagar, Yeah, he can't drive. He's tried,
Speaker 1: he has, He's made a concerted effort, but it just
Speaker 1: came out. He tried. I love that song. It wasn't
Speaker 1: I don't like to drive fifty five or I would
Speaker 1: prefer to drive faster. It was I can't d tried
Speaker 1: and it just doesn't happen. It was very explicit. So
Speaker 1: Chuck um this this nineteen seventy one, brock Yates saw
Speaker 1: the writing on the wall that the speed limit was
Speaker 1: going to be reduced. America was becoming something of a
Speaker 1: mamby pamby us um and what did he do as
Speaker 1: a result, He uh, in V one, he took a
Speaker 1: trip across the country in a Dodge Van with three
Speaker 1: travel mates and he drove from New York to Los
Speaker 1: Angeles as a way of proving slash protesting. I believe
Speaker 1: his quote said something like this, good drivers and good
Speaker 1: automobiles could employ the American interstate system the same way
Speaker 1: that the Germans were using their auto bonn Right, So
Speaker 1: he wanted to prove that you can drive fast if
Speaker 1: you're safe, if you're a good driver, you can get
Speaker 1: to point A to point being a car and it's safe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you you said reckless abandoned. There was definitely a
Speaker 1: certain level of professionalism or um. The people who he
Speaker 1: considered good drivers were actually good drivers. Like he had
Speaker 1: to be a good driver to drive fast in his opinion.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just like everybody go as fast as you can.
Speaker 1: That wasn't the point, right, So he did so. He
Speaker 1: drove a two thousand, eight hundred fifty eight miles from
Speaker 1: New York to l A in forty hours and fifty
Speaker 1: one minutes, which is an average of seventy miles per hour. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is pretty fast if you're talking about an average speed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because that included stops. I think stops. Uh you name it?
Speaker 1: So Um, after that happened, I think it got a
Speaker 1: little bit of publicity, um, by word of mouth maybe
Speaker 1: the racing world. And there was a famous telegram that
Speaker 1: came I guess a month or so later. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love this. Can I read it? Yeah? Yeah, it's awesome. Uh.
Speaker 1: It says this constitutes formal entry by the Polish Racing
Speaker 1: Drivers of America and the next official Cannonball Baker Sea
Speaker 1: to Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash. The drivers are Oscar Kovaleski,
Speaker 1: Brad Nement Check and Tony Adam Awicks. If we can
Speaker 1: find California, will beat you fair and square. So basically
Speaker 1: the gauntlet was laid and the Cannonball Run was born,
Speaker 1: although like you said, the official name has always been
Speaker 1: Cannonball Baker Sea to Shining Sea Memorial Trophy. That right,
Speaker 1: So who's Cannonball Baker. Cannonball Baker Irwin G. Cannonball Baker
Speaker 1: was a He was famous for for pushing the limits
Speaker 1: limits on a motorcycle. Yeah, so he would drive from
Speaker 1: Canada to Mexico, from New York to l a on
Speaker 1: an old Indian motorcycle. And we're talking starting in nineteen fourteen, right,
Speaker 1: So like the old Indian motorcycle was basically a bike
Speaker 1: with a motor. Yeah, that's exactly what it looks like,
Speaker 1: you know. Um. He actually had a pretty well deserved
Speaker 1: reputation for like his nickname and just the stuff he
Speaker 1: was doing, his endurance level. Apparently on one ride, uh,
Speaker 1: he came around a curve and was about a barrel
Speaker 1: into a herd of cattle that was in the middle
Speaker 1: of the road because it's nineteen fourteen, and um, he
Speaker 1: swerved to miss him, hit a pothole, flew off of
Speaker 1: his bike onto the back of a cow, which bucked
Speaker 1: him off and eventually landed in a ditch, got up
Speaker 1: and drove away. That is the stuff of legends. That's
Speaker 1: how you get a race named after you, my friend, exactly. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he went on to become the first commissioner of NASCAR,
Speaker 1: which I thought was pretty interesting. So there you have that.
Speaker 1: Nothing to do with Moonshine though, or did he I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe, yeah, curious. So yeah, Yates wanted to
Speaker 1: pay homage to Cannonball Baker, so he named it after him,
Speaker 1: although he did shorten the name. Cannon Ball was two
Speaker 1: words for Baker, Yeah, for Baker, but he shortened it
Speaker 1: to Cannonball to avoid any illegal mess. Lawyers advised him
Speaker 1: to do that. Yeah, I thought it's kind of weird. Yeah. Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: so you have the Cannonball originally called the Cannonball Dash, uh,
Speaker 1: and then it finally became the Cannonball Run, which is
Speaker 1: how we know it today. Right, And thanks to the
Speaker 1: Polish Drivers of America who laid down the gauntlet. It
Speaker 1: was a real thing. They didn't They weren't the only
Speaker 1: ones to participate in the first official Cannibal. That first
Speaker 1: running made in the van was considered like a preliminary
Speaker 1: test run. It wasn't their first Cannibal because there was
Speaker 1: nobody competing with him. So this second one, Uh, there
Speaker 1: was the Polish Racing Drivers of America UM and seven
Speaker 1: other groups including three vans. Uh. There was a huge
Speaker 1: motor home. There was an American Motors, a m x
Speaker 1: an MGBGT and a Cadillac Sadandaville. And this is probably
Speaker 1: the coolest part of this entire story. Yeah, I love it,
Speaker 1: tell him. Uh. This Cadillac was UM owned by an
Speaker 1: old gentleman in New York, in Boston, in Boston, and
Speaker 1: he wanted to And this happened back then it may
Speaker 1: still happen now, where you would contract someone to drive
Speaker 1: your car from one place to the other case you
Speaker 1: didn't get it there. Richard Pryor contracted Dana Carvey and
Speaker 1: moving really great movie. Dude. I didn't see that one.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a stinker. No, it was good.
Speaker 1: It was a good. So this old man put out
Speaker 1: an ad in the paper, and I need to get
Speaker 1: my car to Los Angeles. And these guys answered it
Speaker 1: and said, we'll get your car to Los Angeles, and
Speaker 1: unbeknownst to him it was it was one of the entries.
Speaker 1: And um, I think one of the stipulations was the
Speaker 1: car not be driven faster than seventy five miles per
Speaker 1: hour at anytime or in the dark. Oh is that
Speaker 1: the other one? And clearly they broke both of these
Speaker 1: because the Cadillac averaged seventy nine miles per hour, right,
Speaker 1: which means they were driving a heck of a lot
Speaker 1: faster than that. I think they came in third too, yeah,
Speaker 1: third place, Yeah, not not too bad. But I think
Speaker 1: they got the car there in one piece and so
Speaker 1: good for them, right, They're like, here are the keys, so, uh,
Speaker 1: go ahead and start with the first race. Where did
Speaker 1: it start? Where did it end? Well? It started in
Speaker 1: New York at the Red Ball Garage at midnight, I
Speaker 1: believe is when all of them started. Yeah, um. And
Speaker 1: this was what okay, November beieve uh And the ending
Speaker 1: place was a hotel in Redondo Beach what is it
Speaker 1: the Portofino in right, okay, which is from pictures I saw.
Speaker 1: It was a pretty lux little hotel. Um. And you
Speaker 1: didn't have to follow any specific route. You just got
Speaker 1: there any way you could, right. Basically the only rules were, uh,
Speaker 1: you could have as many drivers as long as the
Speaker 1: only one car, and you could leave at any point
Speaker 1: within the twenty four hour window. It wasn't like everyone
Speaker 1: started at the start line like a typical race, just
Speaker 1: like in the movie. You would punch a time clock
Speaker 1: for when you're starting time was, and then punch it
Speaker 1: again for when you arrived. And whoever won one and
Speaker 1: I believe there was no trophy at the time. It
Speaker 1: was only a fifty dollar entry fee and then they
Speaker 1: donated two hundred apiece to charity. Yeah, I thought that
Speaker 1: was pretty cool? Why not? So apparently two days before
Speaker 1: the race, Brock Yates had managed to finagle a Ferrari
Speaker 1: daytona brand new Ferrari Daytona a loner out of a
Speaker 1: out of an auto dealer. Um. And he had the car,
Speaker 1: but he only had himself. He didn't have a co
Speaker 1: pilot or a driver. Uh. And apparently he sent out
Speaker 1: all the his invitations and a lot of two race
Speaker 1: car drivers, like legitimate race car drivers, and they were like,
Speaker 1: you know something, if somebody dies or something, that's gonna
Speaker 1: look really bad for the sport of racing. And I
Speaker 1: don't want to do that. And then uh, one guy
Speaker 1: he had invited, Dan Gurney, who was a professional race
Speaker 1: car driver, had declined initially UM. But he apparently Um
Speaker 1: was told by his wife that his dying father in
Speaker 1: law said you should go do this. Life is short.
Speaker 1: So Gurney contacts um Yates the day before the race
Speaker 1: and says, hey, can I still come? And Yates said heck, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And that proved to be fortuitous because they won. They
Speaker 1: did Cannibal run, Yeah, they did. They're winning time Josh
Speaker 1: was thirty five hours and fifty four minutes, not bad
Speaker 1: cross country, not bad at all, and not Atlanta to
Speaker 1: l A, New York l A, which is further Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I've made it in thirty three hours from Atlanta
Speaker 1: to l A. Have you. Yeah, that's way I've always
Speaker 1: done it. Three eleven hour days is how I schedule
Speaker 1: it out. I never time myself, but you know, I
Speaker 1: went drove around the West for several weeks and lived
Speaker 1: in a van with the dogs and all that chair
Speaker 1: and um, I would drive like I think the longest
Speaker 1: I drove is a twelve hour stretch. Um, that's about
Speaker 1: all I can mustard. Yeah, that's enough for me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: depending on how much coffee I drank or whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: then that I could drive you know, six hours or
Speaker 1: twelve hours or whatever. But it's amazing the toll that
Speaker 1: just sitting in a car with your foot on the
Speaker 1: gas has on you, especially when you're driving that fast. Uh.
Speaker 1: Should we talk about some of the some of the
Speaker 1: things they preferred to do on the on the first race, please?
Speaker 1: They One of the common tactics that seemed like was
Speaker 1: to keep it slow. In the eastern seaboard. Um, I
Speaker 1: think New Jersey and Connecticut, in Ohio and Pennsylvania. These
Speaker 1: states are notorious for for having some pretty hardcore highway patrolman.
Speaker 1: Yeah still do. Yeah, like you'll get pulled over for
Speaker 1: doing sixty? Isn't that nuts to you? Nuts? I can't
Speaker 1: image are for getting pulled over for anything less than
Speaker 1: seventy two seventy five. In Georgia, by the way, everyone flies, Yeah,
Speaker 1: as fast as you can, as fast as you can
Speaker 1: get away with us. How fast you drive generally. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Even my my friend Derek used to say that the
Speaker 1: deal with Atlanta Rush hour is everyone drives as fast
Speaker 1: as they can till somebody recks and then there's a
Speaker 1: big stops. Yeah, it's pretty funny to think about them.
Speaker 1: So the trick was to kind of keep it slow
Speaker 1: on the Eastern Seaboard and in the Midwest, and then
Speaker 1: once you got to the Great Plains is when you
Speaker 1: really opened up, yeah, and made up some serious serious time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They got it up to a hundred and seventy two,
Speaker 1: I think, is how how fast they found out the
Speaker 1: Ferrari would go. Yeah. I think twelve speeding tickets total
Speaker 1: between all of the all the competitors, Yeah, between four
Speaker 1: of the competitors. Four of them didn't get a ticket
Speaker 1: at all. So four of them split twelve tickets. And
Speaker 1: the famous quote l A Times it is like kind
Speaker 1: of a blurb of an article from Dan Gurney, Right yeah,
Speaker 1: Dan Gurney famously said, at no time did we exceed
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy. They came close. Pretty cool. Yeah, so, Chuck,
Speaker 1: that was the first one, and as with all cool things, uh,
Speaker 1: that also began its co option. News got out, word
Speaker 1: got out by little Yeah, the Sports Illustrated covered it, uh,
Speaker 1: and so did the Los Angeles Times. Um. And so
Speaker 1: when there was a second one, I think the following year,
Speaker 1: there were a lot more competitors, right, yeah, they had
Speaker 1: um twenty five entries a second year, and Brock Yates
Speaker 1: finished second place, this time in a Cadillac UM. The
Speaker 1: third race they skipped a couple of years, and it
Speaker 1: was in ninety five, and they moved it to springtime
Speaker 1: this time. And if Ferrari won the third race with
Speaker 1: Yates and Gurney behind the wheel once again. But I
Speaker 1: didn't know they won the third one, yes, oh no, no no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. They beat Yates and Gurney's record time the
Speaker 1: third year, Yeah, by a one minute, right, but it
Speaker 1: was not in them. You're correct, so by five, which
Speaker 1: but the third one, fourth, one third one was okay,
Speaker 1: by five, it's officially co opted. There's actually corporate sponsorship.
Speaker 1: The Right Bra company placed three ladies in Pink in
Speaker 1: a limousine and apparently the driver fell asleep in Texas
Speaker 1: and rolled the thing and I guess rolled into a
Speaker 1: porta potty which tipped over and drenched the um the
Speaker 1: ladies inside with its contents and where exactly so by
Speaker 1: this time now you can see why Burt Reynolds would
Speaker 1: have chosen more of a comedic route than a Sharky's
Speaker 1: machine route. Yeah, well it wasn't Burt's choice. Let's should
Speaker 1: we move to the final year. Yeah. What happened was
Speaker 1: brock Yates was pretty much finished with it, and he said,
Speaker 1: you know, it's run its course. He said he was
Speaker 1: worried that somebody was gonna die, although no one ever
Speaker 1: got hurt. No, but the the the roads in the
Speaker 1: last eight years had become much more congested. Um. He
Speaker 1: was ready to scrapped the whole thing, but he had
Speaker 1: a friend direct your stunt man. Hell need him? How
Speaker 1: need him? Or is it need him? No, it's need
Speaker 1: him and he was. He was famous for a lot
Speaker 1: of the early Burt Reynolds movies. He did them Hooper,
Speaker 1: which is a great movie. Is it? I even seen
Speaker 1: that one? Are you kidding me? I kid you not, dude.
Speaker 1: I gotta get Hooper. That was the one about stuntman.
Speaker 1: You have to see My Blue Heaven though. All right,
Speaker 1: we'll get to that later. So he did Hooper, and
Speaker 1: he did Um the Cannonball Run and a couple of
Speaker 1: other of the Burt Reynolds films. Yeah, they did a
Speaker 1: Smokey and the Bandit to Gates wrote that I'm sorry, okay,
Speaker 1: so how over the place today we are? How need
Speaker 1: him says, you know what, Brock, I want to make
Speaker 1: a movie about the Cannonball Run, and so I think
Speaker 1: the best way to do this is if we stage
Speaker 1: another one and I participate with you as my partner.
Speaker 1: So they did. They did that nine and they had
Speaker 1: a record forty six entries this time, and a lot
Speaker 1: of what happened in this race actually ended up in
Speaker 1: the movie. Yeah, there's some zany madcap stuff that was
Speaker 1: going on. Let's hear it. Well, brock Yates uh and
Speaker 1: hel Needham Uh actually had an ambulance and Yates's wife, Pamela,
Speaker 1: posed as a woman suffering from a lung condition and
Speaker 1: as a result, couldn't fly because of the pressurized cabin,
Speaker 1: so she had to be zoomed across the country at
Speaker 1: a hundred miles in the back of an ambulance that
Speaker 1: was their vehicle of choice, UM and definite. They they
Speaker 1: modified the engine, uh and it killed the transmission, so
Speaker 1: I had to be eventually towed across the finish line,
Speaker 1: which I thought was pretty cool. Right, And in the
Speaker 1: film that actually happened. Burt Reynolds and Dom Deloise were
Speaker 1: the Needham Yates characters, and fair Faucet was the was
Speaker 1: the wife. Didn't didn't what else happened that was real?
Speaker 1: Three drivers actually did pose his priests. I remember in
Speaker 1: the movie. It was awesomely it was Sammy Davis Jr.
Speaker 1: And Dean Martin drunk priest in the movie. But I
Speaker 1: don't know that they were posing. They really were drunk.
Speaker 1: Part they were probably hammered. What else, Josh, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen the movie in a really long time.
Speaker 1: All right, well, I got it for you. Then there
Speaker 1: were in fact, um scantily clad, skin tight jumpsuits on
Speaker 1: a couple of ladies in a sports car. I read
Speaker 1: the opposite. I read that that was the right broad
Speaker 1: company that inspired that part. I read the opposite. We'll
Speaker 1: have to check that, all right, we'll do it. And
Speaker 1: then there was a wealthy entrant that had his chauffeur
Speaker 1: drive him in a Rolls Royce. And in the movie
Speaker 1: that was Jamie Farr played a middle Eastern chic that's right, Clinger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, he and I are from the same hometown,
Speaker 1: Talita Talita. Is that why he always wore the Talita
Speaker 1: mud hints hat and mash Yeah, And we talked about
Speaker 1: it incessantly. He really was not Talo. Yeah. And Tony
Speaker 1: Paco's hot dogs that he talks about all the time,
Speaker 1: real place, best hot dogs on the planet, really had
Speaker 1: no idea. So those are just a few of the
Speaker 1: things that actually happened. The final cannonball run that ended
Speaker 1: up in the film Um and a Jaguar driven by
Speaker 1: Dave Hines and Dave Yarborough one that year and they
Speaker 1: obliterated the time period with thirty two and fifty one
Speaker 1: minute seven mile per hour average fifty speeding tickets. That year, well,
Speaker 1: there were forty two contestants. Yeah, so that was the
Speaker 1: last one, and it has spawned imitators over the years.
Speaker 1: Before the before Cannonball Run the movie came out, there
Speaker 1: were already imitators. Really, yeah, there was one movie that
Speaker 1: came out in seventy five and two that came out
Speaker 1: in seventy six. You want to hear the weird thing
Speaker 1: about it. David Carriden was in two of them. Really.
Speaker 1: He was in uh, let's see uh Deathmatch two thousand,
Speaker 1: Death Death Race two thousand, which was set in the future.
Speaker 1: But he was also in Cannonball exclamation Point, which is
Speaker 1: a farctical take on the Cannonball Run. And there was
Speaker 1: a second one that had Gary Busey in it, or
Speaker 1: third one that had Gary Busey, and it called the
Speaker 1: Gumball Rally, right, and that's that's a real one. And
Speaker 1: the Gunball three thousand is still in existence. Is that
Speaker 1: European or in America? Well, they do both, and they're
Speaker 1: quick to say that it's not a race, it's more
Speaker 1: like an adventurous road trip. And then the lame tell him, yeah,
Speaker 1: tell him about the European person of the Cannonball runs.
Speaker 1: Actually to you know why because they call it the
Speaker 1: Cannonball Run. They use that name, and this thing is
Speaker 1: not even a race. The goal of the Cannonball Run
Speaker 1: Europe is to stay as close to a sixty one
Speaker 1: mile per hour average as you can. And in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, a frigging smart car one. Oh so,
Speaker 1: talk about a slap in the face where brock Gates
Speaker 1: Steady would have rolled over in his grave. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: rolling over in his Instead he rolled over a smart
Speaker 1: car with his bare hand. If anybody could do it,
Speaker 1: Mr brock Gates could, my friend? I think? So that's
Speaker 1: cannonball Runney. That's how fast have you driven? What's the
Speaker 1: fastest you've ever driven? Oh? I don't know. A hundred
Speaker 1: and ten. I actually once got a speeding ticket. Or no,
Speaker 1: you want to hear a weird story. Let's here. I
Speaker 1: don't know if this will make the final cut or
Speaker 1: not because it's kind of long, but get this. So,
Speaker 1: my friend and I were driving from Atlanta to Charleston
Speaker 1: in my old Toyota Corolla. It was an eight six
Speaker 1: Champagne colored Toyota Corolla UM and I was doing a
Speaker 1: hundred and ten on I twenty during a stretch where
Speaker 1: the speed limit. I was doing twice the speed limit.
Speaker 1: I get pulled over by this guy in this car
Speaker 1: um with a little dash headlight on it, spinning around
Speaker 1: and I pull over and this guy is dressed like
Speaker 1: a paramilitary cop and he's like, you're so dead. You're
Speaker 1: going to jail forever, right, And he goes back to
Speaker 1: his car and calls somebody, and this other guy comes
Speaker 1: out and he comes back. He's like, you're at least
Speaker 1: gonna lose your license. And he goes back and talks
Speaker 1: to the guy, who he said later was the sergeant
Speaker 1: on duty. And he comes back and he goes, you're
Speaker 1: gonna get a ticket of some sort. And he goes
Speaker 1: back and talks to the guy again, and he goes,
Speaker 1: here's your license back. You guys drive safely now, and
Speaker 1: let's just go. You're free to go. Exactly. So my
Speaker 1: friend and I are looking at each other like what
Speaker 1: just happened? But it was so surreal, and to this day,
Speaker 1: I wonder, have you seen pulp fiction? Of course you have,
Speaker 1: remember Zed? Yeah, I have the distinct impression that these
Speaker 1: guys were into ZED like affairs, and something else was
Speaker 1: took precedent. I I think my friend was. He's not
Speaker 1: a good looking guy. So I'm thinking maybe they're like,
Speaker 1: we'll pass on these two. Oh yeah, So they were
Speaker 1: going to get you back the police station. And I
Speaker 1: don't think they were cops. Okay, what cop would not
Speaker 1: give you a ticket when you're driving twice the speed limit?
Speaker 1: I got you. Yeah, I got a story. Let's hear it.
Speaker 1: About four years ago, me and my buddy Scotty were
Speaker 1: doing it was actually the last TV commercial job ever did.
Speaker 1: It was a six Flags job and six Flags Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: Whatever that one's called six Flags over in Massachusetts? Is it?
Speaker 1: I think it's a great America anyway. So we go
Speaker 1: up there to do this job, and um, what kind
Speaker 1: of it was New Jersey? But we have to drive
Speaker 1: hit Yeah, we we we we drive. At one point
Speaker 1: my friend we had like two days off while we
Speaker 1: were up there and had a friend in Vermont and
Speaker 1: the third Star Wars prequel was being released that friday.
Speaker 1: So I said, hey, man, let's go up and see
Speaker 1: Johnny Pendell and uh rent a car and drive up
Speaker 1: there because we had a camera truck. He said, sure
Speaker 1: less do it. So we ran. We rented a like
Speaker 1: a little geometro whatever the cheapest little four stroke engine
Speaker 1: car you could get. And we have a time limit
Speaker 1: because we have to make the movie. It's like a
Speaker 1: six pm showing. And so we're speeding through Vermont, like
Speaker 1: the hills of Vermont's lovely, and this little engine is
Speaker 1: like and we top this hill and we see one
Speaker 1: of those signs that say your current speed, and it
Speaker 1: said your current speed and it blinked and went one
Speaker 1: oh two. And I've never seen a triple digit on
Speaker 1: one of those signs. So we just laughed and blaze
Speaker 1: right through it and made the movie. It's like, call
Speaker 1: the police, and we literally we made it right as
Speaker 1: the movie was starting, and you know, the engine was
Speaker 1: like it was like ticking, it was red hot. And
Speaker 1: that that's my fast story. Well, if you have a
Speaker 1: fast story, we'd actually like to hear it. Here's the caveat.
Speaker 1: Don't go out and commit any kind of crime or
Speaker 1: act that includes fastness. If it's already happened, then we'll
Speaker 1: hear about it. We'll tell you the email right after
Speaker 1: we get to listener mail, right, Chuck, Yes, Josh, all right,
Speaker 1: let's go, Josh. I'm gonna call this, uh second, the
Speaker 1: only time we've ever read a listener mail from the
Speaker 1: same dude. Oh, I don't know about this, chuck, we
Speaker 1: have to This is the hackster, Ryan Hack my buddy.
Speaker 1: Uh listen to the house history podcasts, and I have
Speaker 1: a creepy story. One of the houses I grew up
Speaker 1: in as a kid had a hidden door. As you
Speaker 1: go to the basement, it's more or less just blended
Speaker 1: into the wood paneling. As you walk through the door,
Speaker 1: you came to an open area with some shelving and
Speaker 1: a workbench. There are a couple of old bike tires
Speaker 1: and some random parts still lying around and a guy
Speaker 1: names it and a guy names it. Every once in
Speaker 1: a while we'd hear what sounded like people working on
Speaker 1: their bikes and chit chatting, pounding metal, gears dropping, laughing,
Speaker 1: chains turning. Every time we'd go into the room, there
Speaker 1: was nothing weird. Weird. Later on we found out the
Speaker 1: history of the house. Turns out one of the previous
Speaker 1: owners was a couple that enjoyed biking and they died
Speaker 1: in a biking accident and forgot to get them memo.
Speaker 1: So just thinking about it gives me chills. And this
Speaker 1: is from Ryan, and I'm gonna just go ahead and
Speaker 1: say that Ryan Hack has inspired me to exercise because
Speaker 1: he has a blog call Hacks First five k dot
Speaker 1: blogspot dot com where he started running in Lost Weight
Speaker 1: and is into it now. And he got me listening
Speaker 1: to another podcast called two Gomer's Run a Marathon. I
Speaker 1: don't know that I'm entirely okay with you leading this
Speaker 1: extra life that I'm unaware of until you read a
Speaker 1: listener mail. I know. But two Gomers Run a Marathon
Speaker 1: is actually a really funny podcast. These two guys that
Speaker 1: say they're Gomer's kind of nerdy and they're they're completely unathletic,
Speaker 1: yet they want to run a marathon. So their podcast
Speaker 1: goes through their trials and travails and it's really funny.
Speaker 1: They get a website called two Gomers dot com. Well,
Speaker 1: Ryan Hacks, since you got all those plugs and because
Speaker 1: you had to two listener mails read on there, you
Speaker 1: have to go contribute twenty five bucks to Keeva dot
Speaker 1: org on Stuff you should Know Team Chuck. You want
Speaker 1: to tell everybody else about that Kiva dot org. Go
Speaker 1: to the click on community and search stuff you should
Speaker 1: know Team join our team, and twenty five dollars to
Speaker 1: a to as someone in need. You can now donate
Speaker 1: to Americans. Yes, I've heard. If you're a nationalistic or
Speaker 1: an isolationist you can still donate. But right now, as
Speaker 1: a press time, we have raised more than in about
Speaker 1: ten days. And uh, who has seventy Chuck? Uh, the
Speaker 1: lousy cheap fans of the cold Bear quote unquote Nation.
Speaker 1: You know, it's sad that guy's got way more fans
Speaker 1: than we do, right, way more hundred and ten members
Speaker 1: on his team. We got a hundred and eighties so
Speaker 1: far already. Yeah, So way to go those of you
Speaker 1: and the stuff you should know Nation who supported kiva
Speaker 1: dot org so far. For those of you who want
Speaker 1: to get on the trolley, you can go to www.
Speaker 1: Dot kiva dot org slash team slash stuff you should know,
Speaker 1: and you can become a member, and like Chuck said,
Speaker 1: you can contribute as little as twenty five bucks and
Speaker 1: you actually get that back if you want, sure you
Speaker 1: can roll it over again or whatever. Yeah, yeah, so Chuck,
Speaker 1: that's it, right, that's it. If you have a cool
Speaker 1: high speed story, Chuck, and I want to hear about it. Uh,
Speaker 1: if you have a great unicorn story, you know, we
Speaker 1: always want to hear about that sending in an email
Speaker 1: to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check
Speaker 1: out our blogs on the how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: home page