WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: How the Cannonball Run Worked 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:05.000 Hi, everybody. Chuck here for another Saturday Stuff you Should 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:08.480 Know Selects edition. This week I picked How the Cannonball 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:12.520 Run Worked. October two thousand nine. This was a fun one, 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:15.560 The Cannonball Run. We certainly talked about the movie and 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:17.800 the sequel. It was one of my fabes growing up, 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:20.280 but it was based on a real race. The Cannonball 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:24.400 Run is, or was, Jeez and name sure still going on. 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:26.480 This has been a while since we recorded this one. 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:30.040 It is a a road race, a cross country road 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:33.680 race that seems too strange to be true that people 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:35.760 would actually get in their cars in the United States 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:40.200 and drive super fast and elude the cops all across 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:43.040 the country in order to win. I don't even know 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:47.080 if there was money involved, a trophy Bert Reynolds mustache. 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:49.880 Only you can find out by listening to how the 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:56.880 Cannonball Run worked. Right here, right now, Welcome to Stuff 0:00:56.880 --> 0:01:05.640 you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:08.200 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:11.400 as always is our good friend Charles W. Chuck Bryant, 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:13.920 Are you Chuck, your good friend? How are you feeling 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:18.200 right now? I'm find a lot. I'm sitting yeah, Chuck 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.280 is right red right now. Everybody, it's kind of weird looking. 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.400 Thank you Martin for that are super fan and Seattle, 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:27.319 thank you. But he's not a superman. He's a buddy. 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:29.640 He has be He was such a fan that he 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:31.600 actually became a friend. He's a friend that we haven't 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:36.200 met yet. Yeah, so Chuck, take us back to one 0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:39.880 in the time machine. Yes, the way back machine. You're ready, 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:43.880 Here we go. Okay, all right, Josh, I'm ten years old, 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:48.680 knee high to a grasshopper. Disco is dead. Margaret Thatcher 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:50.760 is the Prime Minister of England. I take issue with 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:54.080 the disco being deadline. I don't know that disco ever died. Man, 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:56.800 you cannot make the argument that all modern R and 0:01:56.840 --> 0:02:01.840 B pop soul is all disco. Doco is alive. Margaret 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:04.720 Thatcher is the Prime Minister of England. Ronald Reagan is 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:09.120 in office. Just as Jimmy Carter has exited. Walter Cronkite 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:12.000 resigned from the CBS Evening News desk. That was the 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:15.360 said day the first AIDS case was made public in California. 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:17.560 Have you ever seen in the band played on? My 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:19.760 brother worked on that. That was a great made for 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:22.000 TV movie. It really was. It was really good and 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:24.320 he had a great experience working on that. So find 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:28.399 people in that movie. Major League Baseball has just gone 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:30.920 on strike in the summer for what will be the 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:34.400 first of eighty times over the next five years. Right, 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:37.880 so America is depressed, but not for long, No, because 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:40.560 one Mr Burt Reynolds is about to dash across the 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:45.200 silver screen in a little movie called Cannonball Run. Great, great, 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:47.760 great movie. It was a great movie. I haven't seen 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:49.880 it in forever. I think I probably saw it in 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:53.280 like n seven. It was one of the first movies 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:56.680 we rented, along with Beverly Hills, Cop, very hockey and 0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:00.760 corny but still beloved. What's What's Yeah, everyone takes it 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:04.320 as a comedy because it is a comedy. But this 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:07.200 is not to say that it started out as a comedy. Actually, 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:09.720 it was supposed to be serious and Burt Reynolds part 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:13.040 was originally written for Steve McQueen, who died before he 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:15.560 could film the movie. Sadly, it was supposed to be 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:18.239 a serious movie and it didn't turn out that way. 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:21.640 Why would anybody want the Cannonball rutten to be a 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:24.880 serious movie? Well, because it was in fact based on 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:30.000 a real race. What what true? Based on a real race? 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:32.440 As you know? Yeah, I I do know after reading 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:34.920 this article. I think I had heard that before, but 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:37.680 I had no idea the details. I didn't either until 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:41.080 I wrote it. This was really amazing, Like I have. 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:43.280 I'm just gonna come out and say, I have a 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:46.240 man crush on a seventy year old Mr brock Yates. 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:49.240 He's a cool dude who I would have loved to 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:51.080 have hung out with. I bet he's still a very 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:54.240 cool dude and hung out with in a strictly platonic sense. Yeah, 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:58.400 maybe a little makeing out, but aside from that, Yeah, 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:00.360 I bet he's still away cool guy. I get that 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:03.760 impression he is. He Um, this is this is kind 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.720 of what I gathered about brock Yates from researching this 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:08.960 and reading your article. Go and say who he is. 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:13.200 He was a pretty much the premier automotive journalist of 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:19.480 his Age magazine. Eventually. Yeah, but I think he started 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:22.840 out as a journalist and something of a gonzo journalist. 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:26.480 I take it, um, but yeah, he he was very 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:29.480 well known and respected in the field. Um, and in 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:33.400 the early nineteen seventies America was at a fork in 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:35.640 the road, if you will, so to speak, and brock 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:40.640 Yates represented one direction and that was the out, just go, 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:44.520 and if you die, that was your number was up. 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:47.440 Kind of mentality behind the wheel that is, yeah, you know, 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:51.800 damn the torpedoes full steam ahead. Right on the other 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:54.120 side of the road. At on the other side of 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:58.359 the fork was a guy named Ralph Nader who was 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:01.680 still there on that other fork. He is, um he 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:03.760 for those of you who don't know who Ralph Naders. 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:06.400 He's run for president a couple of times. Um. He 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:10.320 got George Bush elected in two thousand four. Yeah. Um. 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:13.800 But he's also a very dedicated consumer watchawt. He has 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:17.600 for many years lived in a tiny, little one room apartment. 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:21.000 He uses a hot plate. Um. He just he lives 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:23.279 his very meager life so no one can say you're 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:27.359 corrupt because he goes after everybody else. And in the 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.400 nineteen seventies, in the early nineteen seventies, he was going 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:34.239 after the automotive industry, right he went after He wrote 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:37.120 this book called Unsafe at Any Speed and it was 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:39.919 basically about have you read it? I've read parts of 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:43.279 it through research and stuff. Yeah, Okay, um so, you 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:46.280 know then it was basically about how the automotive industry 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:50.600 was producing these incredibly dangerous vehicles right and at the time, 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:53.479 we didn't really have much of a speed limit. So uh, 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:56.520 as a as a result of his book, we like 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:00.920 seatbelts became mandatory, new safety design had to be instituted 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:03.880 by car manufacturer's a big deal. Um So, America's at 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:06.520 this fork in the road brock Yate style one and 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:09.400 and Ralph Nader on the other, and America went down 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:14.160 the Ralph Nader. I think what you're referring to is, uh, 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:17.279 the national speed limit. That's part of it, definitely, But 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:19.200 I think even more than that, it's a more of 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:22.960 a you know, the way you and I were raised, 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:25.440 where like we could do anything we put our minds to, 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:28.240 and we were special. I think that that came out 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:31.880 of that collective decision to go towards safety rather than 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:37.039 you know, fun at any cost, reckless, abandon exactly, devil, 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:39.960 make care sure. But yeah, the national speed limit was 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:44.760 definitely one part of that. Yeah, that was which was 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:49.240 that has since gone up quite a bit in certain areas, 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:51.640 of course it has, But even more than safety, do 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:57.920 you know why they set the speed limit at gas consumption. Yes. Yeah, 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:03.160 the the Arab oil embargo had just taken place. OPEC 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:05.800 was like, hey, US, we're not real happy with you 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:08.240 for siding with Israel during the Yam Kippur War, so 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.120 we're gonna cut off your oil. And they did, and 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:16.120 prices spiked and the US said, okay, we need to 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:20.480 rethink our dependence on foreign oil. Had a huge rippling effect. 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:22.240 But one of them was setting the speed limit at 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:26.160 fifty which is too slow. It is too slow, especially 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:28.520 in the opinion of somebody like brock Yates. I thought, 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:32.800 you're gonna say, Sammy Hagar, Yeah, he can't drive. He's tried, 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:35.840 he has, He's made a concerted effort, but it just 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:38.920 came out. He tried. I love that song. It wasn't 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:41.200 I don't like to drive fifty five or I would 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:45.360 prefer to drive faster. It was I can't d tried 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:48.320 and it just doesn't happen. It was very explicit. So 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:53.400 Chuck um this this nineteen seventy one, brock Yates saw 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:55.800 the writing on the wall that the speed limit was 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:58.880 going to be reduced. America was becoming something of a 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:04.000 mamby pamby us um and what did he do as 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:07.720 a result, He uh, in V one, he took a 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.679 trip across the country in a Dodge Van with three 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:13.840 travel mates and he drove from New York to Los 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:18.600 Angeles as a way of proving slash protesting. I believe 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:21.560 his quote said something like this, good drivers and good 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:25.240 automobiles could employ the American interstate system the same way 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:28.880 that the Germans were using their auto bonn Right, So 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:30.960 he wanted to prove that you can drive fast if 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:32.960 you're safe, if you're a good driver, you can get 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.200 to point A to point being a car and it's safe. Yeah, 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:40.560 and you you said reckless abandoned. There was definitely a 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:46.720 certain level of professionalism or um. The people who he 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:49.719 considered good drivers were actually good drivers. Like he had 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:51.679 to be a good driver to drive fast in his opinion. 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:53.960 It wasn't just like everybody go as fast as you can. 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:56.560 That wasn't the point, right, So he did so. He 0:08:56.640 --> 0:08:59.520 drove a two thousand, eight hundred fifty eight miles from 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:02.160 New York to l A in forty hours and fifty 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:05.640 one minutes, which is an average of seventy miles per hour. Yeah, 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.600 which is pretty fast if you're talking about an average speed. Yeah, 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:11.880 because that included stops. I think stops. Uh you name it? 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:15.920 So Um, after that happened, I think it got a 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:20.360 little bit of publicity, um, by word of mouth maybe 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:23.880 the racing world. And there was a famous telegram that 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.680 came I guess a month or so later. Yeah, I 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:30.240 love this. Can I read it? Yeah? Yeah, it's awesome. Uh. 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:33.680 It says this constitutes formal entry by the Polish Racing 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:37.160 Drivers of America and the next official Cannonball Baker Sea 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:41.800 to Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash. The drivers are Oscar Kovaleski, 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:46.320 Brad Nement Check and Tony Adam Awicks. If we can 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:49.840 find California, will beat you fair and square. So basically 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:53.360 the gauntlet was laid and the Cannonball Run was born, 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:57.439 although like you said, the official name has always been 0:09:57.640 --> 0:10:01.360 Cannonball Baker Sea to Shining Sea Memorial Trophy. That right, 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:06.160 So who's Cannonball Baker. Cannonball Baker Irwin G. Cannonball Baker 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:09.760 was a He was famous for for pushing the limits 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:13.000 limits on a motorcycle. Yeah, so he would drive from 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:15.800 Canada to Mexico, from New York to l a on 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:20.319 an old Indian motorcycle. And we're talking starting in nineteen fourteen, right, 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:22.560 So like the old Indian motorcycle was basically a bike 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:24.840 with a motor. Yeah, that's exactly what it looks like, 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:28.400 you know. Um. He actually had a pretty well deserved 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:31.680 reputation for like his nickname and just the stuff he 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:35.840 was doing, his endurance level. Apparently on one ride, uh, 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:39.080 he came around a curve and was about a barrel 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:41.440 into a herd of cattle that was in the middle 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:45.280 of the road because it's nineteen fourteen, and um, he 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:48.520 swerved to miss him, hit a pothole, flew off of 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:51.640 his bike onto the back of a cow, which bucked 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:55.040 him off and eventually landed in a ditch, got up 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:57.400 and drove away. That is the stuff of legends. That's 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:00.640 how you get a race named after you, my friend, exactly. Uh. 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:03.439 And he went on to become the first commissioner of NASCAR, 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.000 which I thought was pretty interesting. So there you have that. 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:10.080 Nothing to do with Moonshine though, or did he I 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:34.040 don't know, maybe, yeah, curious. So yeah, Yates wanted to 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:37.720 pay homage to Cannonball Baker, so he named it after him, 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:41.600 although he did shorten the name. Cannon Ball was two 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:45.320 words for Baker, Yeah, for Baker, but he shortened it 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:48.760 to Cannonball to avoid any illegal mess. Lawyers advised him 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:51.160 to do that. Yeah, I thought it's kind of weird. Yeah. Well, anyway, 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:55.320 so you have the Cannonball originally called the Cannonball Dash, uh, 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:58.160 and then it finally became the Cannonball Run, which is 0:11:58.200 --> 0:11:59.920 how we know it today. Right, And thanks to the 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:03.280 Polish Drivers of America who laid down the gauntlet. It 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:05.520 was a real thing. They didn't They weren't the only 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:08.800 ones to participate in the first official Cannibal. That first 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:12.240 running made in the van was considered like a preliminary 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:14.760 test run. It wasn't their first Cannibal because there was 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:18.319 nobody competing with him. So this second one, Uh, there 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:21.960 was the Polish Racing Drivers of America UM and seven 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.760 other groups including three vans. Uh. There was a huge 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:29.599 motor home. There was an American Motors, a m x 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:34.559 an MGBGT and a Cadillac Sadandaville. And this is probably 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:38.080 the coolest part of this entire story. Yeah, I love it, 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:41.960 tell him. Uh. This Cadillac was UM owned by an 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:44.760 old gentleman in New York, in Boston, in Boston, and 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:47.920 he wanted to And this happened back then it may 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:50.480 still happen now, where you would contract someone to drive 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:52.080 your car from one place to the other case you 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:54.800 didn't get it there. Richard Pryor contracted Dana Carvey and 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:58.320 moving really great movie. Dude. I didn't see that one. 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:00.000 I thought it was a stinker. No, it was good. 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:02.360 It was a good. So this old man put out 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:04.240 an ad in the paper, and I need to get 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:06.720 my car to Los Angeles. And these guys answered it 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:09.480 and said, we'll get your car to Los Angeles, and 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:12.240 unbeknownst to him it was it was one of the entries. 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:14.960 And um, I think one of the stipulations was the 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:18.480 car not be driven faster than seventy five miles per 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:21.000 hour at anytime or in the dark. Oh is that 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:23.800 the other one? And clearly they broke both of these 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:27.040 because the Cadillac averaged seventy nine miles per hour, right, 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:28.920 which means they were driving a heck of a lot 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:31.840 faster than that. I think they came in third too, yeah, 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:33.959 third place, Yeah, not not too bad. But I think 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:36.640 they got the car there in one piece and so 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:40.800 good for them, right, They're like, here are the keys, so, uh, 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:42.840 go ahead and start with the first race. Where did 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:44.760 it start? Where did it end? Well? It started in 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:47.760 New York at the Red Ball Garage at midnight, I 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:50.800 believe is when all of them started. Yeah, um. And 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:56.800 this was what okay, November beieve uh And the ending 0:13:56.840 --> 0:14:00.839 place was a hotel in Redondo Beach what is it 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:04.679 the Portofino in right, okay, which is from pictures I saw. 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:08.720 It was a pretty lux little hotel. Um. And you 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:11.040 didn't have to follow any specific route. You just got 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:15.280 there any way you could, right. Basically the only rules were, uh, 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:17.079 you could have as many drivers as long as the 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:20.320 only one car, and you could leave at any point 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:23.520 within the twenty four hour window. It wasn't like everyone 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:25.960 started at the start line like a typical race, just 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:28.120 like in the movie. You would punch a time clock 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:30.440 for when you're starting time was, and then punch it 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:33.880 again for when you arrived. And whoever won one and 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:36.080 I believe there was no trophy at the time. It 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:38.000 was only a fifty dollar entry fee and then they 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:41.080 donated two hundred apiece to charity. Yeah, I thought that 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:44.600 was pretty cool? Why not? So apparently two days before 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:48.480 the race, Brock Yates had managed to finagle a Ferrari 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:51.560 daytona brand new Ferrari Daytona a loner out of a 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:54.920 out of an auto dealer. Um. And he had the car, 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:57.000 but he only had himself. He didn't have a co 0:14:57.120 --> 0:14:59.760 pilot or a driver. Uh. And apparently he sent out 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:02.360 all the his invitations and a lot of two race 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:05.560 car drivers, like legitimate race car drivers, and they were like, 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:08.160 you know something, if somebody dies or something, that's gonna 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:10.160 look really bad for the sport of racing. And I 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:12.680 don't want to do that. And then uh, one guy 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:15.320 he had invited, Dan Gurney, who was a professional race 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:20.920 car driver, had declined initially UM. But he apparently Um 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:24.200 was told by his wife that his dying father in 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:26.720 law said you should go do this. Life is short. 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:31.040 So Gurney contacts um Yates the day before the race 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:35.520 and says, hey, can I still come? And Yates said heck, yeah, yeah. 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:38.880 And that proved to be fortuitous because they won. They 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:41.600 did Cannibal run, Yeah, they did. They're winning time Josh 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:44.800 was thirty five hours and fifty four minutes, not bad 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:48.040 cross country, not bad at all, and not Atlanta to 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:50.080 l A, New York l A, which is further Yeah, 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:52.080 because I've made it in thirty three hours from Atlanta 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:54.640 to l A. Have you. Yeah, that's way I've always 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:56.840 done it. Three eleven hour days is how I schedule 0:15:56.880 --> 0:15:59.400 it out. I never time myself, but you know, I 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:02.160 went drove around the West for several weeks and lived 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:03.800 in a van with the dogs and all that chair 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:07.560 and um, I would drive like I think the longest 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:11.280 I drove is a twelve hour stretch. Um, that's about 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:13.880 all I can mustard. Yeah, that's enough for me. Yeah, 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.520 depending on how much coffee I drank or whatever, you know, 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:21.040 then that I could drive you know, six hours or 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:23.520 twelve hours or whatever. But it's amazing the toll that 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:26.000 just sitting in a car with your foot on the 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:30.640 gas has on you, especially when you're driving that fast. Uh. 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:32.720 Should we talk about some of the some of the 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:37.360 things they preferred to do on the on the first race, please? 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.120 They One of the common tactics that seemed like was 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:44.200 to keep it slow. In the eastern seaboard. Um, I 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:48.080 think New Jersey and Connecticut, in Ohio and Pennsylvania. These 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:53.080 states are notorious for for having some pretty hardcore highway patrolman. 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:55.800 Yeah still do. Yeah, like you'll get pulled over for 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:59.720 doing sixty? Isn't that nuts to you? Nuts? I can't 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:02.200 image are for getting pulled over for anything less than 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:07.760 seventy two seventy five. In Georgia, by the way, everyone flies, Yeah, 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:09.560 as fast as you can, as fast as you can 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:11.800 get away with us. How fast you drive generally. Yeah. 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:13.920 Even my my friend Derek used to say that the 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:16.680 deal with Atlanta Rush hour is everyone drives as fast 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:19.040 as they can till somebody recks and then there's a 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:22.520 big stops. Yeah, it's pretty funny to think about them. 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:25.600 So the trick was to kind of keep it slow 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:29.120 on the Eastern Seaboard and in the Midwest, and then 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:31.199 once you got to the Great Plains is when you 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:35.640 really opened up, yeah, and made up some serious serious time. Yeah. 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:38.159 They got it up to a hundred and seventy two, 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:40.840 I think, is how how fast they found out the 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:44.200 Ferrari would go. Yeah. I think twelve speeding tickets total 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.440 between all of the all the competitors, Yeah, between four 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:49.520 of the competitors. Four of them didn't get a ticket 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:52.600 at all. So four of them split twelve tickets. And 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:54.960 the famous quote l A Times it is like kind 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:57.520 of a blurb of an article from Dan Gurney, Right yeah, 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:00.000 Dan Gurney famously said, at no time did we exceed 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:04.800 hundred and seventy. They came close. Pretty cool. Yeah, so, Chuck, 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:09.199 that was the first one, and as with all cool things, uh, 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:13.400 that also began its co option. News got out, word 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:18.560 got out by little Yeah, the Sports Illustrated covered it, uh, 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:22.760 and so did the Los Angeles Times. Um. And so 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:25.560 when there was a second one, I think the following year, 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:28.840 there were a lot more competitors, right, yeah, they had 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:32.919 um twenty five entries a second year, and Brock Yates 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:36.960 finished second place, this time in a Cadillac UM. The 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:39.760 third race they skipped a couple of years, and it 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:43.040 was in ninety five, and they moved it to springtime 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.960 this time. And if Ferrari won the third race with 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:49.080 Yates and Gurney behind the wheel once again. But I 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:51.359 didn't know they won the third one, yes, oh no, no no, no, 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:53.960 I'm sorry. They beat Yates and Gurney's record time the 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:56.720 third year, Yeah, by a one minute, right, but it 0:18:56.760 --> 0:18:59.920 was not in them. You're correct, so by five, which 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:03.480 but the third one, fourth, one third one was okay, 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:07.680 by five, it's officially co opted. There's actually corporate sponsorship. 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:12.320 The Right Bra company placed three ladies in Pink in 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:16.600 a limousine and apparently the driver fell asleep in Texas 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:19.000 and rolled the thing and I guess rolled into a 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:23.719 porta potty which tipped over and drenched the um the 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:29.520 ladies inside with its contents and where exactly so by 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:31.800 this time now you can see why Burt Reynolds would 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:35.240 have chosen more of a comedic route than a Sharky's 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:38.359 machine route. Yeah, well it wasn't Burt's choice. Let's should 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.639 we move to the final year. Yeah. What happened was 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:44.080 brock Yates was pretty much finished with it, and he said, 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:46.119 you know, it's run its course. He said he was 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:49.040 worried that somebody was gonna die, although no one ever 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:51.959 got hurt. No, but the the the roads in the 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:56.080 last eight years had become much more congested. Um. He 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:58.119 was ready to scrapped the whole thing, but he had 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:01.920 a friend direct your stunt man. Hell need him? How 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:04.240 need him? Or is it need him? No, it's need 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:06.920 him and he was. He was famous for a lot 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:10.439 of the early Burt Reynolds movies. He did them Hooper, 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:12.360 which is a great movie. Is it? I even seen 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:15.560 that one? Are you kidding me? I kid you not, dude. 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:18.000 I gotta get Hooper. That was the one about stuntman. 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:20.320 You have to see My Blue Heaven though. All right, 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:22.919 we'll get to that later. So he did Hooper, and 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:25.399 he did Um the Cannonball Run and a couple of 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:27.920 other of the Burt Reynolds films. Yeah, they did a 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:32.360 Smokey and the Bandit to Gates wrote that I'm sorry, okay, 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:36.120 so how over the place today we are? How need 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:38.600 him says, you know what, Brock, I want to make 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:41.480 a movie about the Cannonball Run, and so I think 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:44.520 the best way to do this is if we stage 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:47.240 another one and I participate with you as my partner. 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:50.879 So they did. They did that nine and they had 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:54.680 a record forty six entries this time, and a lot 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:56.560 of what happened in this race actually ended up in 0:20:56.600 --> 0:20:59.800 the movie. Yeah, there's some zany madcap stuff that was 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:02.720 going on. Let's hear it. Well, brock Yates uh and 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:08.160 hel Needham Uh actually had an ambulance and Yates's wife, Pamela, 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:11.840 posed as a woman suffering from a lung condition and 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:15.160 as a result, couldn't fly because of the pressurized cabin, 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:18.439 so she had to be zoomed across the country at 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:20.520 a hundred miles in the back of an ambulance that 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:25.240 was their vehicle of choice, UM and definite. They they 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:30.280 modified the engine, uh and it killed the transmission, so 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:32.560 I had to be eventually towed across the finish line, 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:34.399 which I thought was pretty cool. Right, And in the 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:37.359 film that actually happened. Burt Reynolds and Dom Deloise were 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:41.560 the Needham Yates characters, and fair Faucet was the was 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:46.360 the wife. Didn't didn't what else happened that was real? 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:50.320 Three drivers actually did pose his priests. I remember in 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:53.960 the movie. It was awesomely it was Sammy Davis Jr. 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:58.560 And Dean Martin drunk priest in the movie. But I 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:01.920 don't know that they were posing. They really were drunk. 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:07.200 Part they were probably hammered. What else, Josh, I don't know. 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:08.840 I haven't seen the movie in a really long time. 0:22:08.840 --> 0:22:10.680