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WILL WRIGHT: The thing about driving and racing
is the fact that you've got this incredible
kind of interface between a person and the machine.
And, you know, a lot of times, we clearly put
this boundary around us-- you know, this is me,
and these are my tools, my technologies, my machines.
But when you're driving-- or racing, especially--
um, that boundary blurs, and you become one.
You know, you stop thinking about your body entirely,
and you think of the car as your body.
I was always fascinated by the ability of the human mind
to kind of mesh with a machine like that, to that level.
And achieve that level of kind of almost transparent,
unconscious interface.
I've never raced a plane before.
PAUL WEISMANN [over radio]: I got the road in sight.
Look for those two white stripes, babies.
This is the tricky part. We knew it would be.
GOODRICH: T. Mazel, this is Nueve Actual.
Are you reading? Over.
WEISMANN: We have you in sight.
We're overhead.
Roy, I don't know. Punch it, Chewy.
WEISMANN: We got nothing in sight right now.
GOODRICH: Copy that.
ROY: Ask Paul...
if there's any cops at the tollbooths.
Mazel, you see any, uh, fuzz at the tollbooth coming up?
WEISMANN: Very limited traffic at the toll plaza.
I'd say, uh, two cars, three cars deep.
-Thank you. -Wow, this is fantastic,
-the spotter plane. -[radio buzzing]
GOODRICH: All right, well, pick a... the best lane and...
take that one.
ROY: We could've just gone
right through it, but that's so illegal.
-No, you don't want to do that. -[indistinct chatter over radio]
Say again?
WEISMANN: Let me know when you're through the tolls.
Will do.
-Do I... do we have to talk? -Here.
-How much is it? -$3.50.
Hello.
Thank you.
Are there a lot of police up here?
Thanks. Have a nice day.
I'm sorry.
Car all right?
[engine whirring]
Car's having a problem, huh?
WEISMANN: Are you through the tolls?
Yeah, I see you slow, uh...
Uh, you're pulling over altogether now, I see.
You guys on the shoulder?
I'm sitting here, engine off.
-What do you recommend? -Thanks, man.
WEISMANN: I don't know how... what's the...
what the average, uh,
drops for every minute they're stationary,
but for every minute they're stationary,
they have to go 180 miles an hour to match 90.
Which obviously isn't gonna happen.
Put the car in a flatbed, fly home. That's what I'd do.
Tell you what, Alex must be devastated.
I'm really sorry, guys.
RICK DOHERTY: So, we seem to have a-a head count so far.
Uh, we've lost two team entrants to, uh, uh, a broken ankle
and a broken foot.
We've gotten reports from two broken cars so far
and one possible broken marriage.
This is a very competitive event.
We're in it for enjoying the American highway.
We're in it for, uh... for proving that we can
do something in time-speed-distance.
Of course, there is a national speed limit
of 55 miles an hour.
[laughter]
The-the first year we organized the Express,
we had some high-powered Italian, German,
American machinery.
I really can't recommend to anybody that you, uh,
exceed the-the national speed limit on this.
[laughter]
♪
ICE-T: This is a story about people who race
from one side of America to the other
as fast as they can.
They were all inspired by one man with a proper nickname.
In 1933,
racing driver and motorcyclist "Cannon Ball" Baker
drove coast-to-coast in 53 hours,
a record that stood for four decades.
And then Brock Yates showed up.
It's 1971.
Yates is a writer forCar and Driver magazine.
Yates wants to prove good drivers can use
America's brand-new Interstate Highway System
the way Germans use their Autobahn
for long-distance travel at high speeds.
He plans an event,
calls it the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea
Memorial Trophy Dash,
a combination speed run, endurance test
and long-ass road trip.
Racers show up with crazy solutions
to the cross-country challenge.
Cannon Ball's antics inspire a movie.
But the 1979 run was the last Cannonball ever.
The end of the Cannonball does not mean
coast-to-coast time trials are over.
In 1980, the nerds show up, and they're serious.
DOHERTY: I-I do want to have everybody
have as little contact
with-with John Q. Law as possible
while staging this 55-mile-an-hour event.
ICE-T: This is Rick Doherty.
He's a Cannonball veteran.
To him, Cannonball had become kind of a circus,
attracting the wrong sort of attention.
Doherty puts a small classified ad inAutoweek magazine.
The response catches him by surprise
and sparks the U.S. Express.
STEVE STANDER: We ran the Cannonball
under an assumed name: U.S. Express.
Well, you call it what you want.
We were the last of the Cannonballers.
By the time you got to the U.S. Express,
it was only the hardest-core people.
There was the most technology, everyone had a fuel cell,
all the drivers were nuts.
Three, two, one, drive!
[tires screeching]
DAVID DIEM: It was invitation-only.
Secret starting point, secret finishing point.
Moves each year.
No rules, fastest guy wins.
Going from one coast to the other as fast as you can.
No ifs, ands or buts about it.
STANDER: If one person leaked the information,
you'd compromise the event.
The last thing you want to do is publicize it.
There's 30-odd cars going out
at 100-plus miles an hour from New York
with a 55-mile-an-hour speed limit.
MAN: You think anybody's gonna suspect this is a race car?
They probably will.
It's not something the FBI tracked
until theCannonball Run movies came out.
No one took all the puzzle pieces and put it together.
[indistinct chatter]
It was a quiet event.
It was not publicized, by design.
ICE-T: Unlike the Cannonball, the U.S. Express is top secret.
And it's all business.
To these guys, it's a race.
And a race is meant to be won.
On the first U.S. Express run in 1980,
Doherty and his codriver,
video game designer Will Wright,
set a coast-to-coast time in 33 hours, nine minutes.
It's almost three hours quicker than Yates did it
with Dan Gurney a decade earlier,
and more than 20 hours quicker
than Cannon Ball Baker's best time.
QUARTIERE: Like a bunch of bandits
trying to accomplish something that, um,
is frowned upon by most individuals
and law-minded citizens.
JOSH VIETZE: It's just an interesting story,
to know that-that there's crazy people out there
who want to do things like this.
And it... and it sort of...
it exists in this bubble of the '80s.
WOMAN: That guy's got his pedal to the metal. [laughs]
VIETZE: Secret, illegal,
underground race from coast-to-cast,
what could be more pointless?
What could be more dangerous? Lots of people know
what Cannonball Run,the... you know, the movie, is, um,
but-but what actually went on in this cross-country race,
people don't know, and it's nuts.
What the fuck were these people thinking?
MAN: He says they're gonna nail you again.
-DRIVER: That's what I'm afraid of.-MAN: Yeah.
MAN: This could be an ugly trip, you know?
NEWSMAN: Yes, Bruce, you spotted
a few stragglers from that race coming in.
BRUCE: We had one car at Orange County doing 100-plus
with the highway patrol behind him in, quote, "pursuit."
ICE-T: Then in 1983, Doug Turner and David Diem,
averaging 89 miles per hour in a Ferrari 308--
most of the time spent above 125 miles per hour--
chopped the record down to 32 hours, seven minutes.
And that record stands for more than 20 years.
The U.S. Express was so secretive,
only insiders knew how the times were validated.
And even they had their doubts.
Some of the other racers wondered
if Diem and Turner's time was legit.
Or if somehow they'd faked it.
Are you aware that you just broke the record?
-Is that right? -Yeah.
NEWSWOMAN: These two gentlemen were certainly
vulnerable all the way across the country,
but they made it through.
Two madcap drivers, Doug Turner and partner David Diem,
crossed the Newport Beach finish line early today
in the fourth annual U.S. Express,
formerly known as the Cannonball Run.
32 hours and seven minutes,
-a new record. -[crowd whooping]
BOBBY UNSER: To go from New York to California
[laughing]: in-in 32 hours, it's unbelievable.
You know how fast you have to go to average 89 miles an hour?
I mean, most people don't understand how they did it.
The first time, we just didn't realize
how fast you had to drive.
And you had to drive as fast as you could every...
every time you had an opportunity to drive fast.
And, uh, that made the big change.
DIEM: We decided, the second year,
you know, we had three speeds.
About 143 miles an hour
is-is the speed we determined that we could run
without raising the oil temperature.
55 miles an hour, which was the speed limit,
when that was necessary, and stop for the five times
that we stopped to fuel.
MAN: What were you averaging?
We-we averaged, uh, 89.897, I think.
-That's right. -[both laugh]
We spent a lot of time
at 125 or greater
but averaged 90 miles an hour.
The idea that 32:07 was possible in '83,
to a lot of people,
was unfathomable.
DOHERTY: There were members, um,
who'd been involved with the race
for more than one year who thought that
that's an amazing time-- they must have
gotten onto an airplane or something.
People have some... some trouble separating,
"Did it really happen? Is it true?"
JARLSON: Some people have said,
"Well, could it be run again today,
in today's culture?"
I don't know.
Will we ever know if someone's running it?
ICE-T: In the 2000s, coast-to-coast rallying
found new life as celebrity road trips.
More about champagne and Lamborghinis
than breaking records.
And the entry lists often included the name Alex Roy,
an entrepreneur and New York scene setter.
Alex was a rally fanatic
and even had a brush with fame on a reality TV show in Europe.
But privately, Alex Roy had one thing on his mind.
He wanted to break the coast-to-coast driving record.
He not only wanted to prove
Diem and Turner's time was legit;
he wanted to beat it.
How do you define Alex Roy?
Okay.
When I first met Alex,
he was still in his
Gumball phase.
Which is where he was taking the established
party rally-- Gumball-- uh,
very seriously in terms of the navigation,
the driving, the outfits, the police car.
The whole schtick. He was deep in that.
At a certain point, you realize
that those events are childish
and, in some ways, very dangerous,
because you have reckless people doing reckless things
to impress each other.
Alex was that percentage of people
who wanted something that was much more serious.
Alex is, uh... is eccentric,
uh, and Alex is a... in many ways a philosopher.
He thinks about things that most of my other friends
are not thinking about with any kind of regularity.
ROY: Someone is going to break 32:07 someday.
And, uh, you know, I-I would love to know
if there's someone else out there
who's actually thinking about it
as hard as I am, because I have every intention
of breaking it someday.
But first, we have to figure out if what Diem/Turner said
is true about how they did it.
And I don't think it is true.
I think they did 32:07, but I don't think
they did it the way they said they did.
My theory about Diem/Turner is that
the fuel-economy figures for their car
and their fuel cell don't match up
with 5h fuel stops,
using a 140-55-zero strategy.
My theory is that they were cruising in the high 90s
pretty much the whole time.
The speed strategy is, it sounds sexier,
but that's not what this is about.
Diem/Turner did it, I think, two or three times
before they set 32:07.
So, uh... and I've never done it this way.
Anyone who gets in a car unprepared, tries to do this,
is out of their minds.
I wouldn't expect to beat them
unless I'd done it at least twice.
Being in the car right now with everything functional
and fixed is one of the best feelings in the world.
I don't know if I've ever felt this prepared,
certainly from a technical standpoint.
I'm not concerned about safety, 'cause I know
we're really safe drivers.
I'm concerned about, uh, getting arrested
by that cop who's having a bad day
and who really wants to stick it to the two New Yorkers
in the car full of equipment.
ICE-T: For Alex, there was no better car
for the transcontinental run than the BMW M5.
With a five-liter, 400-horsepower V-8,
it was fast.
A top speed of 155 miles an hour
could be pushed to 190 with just a software upgrade.
With the suspension tuned for Germany's Autobahn,
the M5 would hold up under hours
of triple-digit speeds.
And Alex upgraded the brakes, shocks and clutch
to handle the extra punishment.
For Alex, the BMW was a good place to start.
For one, it was stealthy.
From the outside, it looked just like any other blue sedan.
To that blank canvas, Alex added his intel gear.
Three large antennas on the trunk
and one on the roof.
One for a police scanner, one for a CB,
and one for a ground-to-air radio
that would let Alex talk to the pilot of a spotter plane.
Two white stripes on the roof
would let the pilot see the BMW from 2,000 feet above.
The real difference is inside.
GPS navigation units, police scanners,
radar detectors, night vision,
and enough cameras to document the run as it happens.
And a 16-gallon fuel cell.
[engine revving]
FARAH: Alex chose the M5
for what I think are very honest, practical reasons.
It was, uh, the fastest performance sedan at the time.
ROY: Awesome. Let's see what we got here.
Yeah, you want... Let me start from the top first.
MAN: So these are... these are all parts.
-ROY: Got it. -Dead reckoning cable, antennas,
antennas, antennas, antennas, antennas, antennas.
This is the big-labor number right here.
It's, conservatively, a hundred hours.
ROY: Yeah, that looks pretty stealthy. I feel okay.
I mean, it's definitely less conspicuous than a red Ferrari.
It's definitely less conspicuous than most of the cars
that did the U.S. Express.
I mean, today, you could have multiple apps
running at the same time
that tell you where the police are along your route.
They didn't have any of that then.
Police along the route?
That was part of a spreadsheet that Alex had put together,
that he or some poor kid from New Jersey that he hired,
uh, had scouted out painstakingly
along the route that he was driving.
This book represents our bible, and in the front,
for reference sake, is the reckless endangerment laws
for every state in the United States.
California's the most lenient state in the union,
God bless them.
North of a hundred is reckless endangerment.
You never want to be going
north of a hundred, or get nicked for it,
in any of these states, especially these
truly conservative states,
'cause they will take you down to the precinct.
So, you're talking about, you know, going to jail
or getting accused of a felony.
ROY: There's a 0.4.
Police, mobile unit.
That's a police car in the borough of Allendale.
Our route is in yellow. Allendale is here.
Therefore, that frequency is not for us.
This must be done 1,000 times.
-Yeah, I told you, it's a fucking nightmare. -Oh, my God.
That's why I've been having such a hard time,
or I would have already done it. "Ohio Turnpike,
most heavily patrolled highway in the United States."
Truckers call it Radar Alley.
ROY: You know, of course, the danger is,
if we put every speed trap from speedtrap.org into the GPS
and we slow for every single one
and there's no cop at some of those, we lose time.
DOHERTY: We're using a larger garage right now in Manhattan,
and we will not have to get the cars in as early as 3:00 p.m.
We're gonna get around to the, uh, selection of departure times
in just a moment, and policy in the past has shown that, uh,
most people tend to crowd around the very earliest time to leave,
7:00 p.m., or the-the last car out time,
which is 10:00 p.m. tomorrow night.
You'll have to put us on channel, uh,
whatever it is news tonight.
Wait till the end of the race. See you.
DOHERTY: I do want to have everybody have
as little contact with-with John Q. Law as possible
while staging this 55-mile-an-hour event.
We're going to be asking you to give that pass in to Anne.
She will be putting a number on that.
We will be drawing from a hat, and the order
those come out in will be your driver selection depart times.
Now, everybody has their vehicle pass?
♪
Hi. I'm Michaelene Donati, and we're bringing to you today
a sample of America's love affair with racing.
We're here at the starting point of the U.S. Express,
one of the most daring races
in the United States.
That looks good.
DONATI: Tell me, what motivates you?
What inside drives you to do this?
I mean, are you... are you possessed?
-Is that a serious question? -Very.
Well, I'm crazy. I don't know what his excuse is.
MAN: He just drags me along, and I go.
You know, I don't know. I'm easily led astray, I guess.
DONATI: What motivates you? What is that,
in the middle of you, that makes you want to race?
A fear of underpaid airline pilots.
DONATI: A five-time entry of the Miss U.S. Express.
-Can we do that one over? -[laughter]
-Thank you. -I'm not...
I meant-- it's the U.S. Express, not "Miss."
Why would anybody do it twice?
-It's speed. -I like to go fast.
It's nice to go cross-country.
I have a new codriver because Jon,
uh, decided he didn't want to go.
And, uh, I wouldn't want to drive with anyone,
especially a friend,
who deep down inside didn't absolutely have to go.
I have to.
Maher, he wants to go.
And the instant I even hinted at what we were doing,
you could see it in his face.
And that's exactly what I want.
To me, Alex is more involved,
as everybody knows, in the planning and the preparation
and what goes into the-the pre-race stuff,
like, all the technology and-and the other stuff,
the intangibles that, you know...
He'll go out and look into what the weather's gonna be like
and-and all that stuff, which for me, like...
weather is only something that's gonna slow me down.
Uh, but he-he prepares for all that.
VIETZE: I think any...
any successful duo
n-needs to complement each other.
Um, they seem like an odd couple.
Who are these two guys?
Are they friends?
Why are they doing this together?
They weren't there to, uh... to go on a long drive together.
They're there 'cause their skills complement each other
and they're there to win.
I respect him for everything he is and, um...
and that I'm not, and I think it-it works both ways there.
I loved it that he called on me to do, uh... do the final run.
I knew he had other options.
Um, the fact that he called on me was...
You know, he told me, he was like,
"I want you to think about it for a night."
It didn't take me to get from when he asked me
to his front door before I said yes.
"Press plastic collar firmly onto body, high end in front.
[laughing]: "Urinate or vomit directly into the bag.
"Wait until liquid turns into biodegradable gel.
-Dispose of the bag in a waste receptacle." -This is the best.
MAN: That's the international symbol for:
"The whole family's got to go."
Uh, Graeber, your storm chaser suggestion has proven
to be very wise, as we're passing through in storm season,
and I've researched, uh, with JF, storm chaser cars.
We are amazingly equipped,
identical to the storm chaser cars-- identical.
So I've procured some amateur storm chaser club stickers,
hats, uh, throw pillows
-for-for Cory... -[laughs]
-Throw pillows? -[laughter]
And I've... and also, I...
Maher and I believe we should not have to lie,
so I've labeled the... all the GPS units, uh, Storm 1, Sky 1-2,
uh, Airspeed 3, and so if we're pulled over,
I don't think we need to actually say anything.
I think they'll just look inside, and I think one of us
should say, "Can you believe that storm front?"
-And then look, and then... -[chuckling]
I'm not joking. I really feel strongly about it.
ROY: Yeah.
This is where we're taking off.
My best friend, Paul Weismann, he's flying that plane.
Not for money. He's flying it for me.
To have someone like that in the plane,
not a gun for hire, but someone that close,
with Keith Baskett, another very good friend,
is a huge confidence builder.
-I imagine the white is best. -What do you hear
-about the weather? -Well, that's a problem.
-[chuckling] -Where's the... where's the...
I think you should open it up as often as you can.
-BASKETT: Right. -If there's a problem,
-we'll let you know. -Okay.
ROY: Well, my question is,
cops usually hit with radar
anywhere from a quarter mile to half a mile.
-So we can see that far? -That's easy.
We want you to go as fast as possible.
140-plus is... would be a good cruising speed.
-You'll have to. -[laughter]
Fuck.
Uh, the night we go... this is-is, uh partly cloudy,
isolated storms, 20%, 30% likelihood,
which is the same as last time.
Maybe ten percent worse, but I'm not worried about it.
32.07 is here at 88.9 average.
-Okay, I-I know this average, but, um... -Right.
...you had, like, a breakdown on...
I think on there, from the GPS
with, like, the speeds you're doing.
-Oh, you want... Yeah. -Um...
Yeah, like, I'm looking for, like,
extended periods where you're...
There weren't many extended periods like that.
It would be, like, there would be a good period,
like a... like three minutes, then slow down to 90,
-then speed up, then slow down to 90. -Right.
Um, there's very... it's very rare
to run above a hundred for more than a minute or two.
Unless there's a big open stretch in Texas, for example.
I plan on changing that.
♪
DOHERTY: We know that the zero hour
is coming up.
Um, we know that, uh,
some of us have been awake before the race
longer than we should have.
Sleep the day before the run.
Trying to get some rest
and failing miserably,
how am I gonna stay up for 30 hours?
DOHERTY: Those of us who had been through it beforehand
were more jittery than those
who were there for a first time.
We were all concerned that we all get out quickly
but not so quickly that we create a problem
for those behind us. It was adrenaline pumping.
Just incredible to be
in all the company of these people
and to know that we were all headed
toward a... toward a common goal and had
such amazingly clever
and different ideas of how to get there.
-DONATI: Hi. What's your name? -David Diem.
-And where are you from? -Newport Beach, California.
-What's your name? -Doug Turner.
And are you part of the same team, or are you...
-Certainly am. -Tell me,
what kind of car do you have?
We're driving a 308 Ferrari.
Anything special about it you want to tell people
-that you've been working on? -[both chuckling]
-DONATI: Everything. [chuckles] -Just a stock 308.
VIETZE: In a group of people getting together
to compete against each other for anything,
there's always those few people who show up
who are a little bit more serious than everyone else,
who are a little bit more competitive,
and in this case, I think there were, uh...
there were some... some participants
who took that to another level.
DIEM: Ferrari made a really durable car,
and we did all the things to make sure that the car
would be as good to us as, uh,
you know, we were trying to be to it.
We knew that two-thirds of the race
was at night, so we needed, uh, to light up
more road than the typical headlights would,
so we took four ten-inch Hellas and mounted them
under the front bumper so we could light up
almost a mile of road.
We turn on the lights in New York,
we can see California, and then we just...
-[laughter] -...just drive straight there.
ICE-T: The drivers of the U.S. Express
decked out their cars with 007-type gear.
Radar jammers, night vision goggles
and kill switches for their brake lights.
They had communication headsets,
police scanners and CB radios.
They spent months strategizing their routes.
U.S. Express racers were on a mission.
It was like their own cold war against the highway patrol.
There were a few rules. There were a few guidelines.
They were primarily on the safety side.
Where are our drivers? Can I see some hands? Drivers?
-Yeah! -Are we here?
Are we not? Where are we?
Go and check the exact tread depth on every vehicle.
But we, uh... we discounted people
who said they weren't prepared to come with a machine
that was at some equal proportion
to their driving skills.
We put a lot of effort into safety.
It sounds like an oxymoron.
But we did.
You had the right tires, you had the right cars,
you had the cars prepped a certain way.
Maybe not the exhaust of my RX-7
as it got red hot and caught fire.
DOHERTY: Uh, you generally had,
uh, attention to, uh... to electronics.
This is before cell phones, this is before GPS systems,
so you basically had to make the most of,
uh, knowing where you were.
And that meant citizens band,
and it meant a really good citizens band system,
radar detectors-- and I mean multiple
because you had front and rear.
You ran a second year, you said, "Wow,
"I better have two radar detectors in the front
in case one goes on me."
Um, wiring all this stuff together
meant you either were very good at electronics
or had friends or a craft shop that could integrate it.
Uh, police scanners were, uh...
were legal in most states but not all.
QUARTIERE: And do everything from add
extra fuel cells, so you had
far more gasoline.
Doug and Dave, you just have
to look at the car they were driving.
It was designed to be refueled quickly,
two pumps at the same time.
Throw the attendant a $50 bill and just bug out.
Who cares? "I don't want the change."
They had night vision scopes
so they could see.
The lighting that gave them
3,500 feet down the road so they could see.
DIEM: We learned the first year that, uh,
it was hard to communicate with each other,
so we built a cockpit communication system.
We built some, uh, cockpit switches
so we could turn the taillights off.
-Right. Yeah. -Turn the brake lights off.
JARLSON: And that's how dedicated and serious they were
about winning this thing.
There-there was no lark involved here.
This was a race, and that's where
they were different than the Cannonball guys.
DOHERTY: You're kind of feeling like
it's a, uh, space mission.
We know that the zero hour is coming up.
You're-you're counting all of your, uh...
uh, your food nibbling and water resources
and water elimination resources.
Your heart is pounding.
-JF. -Uh, so the storm has...
[continues indistinctly]
It's increased to 80%.
All right. Gina?
We're gonna get more lights turned on.
-Yes. You are? -Yes. Can we turn 'em all on?
She's gonna turn on all the floodlights.
STANDER: Did you get tickets?
-'Cause we got two warnings. -Five tickets...
-Oh, five tickets! -...and two warnings, yeah.
It takes a lot to win, you know?
Sometimes you got to sacrifice your honor. [chuckles]
[both laugh]
MICHAEL DiGONIS: It's, uh, almost amusing
to spend $150,000
on a car and equipment and prep work,
so that you can see if you can break your neck.
Now that's a beautiful thing, you know? [chuckles]
Yeah, I know.
-Oh! Jesus! -All right.
Everyone, Seth, my attorney.
[laughs] Come in, say hi to everybody.
Seth, Brian, Gina.
DiGONIS: I'm not sure
that we know why we did it.
It was just a challenge.
And that's the same reason
-why this crew is doing what they're doing tonight. -Right.
-Fuel this up. -DiGONIS: It's a challenge.
By the way, this type of thing makes
the 24 hours of Le Mans
look like a Boy Scout outing.
There is 18,700 and somewhat, uh...
law enforcement agencies around the United States.
Knowingly, they're gonna break the law at times,
but, uh, they'll probably pay the dues for that.
[both laugh]
In about three, four minutes, we got to go.
-Get ahead of you. -I know.
-Then you got to go. -Yeah.
[indistinct chatter]
-Goodbye. -All right. Good luck.
Thank you for everything. I really appreciate it.
All right. Call me for anything.
I will. Day and a half.
♪
Go.
[tires squeal]
♪ What has just come over me?
-Okay, we're on time. -[cheering and whooping]
We're good.
♪ I was blind, but now I see
-♪ I'm gonna live life like a ride ♪ -[horn honks]
ROY: Uh, fun.
I'm driving cross-country.
Uh, yes, definitely take that turnpike.
Very good.
-How fast can I go through? -30.
Uh, thermal check. Any point here?
MAHER: There is a scanner speed trap
coming up by this bridge.
ROY: Police on the right side.
Please kill the brake lights.
You're clear. This is the fast stretch.
Put it down.
MAN [over radio]: Keep going.
ROY: All right, thermal check.
-What's the deal with speed traps here? -It looks like
you are free. Uh, you're free to go.
-No speed trap for a while. -No speed traps.
Okay.
[man speaking indistinctly over radio]
MAHER: You're pretty golden here.
-ROY: Really? -MAHER: Yeah.
-ROY: How golden am I? -MAHER: Stick it right at 100.
You have a long way to go.
[Roy laughs]
♪ Now I have no fear...
-Pennsylvania border. -ROY: Are you kidding me?
-Already? -MAHER: Yep.
That's ridiculous.
-WOMAN [over radio]: 22-42. -Thank you.
-Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! -I see him, I see him. I got him.
♪ Leave it all behind
♪ All behind
♪ Whoa, all behind...
ROY: Ramp check?
It's all clear.
MAHER: There's one car coming up.
ROY: I don't see him.
You look ahead, I'll look behind, okay?
♪ Walk through the fire
♪ I gotta fight
♪ Don't let, don't let...
-He's not coming after us. -Okay.
Indianapolis at 5:39 a.m.
♪ Don't let, don't let go
♪ Walk through the fire
♪ Don't let, don't let go
♪ Into the night.
♪
MORSE: When we crossed the Mississippi,
it was the most glorious morning.
I truly remember how fortunate I was,
you know, just to cross that river at that time.
DOHERTY: You didn't make enough headway
in-in the night, you're now emerging in the daylight.
Sunday, Columbus Day weekend,
which again, we had researched to be
one of the quietest periods on the interstate.
So the roads are much emptier than usual.
But, um, you're into enforcement.
You're into, uh, 8:00 a.m., law enforcement
suddenly coming on the road.
But it was, it was very tough to get over the shock
of Sunday morning, when your body's saying,
"You've been in this vehicle now 12 hours. What are you doing?
Go to sleep."
QUARTIERE: It felt quite surreal.
Got it up to maybe 160, 165--
triple the speed limit-- so you smile and you see
that sun coming up.
It was gorgeous.
TURNER: There really wasn't a whole lot of conversation
between the two of us-- I mean, y-you're so busy,
the-the passenger was probably busier than the driver,
just making sure that everything was working right,
listening to the radios, uh...
DIEM: I remember being
100% focused on the task at hand,
whether I was in the right seat, driving all the equipment,
and asking Doug to keep his right foot on the gas...
-Yeah. -...or whether I was in the left seat being told
to keep my right foot on the gas
and concentrating on the, you know, the road ahead.
DOHERTY: The most important gear in any car
were the driver and codriver.
All the technology in the world couldn't help you
if you didn't anticipate those things ahead.
Why would anybody do it twice?
-Exactly. Um... -[laughs]
NEWSMAN: The U.S. Express.
Steve Clausman is most surprised at finishing first.
ICE-T: One thing the U.S. Express guys knew they needed
was a solid team: a driver and a codriver
who could do both jobs equally well
and who could work together with military efficiency
in close quarters.
David Morse and Steve Clausman...
-[tires screeching] -...were that type of team.
These two guys wanted to win.
They built a Porsche 928 with a massive fuel tank
that could make it across the country with only one stop.
But the machine was only half the equation.
Clausman was a professional driver, Morse a businessman,
a perfect pairing of strategy, skill and endurance.
CLAUSMAN: Right now, I look at it as probably
the stupidest thing I ever did in my whole life.
Okay? And I questioned myself many times.
Like, why in the hell did I do this? You know?
Nobody knew I was driving professionally, race cars.
I didn't really advertise the fact that I did.
And of course, David, with his thick, horn-rimmed glasses,
I mean, David looks like Joe Citizen.
But David's an absolute maniac.
In those races, he turned into
a completely different guy.
He was running at a risk. That's the bottom line.
He had his whole future, business-wise,
his whole financial future at stake,
and he still did it.
And I admire him for it.
Because he had the guts to do it.
Let me tell you, you were putting your life
in somebody else's hands,
you know, both ways, and, uh,
I trusted Steve.
ROY: We're in St. Louis 45-odd minutes early.
Excellent driving, Mr. Maher.
Okay.
Take a left, then a right.
GPS: Recalculating.
All right, I'm not spotting. Roll safe.
Make sure your detector's up.
-WEISMANN: 50? -In between 55-- it's looking like 55...
WEISMANN: Here we go.
This is, uh, 3834, 9021.
WEISMANN: Look for a high-speed car.
Looking.
Yeah, he's already west of our position.
You'd better call.
-What would you like it to say? -I need the latitude only.
We might've passed him.
-GOODRICH: Ready, guys? -Go ahead.
GOODRICH: Uh, north 3829, west 9046,
plus ten, I-44 West, approaching Gray Summit.
Somebody's moving quick-quick there.
-There, I have... -WEISMANN: Yeah, I think we got him.
Oh, yeah.
-We got 'em. -We have a visual.
I repeat: we have a visual.
WEISMANN: That's them.
Oh, wow. Man, he's moving.
Nice spotting, Captain.
-MAHER: Oh, whoa, whoa. -ROY: Ugh.
MAHER: Sorry.
We didn't damage our tires, did we?
No, it was just animal.
Morning.
Don't tell me they see us already.
He says "Look up."
Cowbell Air, this is Cowbell Ground. We have you in sight.
That's what...
There he is.
Can you hear us clearly? Over.
Dave.
I liked that move on Gumball. I don't like it here.
-Paul liked it. -Of course he likes it.
'Cause he wishes he was doing it. He wishes he was in the car.
You start to feel very vulnerable, particularly
-in a red car, doing that kind of speed. -DOHERTY: Oh, yeah.
Daylight was really tough,
because I'm sure you didn't do the-the-the 143,
55 and zero daytime?
Absolutely.
-[laughs] -Wow.
-Absolutely. -Wow. How many tickets that year?
I only got one, it was in Ohio.
-Okay. -But-but the thing we've told you, Rick.
-Yeah? -In '83, we hired a Turbo 210.
-Oh. -From California, that met us in St. Louis.
CLAUSMAN: Really? You have 'em?
You got the photographs and the video
of this pilot flying over the top of them?
INTERVIEWER: Truckers mistaked it for cops
and stopped tattling, and it was a lookout.
And it took video, and it took still photography.
[whispers]: Turn off your machine.
Turn it off.
DIEM: O-Out of all the preparation
and all the stories we heard about,
all the different tools and all the different approaches
that everyone had taken over the years,
it was the one tool that we hadn't heard anybody
had-had-had thought to-to deploy.
You're saying they did that?
-Wow. -LEE: These are the guys
in first place? Good for you, man.
[laughs] That's great.
I think that's good.
TURNER: Realistically, the plane
was not that big of a tool.
You know? It-it really wasn't. It, uh...
It was a confidence builder more than anything.
That's precisely said.
-That's exactly what it was. -Maybe spotted the l--
the law enforcement once or twice,
during the entire daylight time from sunup to sundown.
-Yep. That's exactly right. -It was just
the confidence of knowing that we're sitting there
in a, in a bright red car
doing 140 miles an hour-plus down the road,
knowing that someone is up there looking forward and back.
And it just, it was a confidence builder
-to keep your foot down. -Yep.
Yeah, so how many people think we cheated?
If you had a plane that could slow down that slow
and fly that route,
you gonna tell me they're not gonna get caught?
Crap. You're gonna get caught.
You're gonna get busted.
You got to be really coy and sly about everything you do.
[clears throat] That's a dead giveaway. Come on.
A plane flying over the highway and spotting cops for you?
[grunts]
Would I consider hiring an airplane
to be, um, outside the rulebook?
Maybe.
I'd have to think about that one.
Rules? What rules?
Um, there were a few rules.
There were a few guidelines.
They were primarily on the safety side.
Having radar jammers and scanners and...
a godawful amount of electronics is quite all right.
As long as your four tires stay on the ground.
And nothing else, um, happens.
And, of course, you can't turn anybody else in.
-GOODRICH: God, he's flying. -WEISMANN: Here he comes.
GOODRICH: He is fucking flying, dude.
WEISMANN: You're all clear.
All clear, all clear.
♪
USNER: Well, you can't look at the fact that you're doing
a football field every second and a half.
I mean, we have freeways that are built for running
at least a minimum of 100 miles an hour safely.
Speed is something that-that drivers
just must become immune to.
You can't let the-the number
bog your mind down.
Remember: concentrate on whatever you're doing.
Just like I must concentrate on this interview now,
when you drive a car,
you should concentrate on the car that you drive.
Cop, left side.
Cop also on-- possibly on right side.
-Slow it up now. -We're within range. We're fine.
Yep. Cops on both sides.
-CORY WELLES: Clear. -MAHER: Nice work.
And that guy would so fucking come after us.
Oh, yeah, he's got that whole...
WOMAN [over radio]: Any personnel with the subject?
Look at that.
BASKETT: Buzzing right now on the bikes, yeah?
GOODRICH: Yeah, here he comes.
You really think Turner, Diem, or anyone else could do that?
Most of the way?
-It's possible. -Eastbound, you got
a full-grown at 207 on the right side facing, uh, you?
WEISMANN: Watch out for all the sixes there, Westbound.
You're good to go already. It's pretty quiet.
We good to go through, uh, Oklahoma City to Amarillo?
-Hammer down. -Love it.
QUARTIERE: It was quite pleasing
to go three times the 55-mile-an-hour speed limit.
On a straight road with no other traffic around us.
We really were not a reckless bunch at all.
Well, it's open to interpretation.
But to hit 165, which was pushing it in the Ferrari,
was quite rewarding.
It was very rewarding indeed.
[radio static]
The 55-mile-per-hour speed limit saves lives, fuel,
and even saves you money at the gas pump.
If every Oklahoman drove 55 on our highways,
we could save over 250,000 gallons of gas every day.
And more important, if we all slowed down,
we would save as many as 100 lives in Oklahoma every year.
Why 55? Because it works.
Okay, slow down,
slow down, slow down, oh, cop, cop, cop, cop, cop.
DISPATCHER: 79. That's right across from Bixby's store...
That was definitely a cop.
-Had two people in the car, right? -Yeah, but...
-It was a cop. -That was definitely a cop.
Next time I say "cop," full braking, like, instantly.
-No fucking around. -Okay.
I had no respect for the 55-mile-an-hour limit,
and I took great delight in breaking the limit,
I can assure you.
These roads are designed for speed.
They're not designed for 55.
It was an arbitrary political decision that, uh,
different states enforced differently,
different law enforcement officials we met
during the event and before and after the events,
uh, felt differently about.
There was no such thing as 55 miles an hour.
It didn't make any difference. I never saw 55.
-I think it's too slow. -It's one of the best things
that the government could have done,
to slow everybody down a little bit.
Everybody goes too fast anyways.
I think it's a sin, actually.
It's a free country, I pay my taxes.
I think I ought to be able, able to go about
as fast as I want to go.
It's just too slow, too slow.
I think it's real healthy.
-Yeah. -I think it could go up to 60.
Trying to pick up some speed here.
WEISMANN: You got miles ahead.
Ramp check clear.
WEISMANN: He is coming up on these guys, zoom, zing, zang.
Gonna go right around that truck.
GOODRICH: Maher goes any-lane style.
WEISMANN: Good. That's what you need.
[indistinct radio chatter]
If we keep this up, we might have time for a stop in Vegas.
Maybe we can buy a joke book while we're there.
VIETZE: It's unbelievable
to get an airplane involved, to have
a fucking plane as part of your operation...
WEISMANN: How we doing?
GOODRICH: Clear, good. Pretty good.
I can't believe they can't transmit.
WEISMANN: It's terrible.
We should've tested it.
...and you never once checked the radio
to make sure you could communicate with them?
GOODRICH: There's got to-- it's-it's operator error.
WEISMANN: I can't-- it's got to be.
VIETZE: The whole point of the plane being there was
for communication purposes.
Uh, for them to be able to let them know, on the ground,
-that there were police ahead. -MAHER: Here's a toll.
What was that? Brakes?
I don't know.
That was not the engine. That was the brakes.
Yeah.
MAHER: What do you think? Any special...
ROY: All the way to the right, all the way to the right.
-How you doing? $3.50. -How do?
Can I have a receipt, please?
TOLL BOOTH OPERATOR: Have a good one.
Thank you.
[engine revving]
[horn blares]
ROY: Ah, come on.
MAHER: I thought there was more room.
We're storm chasers. We're here to save your lives.
[static]
Can't you see how many lives we want to save?
27 miles to Oklahoma City.
[indistinct chatter]
[static]
Really don't like those in Oklahoma,
Dave, seriously.
One call from one of those guys...
-I know. He... -...could fuck us completely.
He hit the accelerator too hard, you know. I...
I understand, but listen.
It's not worth 45 seconds to fuck the whole drive
because one of those guys has a problem with us.
-Stealth is the key, and we, you know... -[laughs]
You know, I have to laugh, because you're not stealthy
-when you go by anybody at a... -Yeah, I know, but...
-Whether it's 105 or 145. -Wait a second. Wait a second.
It-It's whether someone chooses to call or not call.
"Oh, some asshole came by in a blue car,"
-versus "I'm calling the police about this asshole." -Right.
All right? And that's the difference between us...
-I understand. -...you know, getting a phone call
-six months from now.... -You're totally right.
-No, you're totally right. -...having a warrant
for our arrest in Oklahoma.
DiGONIS: Once you're in the event
and once you're competing against others,
if you try too hard,
sometimes you'll give 'em the impression that you're wild.
Um, if you don't try hard enough,
you'll embarrass yourself.
So I chose the first.
DOHERTY: Man with no fear.
Mike showed up with this, uh, this Pantera.
At least it was a Pantera
at one time.
Instead of a V-8 engine, we were pretty sure to this day
it had Apollo rocket engines under the hood.
And this thing
could go 200 miles an hour.
I want to to do it again.
Where are all these guys going?
I got to race 'em for some money.
We didn't make any money doing all of this.
STANDER: Oh, Mike is ten tenths,
holds back no punches. Um,
exceptional driver.
Uh, drove on the ragged edge, and did it
with a smile. No-Fear DiGonis.
He was the original
no-fear guy.
Couple of thousand miles into the race,
we just had
the secondary side of the coil wires shake loose.
The fellow that was driving with me, Rafael,
was a technician in my place of business.
He was comfortable enough with the car.
He got out the window, passenger side,
crawled onto the roof,
laid himself onto the rear deck of the car,
and surgically and very carefully managed
to remedy the problem with a secondary ignition system.
Uh... returning to the car
through the passenger door window,
sit himself in, strap himself up again,
and continue the race.
So that worked out okay.
[laughs]
INTERVIEWER: How fast were you going at that point?
Well, I had to be kind to him, so I slowed down
to about 80 or 90 mile an hour.
Uh... it was, uh...
It was a comfortable speed for him.
Had he done this before?
I didn't ask him if he had done it before.
I just... suggested
that he better do it this time. [laughs]
'Cause we didn't have too many options.
GPS: Drive 120, 66 miles
to final point.
-[ding] -GPS: Reroute.
-Recalculating. Recalculating. -[ding]
-ROY: Shut up. -GPS: Ten, ten.
WEISMANN: We got you inside. We got you inside at Conoco.
GOODRICH: Holy shit.
WEISMANN: What?
Their overall average speed-- 93.6.
WEISMANN: Put the foot down, guys.
We're looking out for you.
Let's go to Texas.
ROY: So, Dave, do you know how
to use a BlackBerry to send text messages?
You type in, uh, latitude and longitude, first four digits
that are on the thing, and then I-44 West.
-They talking about us? -No.
OFFICER: Uh, weaving over the line, in and out.
DISPATCHER: Okay.
[dispatcher speaking indistinctly]
Everyone used as much gas as everyone else?
That's us.
-MAN: I have 116. -ROY: What do we do?
116. So that's the guy. Where is he?
-[beeping] -He's right ahead.
That's him right there.
Does he see us?
We'll hear in a second.
Oh, my God. Yeah.
He's braking. I think he's turning around.
-Is he really? -Yeah.
-For sure? -Well, should-should we get out?
-Yeah. -He's crossing over the median.
[Roy sighs]
All right. Let's get out at this exit and hide.
I don't know if we're gonna have a lot of room to hide out here.
-There's not many hiding places. -Yeah?
-Oh, my God, my heart is about to fucking fall out. -Well...
MAHER: It's only hearsay.
You know, he didn't catch you doing it.
He may... He'll follow you for a little bit.
-I don't think he can pull you over. -[mumbles]
I don't know.
Should we hide anything, or...?
What if I get out right here?
Um...
Well, there's, there's nowhere to go.
-I mean... -Check the map.
Get off, let 'em pass.
What do you think? Right now.
Go.
[static]
ROY: Brake lights off.
He was weaving.
-Eyes open. -Careful. Careful. Stop sign.
Stop sign.
Go this way. Go this way.
-Wait. -You see him?
MAHER: I can't see if he's coming.
[officer speaking indistinctly]
-All right, so... -He thinks we're still going.
-MAHER: I'm gonna get out. -ROY: Yes.
We got him pissed right here.
I mean...
Should I shut... shut this off?
-Turn me off. All power. -WELLES: Off all power.
[beep]
INGEBORG ROY: I'm trying to feel peaceful,
but it's the surface that is peaceful,
not the inside.
I worry like crazy.
That's really what it all is, uh... is about.
Very difficult.
I'm excited, but I won't sleep.
I believe in fate.
Something is meant to be,
it'll be fine, we'll be protected.
If it's not meant to be,
then something will happen that will
stop it right in the middle of tracks.
But whether you scream or not,
one's children do whatever they need to do.
I won't probably won't be sleeping much.
But that's okay.
With, you know...
it goes with the territory, you know.
One is excited and yet very concerned.
[footsteps passing nearby]
[woman speaking indistinctly]
Mmm. See, even the cigarette went out,
which is just as well. [laughs]
WEISMANN: Cowbell Ground, Cowbell Ground, Cowbell Air.
Jonny, any update on that coordinate?
GOODRICH: I keep asking for 'em.
-I'm trying, man. -What the hell else
can they be doing?
We need updates, man.
They should be in that stretch of road, definitely.
[choppy radio static]
Maybe you should take over.
All right.
Put the scanner back on.
Just press power. You know how?
-Let's try to find 'em. -BASKETT: What do you see, Jon?
WEISMANN: What's that?
GOODRICH: It's... an SUV cop sitting in the median.
Something else pulling over.
WEISMANN: Two bogeys. Two bogeys at 9811.
BASKETT: I wonder if they're looking for them.
WEISMANN: All right, they're talking to each other.
-GOODRICH: Yeah, they are. -Ground, we need an update.
We need an update now, please.
Uh, it's halfway to the Oklahoma border of Texas.
That's nice work.
9811. 9811.
[indistinct radio chatter]
You got a bogey. 9811.
Police vehicle on center median?
Yes, it is. There he is.
WEISMANN: Is that them?
GOODRICH: Oh, there he is, hiding behind that truck,
-just past the off-ramp. -Stay behind that truck.
There's, uh, dual bogeys
about a quarter mile up ahead on the left.
[indistinct radio transmission]
There-There's two of them.
[laughing]
Yes!
GOODRICH: He's past.
But I bet he's trying to let his ring piece go loose again.
[laughter]
-Thank you, big cover. -[laughs]
Whew!
Um, Dave?
Uh, if you want to switch again,
so we can burn out of this state, fine.
Otherwise, I'm gonna hold it at, like, the mid-80s
or high, like, 90-ish
and then blast through Texas.
Because...
you know, they're on to us.
And there's only one road out of this state.
♪
DOHERTY: A lot of things came together in 1983
that-that gave us a...
a lot of doubt there'd be another U.S. Express.
The Cannonball Run movie had come out,
and, even though it was a farce,
all of a sudden you started hearing
on the citizen band radio, uh, "Wow, could be a Cannonball
going through here," that sort of thing.
MAN [over radio]: Who you been talking to?
MAN 2: Foreign... French sports car was, uh, going westbound.
MAN 3: There was a Cannonball this weekend.
QUARTIERE: The event ended in '83.
My belief is
it became publicized.
And you have liability issues.
And other things crop up.
The police are waiting for you.
They knew about the race.
They knew it was coming through, and they were pissed.
We left separated by at least 15 minutes a car.
So it's not as if you're running next to each other.
But you still run into traffic.
You still run into obstacles.
I can't remember exactly the geographic point.
There's a roadblock.
And he says, "I know what you're doing,
I'm taking you to jail," and I looked at him, I said,
"What are you talking about?" He said, "Well, you're a part
of this race." I said, "What race?"
That pretty much spelled the end of, uh, the U.S. Express.
What do you see?
I see, uh, your foot to the floor
to the top of the next hill.
They're doing amazing.
They're kicking major ass here.
BASKETT: What was the average miles here, Jon?
-GOODRICH: I think he said it was, uh, 93.6. -Whoa.
MAHER: They said a small thunderstorm
is starting to form.
That'll be a problem.
ROY: Small? That's great.
There was an 80% likelihood before.
[over radio]: Hey, guys, we're 14 out, going to get fuel.
We'll, uh, regroup. We'll call you from the ground.
We might not see 'em again after this storm.
ROY: Why? Visibility is dropping, so...
patrol saw less cop cars on the other side.
MAHER: One good thing I learned about driving in the rain
is that you really don't get many cops out
'cause none of 'em want to get wet,
so they don't want to pull you over and give you a ticket.
I can't see shit.
[indistinct talking]
-MAHER: What are you asking for? -ROY: Ramp check on the right.
You're clear.
It's not cops so much we have to worry about at this point,
it's control and speed.
♪
EGLOFF: The wind and rain can cut through you real quick,
you know, and, you know, bring your fatigue down,
but that's part of the rally, we're just gonna...
That's part of the accomplishment, the endurance,
-making it, you know? -MORSE: Well, the person
I think I admired the most was the person
who rode the motorcycle.
I can't think of going fast,
cross-country...
[chuckling]: you know, holding on to a motorcycle--
oh, please-- in the middle of the night
as being even close to fun.
-How'd you do the other times? -Very good.
-Super. You gonna win this time? -Yes.
DOHERTY: Only one human being ran two Cannonballs
and four U.S. Expresses,
and that's George Egloff.
When you look at a sign somewhere
in Kansas or Nebraska or...
and the mileage across the state is, like, oh, God, no.
DOHERTY: Doing this for almost two days?
Uh, going from one ocean to the other?
There's no other event like it-- nothing's ever been done
in Europe like that, nothing's been done in Australia,
nothing in, uh, South America or Africa.
Um, his record will stand the test of time.
My dad and mom
had motorcycles.
My mom, I got her picture
inHarley Women magazine
when she rode a motorcycle back then.
My whole family's always been into motorcycling.
It's just a good thing, I think.
It seemed that I always got involved
in this long-distance stuff.
I used to go on touring trips,
you know, just to ride around Lake Ontario
for the heck of it on a weekend, you know?
Everything was just going right in my life
-at that time. -DOHERTY: George is just...
a sportsman-- uh, knew he'd never win.
Uh, he'll never be challenged, to my knowledge,
for... for the endurance of this alone.
I mean, he was referred to as, you know,
Iron Kidney Egloff for a while.
♪
Hope those guys are all right in the plane.
I'm gonna get a Double Whopper with Cheese.
I want the TenderGrill chicken sandwich.
What's a value Angus meal?
What's an Angus meal?
This says we're past the weather on the weather map.
I'm having a hard time believing it.
You're filing down to one lane again.
Goddamn it!
Holy cow.
This goes on forever...
You don't have to do 35 miles an hour
just because there's one lane. I don't get it.
[frustrated sigh]
22 miles an hour.
This is so fucking brutal.
I can't stand it anymore.
Want to play cards or something?
Breaker 1-9, this is Big D in the Eagle.
CLAUSMAN: You cannot compare the traffic conditions
of when it was that... at those days as it is now.
There are too many people on the road
to be able to even think that you can accomplish that
without a police escort.
There's too much traffic.
GOODRICH: So what do you want me to tell these fucking guys?
WEISMANN: Tell 'em to sit tight, we're on our way.
Copy that.
[sighs] Goodrich says, "Sit down.
"We're close by. Weather a little crazy up here,
but we're doing everything we can."
Is it open?
Wide open. Get rid of the cigarette. Let's go.
All right, put the pedal down.
Don't lift up until I say.
ROY: I want to see your best-ever spotting
of all time.
Watch this guy. He's got his blinker on.
[winces]
-Are we okay? -Yeah.
Just hope he doesn't call us in.
Current position: Alley Ray 10435.
I repeat: 10435.
10435. He's coming up on, uh, Anton Chico pretty quick.
Look at how open and stretched the roads are.
There's no place to hide.
That guy's going very fast.
-Looks... I'm still thinking... -Looks like them.
Whoo-hoo!
WEISMANN: Ground, we are directly overhead, kids.
Ha-ha, we got you in sight.
Truck stop on the right.
All clear...
Feels good to have 'em back.
It does.
MAN [over radio]: All right, drivers, I see blue sky
going west.
♪
MAHER: 120 all the way around this bend.
Your next ramp is, uh...
has got nothing-- all clear.
Ramp's clear, but watch this truck.
Nice move.
♪
WEISMANN: There he goes. He's moving.
That's how we like it, boys, that's how we like it.
GOODRICH: My God, he's on it! Yeah!
BASKETT: Where is he? Where is he?
WEISMANN: He's shooting over this bridge.
GOODRICH: Yeah, he just blew over this.
Holy shit.
Clear until tomorrow.
♪
[indistinct radio chatter]
♪
[speaking indistinctly]
♪
WEISMANN: Wow, these guys are really in the homestretch here.
GOODRICH: They really are.
WEISMANN: You guys are hauling ass.
Doing great.
We love it up here.
Desert style. Wow.
Power stays on.
TRUCKER [over radio]: Hey, you west-bounders up there,
I got a sports car coming, doing about 95 miles an hour.
TRUCKER 2: How about I try the old
"throw the left turn signal on
just before he gets here trick," see if that bothers him.
CLAUSMAN: They were high.
They'd be putting on mile after mile after mile.
And they'd talk like old ladies.
"Breaker 1-9. Here, this is,
this is the Blue Canyon Bulldog."
TRUCKER 3: That sucker can run 200 mile an hour,
but it sure as hell can't outrun a Motorola radio wave.
CLAUSMAN: If you went by those trucks and you blew by 'em,
they turned you into the cops.
We had to be cool.
When they kept passing the word that we were coming,
way up ahead, these trucks would get in each,
block both lanes.
You can always tell how someone drives
by their relationship with truckers.
America moves by truck,
and if you want to efficiently move down the highway,
you have to know how to deal with them.
WEISMANN: The next mile is terrible.
Truck upon truck piled up next to each other.
-[indistinct radio transmission] -Ramp check.
MAN [over radio]: Yeah.
I'm doing 70 miles an hour, you don't need a ramp check.
TRUCKER: Well, that's gonna put us ahead of him.
MAHER: How can you not even initiate the move
-to get out of the way? -ROY: I know.
It's nuts.
[Maher exhales]
TRUCKER: I said the way the nose
-was up in the air... -Come on.
DIEM: The key to racing is,
is to be properly trained and to do it within safe limits.
And as fast as we were going across the country
at 143 miles an hour, which-which a lot of people
would probably say, "Gee, how unsafe is that,"
there-there wasn't a moment in time that entire race
that I didn't think that we were 100%
well within our-our safety zone.
FARAH: When you deal with truckers,
you want to drive by the book.
Take passes at safe times, alert,
use the hazards
to thank them for moving out of the way.
If you communicate your intentions with them
in a respectful way,
they will make your day very easy.
ROY: Oh, rabbit. Whoa!
[indistinct radio chatter]
MAHER: I wonder if your, uh, front camera caught that.
-ROY: Wow. -MAHER: That was a huge jackrabbit.
Oh. [scoffs] Yeah.
♪
Hey, kindly coming down on your right side.
Oh-oh, cop, cop, cop, cop, cop, cop, cop. Cop.
It's all right.
-Brake lights on when? -Now.
-MAHER: He's facing the other way. -ROY: Yeah.
How good am I?
That was a great call.
Love you for that.
Brake lights off?
Brake lights off.
Voilà. Arizona.
He couldn't possibly think somebody would be doing
126 miles an hour in bad weather.
[Roy laughs]
ROY: What, what, what?
[Welles speaks indistinctly]
ROY: What the fuck is this?
It's a 35-mile-an-hour... construction zone.
[chuckles]
ROY: Holy fuck. Arizona, New Mexico,
I will never come back.
No!
Trying so hard.
ROY: It-It's like...
some...
Twilight Zoneepisode
about people who want to race cross-country.
MAHER: At least do the posted speed limit at least,
and add ten.
[sighs] Fucking shit.
Tony wins and Jeff don't, Jeff's upset.
[laughs] That's how it goes.
It's the male ego, i-it's built into you, you know?
[laughs] You got to win.
MAHER: I don't think you can possibly do this
with all this one-lane stuff.
I don't think it can be done.
I think it can be done.
I think we'll do it.
MAHER: Ready to scream.
DOHERTY: We are by nature a competitive species.
And we tend to get better
by competing against as close to our peer as we can,
and then raising the bar.
TV REPORTER: So tell me one last question.
Are you going to win today?
-Well, we'll win tomorrow. -[laughs]
30 hours from now.
JARLSON: It's being number one, and, well,
second place is the first loser.
Americans always have been very competitive people.
It's part of our nature.
MAHER: You know what?
-I don't want failure to be an option. -No.
I want to fucking break this record.
And going into it, I thought it-it was a no-brainer.
Um, but getting in under 32,
I thought, was extremely achievable.
I-It is, but certain things
have to fall into place, you know?
Beyond-- these are beyond our control.
Yeah.
-MAHER: Whoa. -WELLES: Whoa. That was cool.
MAHER: Whoa. What was that?
-WELLES: Lightning. -ROY: Lightning.
MAHER: That's great because we're gonna go right into it.
It's somehow ironic that, you know,
as we come to the final stage, the thermals don't work,
the scanner frequencies, for Arizona, don't work.
MAHER: Forget about the thermals.
I can hardly see where the fucking road is.
BECKY DAMONE: It was almost like hitting a wall.
You know, it just...
I think you just finally...
you realize you're tired,
'cause we didn't sleep.
Neither one of us slept.
Staying up was part of the battle.
Um, going fast for the first thousand, 1,500 miles,
that wasn't difficult.
The second leg of the trip
was where, uh, fatigue would set in.
EGLOFF: If I took a little 45-minute nap,
that would rejuvenate me and I'd go again.
That's part of the rally. We're just gonna...
That's part of the accomplishment,
the endurance. Making it, you know.
♪
ROY: Here's the response.
Uh... "Storm is still heading north.
"Lots of rain south of the storm as well.
"The worst of the storm will hit Flagstaff
"in 30 minutes.
What is your distance from Flagstaff?"
-Our distance from Flagstaff... -70 miles.
70. So at this speed...
We'll be there in a half hour.
We'll be there exactly when the storm hits.
-But we're better... -We're not traveling
the same way the storm is traveling, right?
We-We don't know. I mean, again,
he said if the storm is south of Flagstaff...
WELLES: That's traveling north, though.
ROY: Heading north.
So my feeling is... I know exactly what...
[Welles speaking indistinctly]
...Dave is gonna say
and what you're gonna say is, the faster we go now...
-Yeah. -the better,
because whether we have to go through it
or we miss it, we need to make up time.
Um...
It's so unfortunate, but it's so true.
WELLES: Yep.
[beeping]
VIETZE: I mean, you think somebody
doing something so illegal
would be kind of shunned.
Uh, and-and yet, you know,
Alex has spun it in a, in a different way.
And act-actually, Alex has built
his whole career around-around this.
Please welcome seven-time road rally champion Alex Roy.
-Alex, come on out here. -[cheers and applause]
-What? -Uh, so you decided
that you wanted to-to attempt this.
How did you go about it? What were the tricks?
And, uh, what have you learned?
-Well, it's not a good idea. -Mm-hmm.
I mean, no. It-It's really hard.
-Yeah. -Uh, so we bought, you know,
a radar detector and a laser jammer,
and then we went on eBay and bought, uh,
-military thermal night vision. -Wow.
And then we bought...
Wh-What is the night vision for?
It's a camera on the front bumper,
and then you can drive without headlights.
Uh, and you take an airplane with you?
I have a good friend who has a plane.
-Yeah. -And he flew it overhead
and, uh, told us where the police were.
I mean, actually, it turned out to be a pretty good,
a good investment, because a lot of come--
has come out of this for Alex.
You know, since he did this,
there's been, uh, numerous feature
magazine articles about him.
Uh, you know, he was invited onto David Letterman.
Um, he was invited to speak at the FBI
to a, to a class at the FBI in training.
He's done Google Talks.
I'm sure he's gonna do a TED Talk someday
about something, if he hasn't already.
Alex, today, uh, and always has been,
a-a tremendous kind of advocate
for-for driver safety, uh, for safety on the road.
Alex is, to this day, one of the safest, uh...
-Nah, I can't say that. -INTERVIEWER: He's not.
-He's not. -[interviewer laughs]
[beeping]
Perfect.
Got to come back in the seat a little.
Clear on the right? Clear on the right?
Clear.
Alex, we really got to hustle.
If you did a hundred miles an hour
the rest of the way in...
I mean, even more gas, dude.
I mean, we're...
I'm telling you it's very possible we may not.
There's something about getting into a car,
and the minute you know you're in a race, you're in a race.
And you don't care what happens after that.
ROY: Can I pass them over the double yellow?
MAHER: Absolutely.
ROY: What's on the right side?
-Cap? -Cap.
ROY: Well, in "M" mode, this car's really good.
[Maher chuckles]
SULLIVAN: So, all the way to the finish line,
from when we hit the California border,
we were flying and looking behind us, waiting
for those guys to catch us. That was our big thing.
We got to get there before them, 'cause,
you know, maybe we'll catch somebody in the process
and-and move up a place, but there's no way
-we were letting those guys... -INTERVIEWER: Right.
There's this almost 3,000-mile race,
and it turns out to be a sprint
for the last 200, 300 miles.
All clear down the median.
Thermals and binoculars.
You know, I should've waited for Josh to pull up.
WELLES: He's giving me... he's gonna have to follow...
find us.
Don't worry about him.
ROY: I see a Cayenne Turbo with high-powered Xenons back there.
That was a great intercept.
[indistinct chatter]
-ROY: How far... -WELLES: Stay left.
ROY: How far to the exit?
WELLES: How many miles?
MAHER: Five. Little over five.
[Welles speaking indistinctly]
♪
ROY: Over here...
This is gonna ruin the footage for the movie.
WELLES: He's probably gonna race you...
MAHER: Oh, the Ferrari?
[speaks indistinctly]
[indistinct radio transmission]
Oh, yeah, he's on.
Come on, Wexler.
He's not as crazy as you, though.
WELLES: That's perfect.
Stay left. Just keep going.
[Welles speaking indistinctly]
This is the quieter part.
I need all this video of what we're doing right now...
-This alone... -Just worry about the driving.
Oh, my God.
It's gonna be insane.
[laughs]
-♪ -[indistinct talking]
MAHER: Yeah.
WELLES: Back to the left.
Hammer down.
Is that a motorcycle?
MAHER: It's a motorcycle.
[indistinct chatter]
-WELLES: No. No. -MAHER: No.
-Give him some space. -[Welles speaks indistinctly]
WELLES: Your exit is 4th Street.
Two exits to go.
MAHER: 4th and 5th Street,
-one mile? -WELLES: Yeah.
[indistinct talking]
MAHER: Yes.
-WELLES: Yes... -[Maher speaks indistinctly]
WELLES: You follow 4th Street.
4th Street's gonna go on.
♪
ROY: Let's roll windows down?
-Left side. -4th only, left side.
Windows down?
WELLES: Careful.
-MAHER: Careful, careful. -WELLES: Stay straight.
You're not following these people. Straight.
Take a right at the light.
All righty.
MAHER: Have a green.
-ROY: Right here? -WELLES: Yes.
-Careful, careful, careful. -ROY: I got, I got, I got it.
WELLES: Left at the light.
-Cop. -Which car?
Oh.
[indistinct radio transmission]
He's making a U-turn?
Don't worry about it. Go.
JARLSON: I was there for the finish.
Someone...
was spotting further out, and said,
"They're here. They're on their way right now."
-Go for this car, go for this car? -Don't worry about it.
JARLSON: He still had his foot in it.
He was going for every second of time he could get.
[excited shouts]
Come on. You got to run, kid!
Run!
[indistinct talking]
WOMAN: Okay, and then hold on to that.
-MAN: Here's how it looks. -Okay?
Where's the time card?
Straight in.
[indistinct radio transmission]
ROY: Where's the time card?
MAN: Punch the card, punch the card.
-Here. -You take the card. I got to see to the Honda.
Punch the card, man.
-Where's the clock? -It's right there on the dash.
WRIGHT: I put it in the realm
of one of those crazy things I did as a kid that, um...
You know, again, you know, it feels like this weird...
dream I had. You know, you know,
I still kind of... it's hard to believe
that I actually went and did that.
But, um, I'm really glad I did.
Um, but it's... it feels
like a surreal part of my life.
And so the fact that, you know, periodically, your life
can kind of jump into, you know, surreal space,
um... you know,
makes me very happy, actually.
You know, and I look forward to more of those episodes,
-you know, in the future. -[sighs]: Wow.
JARLSON: And when they got out of the car, you could see...
as they got out of the car, they were excited,
and all of a sudden it just...
boom, we're here.
You know, the usual champagne stuff
and hugging everybody, but that was about it.
It was just kind of...
it wasn't a big thing, it was just kind of over.
It just ended.
ROY: I think this might be
the most important thing I've done in my life.
Ah, you got a ways to go, but's it's pretty...
-Oh, maybe. -it's right up there.
-I think it might be. -And then they'll be looking
-for you the rest of your life. -I know.
[indistinct chatter]
♪
ICE-T: Breaking cross-country speed records isn't baseball.
The stats are unofficial.
There's no sanctioning body.
But for Alex and Dave, proving a legitimate time
was just as important as the run itself.
Time stamps.
GPS tracking.
Gas fill-up receipts.
Anything that matches a time
with a location that can't be forged or faked.
Alex and David documented everything,
while film producer Cory Welles
set up a studio in the back seat
to capture the run on camera.
They returned with a mountain of evidence
to prove their time was legit,
and they had indeed broken the record.
Even more than that, Alex proved that the time
Diem and Turner set in 1983
was not only possible,
but it could be beaten.
And yet one question remains:
Why would anyone risk their life in a speeding gas bomb
to cross 3,000 miles quicker than some other guy
in another car with the same crazy idea?
Why did Cannon Ball Baker do it?
Why did Brock Yates or Rick Doherty
or Diem and Turner do it?
Why did Alex and David do it?
Was it personal satisfaction?
Were they chasing something,
or werethey being chased?
Those questions can't be answered with gas receipts
or GPS or a spotter plane.
We just have to take their word for it.
CLAUSMAN: I can sit here right now and say
what we did was the stupidest thing in the world.
Dumb. Crazy.
But like I said, we'd do it again.
STANDER: Now we're grown up and mature and we're responsible,
and, uh... gee, if somebody told me
that they were ready to do this again,
count me in. [laughs]
I'm ready to go at it again.
MORSE: I'm really glad I did it.
I think I'd die if my kids
-ever did it, though. -DOHERTY: I always wished
that I'd get a phone call saying, "Rick, it's happened.
"We've got enough people. Can you run?
We'd like to have you back."
And, uh, I'm still waiting for that phone call myself,
instead of having to make that phone call to others.
ICE-T: After letting the statute of limitations expire,
Alex and Dave were able to discuss
their accomplishments publicly.
What can be said about Alex is he opened up the floodgates.
Since then, every October, small teams set out
to travel coast-to-coast.
Some do it for the fun, some the adventure,
and some set records, too.
♪
-[applause] -Congratulations.
Hey.
[cheers and applause]
Hey, welcome, George.
WOMAN: We are awfully glad to see you.
♪
WOMAN: Hey, you made it this time
-in time for the banquet. -Oh, yeah.
Did you have any equipment problems or anything?
Yeah, the center stand fell off, uh, the windshield cracked,
and I lost my face shield.
-One ticket in Arizona? -What?
-One ticket in Arizona? -Yeah. 104 in Arizona.
[laughs]
Oh, I got stopped, also, for doing 82,
but I talked my way out of it.
WOMAN: What did you tell 'em?
That, uh-- oh, my headlight was falling out,
and I had it tied to a bungee cord,
and I wanted to try to make it to a shop by nightfall.
[laughter]
WOMAN 2: That sounds good.
CLAUSMAN: I don't know, man, guys,
I'm 42 years old, and I'm having a kick-ass time,
and you guys are younger.
Let's liven up, get drunk, get naked or something.
You know, make... make something happen around here, you know.
I mean, for Christ's sake.
I want to do it again.
Where are all these guys going?
I got to race 'em for some money.
We didn't make any money doing all of this.
No, our lights, uh...
We-we-we turn on the lights in New York
and we see California, and then we just...
just drive straight here.
[laughter]
So this is a, this is a very competitive event.
We're, uh...
we're in it for enjoying the American highway.
We're in it for, uh, for proving that we can do something
in time, speed, distance
with other people who enjoy
that same highway and camaraderie.
♪