The Great Cannonball Boom

https://www.gq.com/story/the-great-cannonball-boom

by Digit-Al • 6 years ago

45 56 6 years ago

Havoc• 6 years ago

Ed's youtube vinwiki is also worth checking out. Lots of funny car stories on there. Not entirely convinced they're all 100% true but entertaining nonetheless

myself248• 6 years ago

Oh man, I fell down that rabbithole the other day and they are fantastic. Many parts of many stories have photos and stuff to back 'em up, but in between the corroborating evidence, sure, who knows about the details? I suspect they're very substantially true though, having done enough shit myself that results in stories with exactly the same ring when told. ;)

TenebrisNoctis• 6 years ago

Great article for this great cannonball boom, thanks.

jtbayly• 6 years ago

What’s with the bizarre distortions on the pictures of the car?

pardavis• 6 years ago

Documented testimony of flagrant disregard for interstate law might have something to do with it.

If one of the many jurisdictions passed through has camera footage with the car and face uniquely identified, that’s a lot of legal exposure.

wrkronmiller• 6 years ago

That doesn't really make sense, since this guy already did an interview for VinWiki, describing the run, how he did it, and showing pictures of the car: https://youtu.be/EvQFDtJUdHw?t=207

tafurnace• 6 years ago

I noticed this as well. At first glance, having not read the article at that point yet, I thought it was some AI generated car with distortion knowing typical HN articles. After reading the extensively long article, I realized it was likely distorted maybe out of an abundance of caution against potential identification from modern law enforcement tech? Given the highly illegal nature of the sport/challenge, and the likelihood of the characters of the article to reuse their vehicles for such activities, this was the best explanation that came to my mind.

snypher• 6 years ago

It was a rental car, and just a stock Ford Mustang. No need for concealment.

everyone5• 6 years ago

So he freely admits to doing that? Would the state not prosecute him for his crimes? It seems there would be a decent amount of evidence.

wmeredith• 6 years ago

I had the same question. Previous Canonballers have waited until statutes of limitations have run out before publishing their exploits.

jagged-chisel3• 6 years ago

You're welcome to freely admit committing all manner of crimes. The police can't just arrest you because you ran your mouth. There must be evidence. Now, if they can tie your confession with evidence they have, perhaps they have a case.

You can't be arrested, tried, and sentenced for such fictional bluster about a crime that didn't happen. And, as far as due process goes, there's no crime without, at a minimum, a witness/complainant, and hopefully some amount of evidence.

So the question becomes: assuming all this actually happened, do the authorities have evidence that it did, and can they tie it to the guy that has confessed?

everyone5• 6 years ago

"there's no crime without, at a minimum, a witness/complainant,"

what?

If, for example, the police found the body of someone who'd been murdered. There would be an investigation. No witness or complainant needed.

beervirus2• 6 years ago

Your confession is evidence. You can absolutely be arrested and convicted based only on a confession.

csours3• 6 years ago

I remember at the beginning of quarantine and social distancing, thinking that at least road deaths would go down because there would be less traffic. Unfortunately that has not been the case, as it looks like road deaths spiked sharply, at least in the US. Full statistics will take a while to compile, but initial results do not look good.

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/08/31/roadway-deaths-are-wa...

mhb• 6 years ago

It will be interesting to know for how many of these deaths increased DUI could account.

rob74• 6 years ago

...and how many to illegal races like the one this article is glorifying?

mauvehaus2• 6 years ago

Possibly fewer since bars are closed (-ish, depending on your location)?

We take our recyclables to the transfer station and live in a state with a bottle deposit. The folks who process bottles and cans confirm that we're (collectively) drinking a lot more at home these days.

GuB-42• 6 years ago

It is specifically the death rate per traveled mile, not the absolute death toll, not the number of accidents.

It is understandable. Because there are less people on the road, people drive faster, and faster driving means accidents are more deadly. Slow, dense traffic is more likely to cause fender benders than deadly accidents.

This is also part of the reason why the night is deadlier than the day, besides the obvious reduction in visibility.

floatingatoll• 6 years ago

Observation of the road outside my door offers a nuance:

People who drive at unsafe speeds have fewer obstacles to doing so.

It’s not that a greater percentage people are trying to go faster due to the plague, it’s that there’s fewer cars which reduces the chances of the speeders being slowed down by traffic.

leetcrew4• 6 years ago

or it could be more benign. surface streets already have more fatalities per mile than highways. simply shifting the fraction of total miles traveled to surface streets could be enough to increase the average fatalities per mile by itself.

csours3• 6 years ago

In some places it's also absolute death toll. I think we'll have to wait and see how it all shakes out.

It's an interesting "natural" experiment for sure.

everyone5• 6 years ago

The Cannonball Run.. Rich assholes dangerously flouting the law, cus thats what elites do. Its not enough for them to have all the resources they could ever need, they also have to show that the law doesnt apply to them, as an additional status symbol. Similar to Weinstein type stuff.

spaetzleesser• 6 years ago

Very true. If these idiots wanted to actually compete, they could do some real racing. The only problem would be that they would quickly see that doing well in racing is much harder than doing Cannonball where the only skill you need is to be more reckless than others.

There are plenty of options for racing for very taste , be it Rallye, open wheelers, karting, 24 hours races.

This feels to me like guys thinking they are tough because they beat up people on the streets. Only to find out that when they go a real MMA or boxing that they get destroyed easily by fighters who actually have skills.

jrd259• 6 years ago

And putting other people at risk

hengheng• 6 years ago

There's a thin line between documenting everybody's freedom and proving to yourself that you're one of these people. I'd say it's the continued pursuit that makes it an exclusive society rather than a piece of performative art.

I still find myself following everything about these runs like an idiot, I can't help it.

coward86753093• 6 years ago

If you read TFA you’d note that quite possibly none of these people are rich or elite according to any reasonable Progressive taxonomy of evil. And they are not showing that the law doesn’t apply to them; they realize that what they’re doing could land them in jail. And the article points out that the fame these people achieve is minor and fleeting — perhaps nonexistent — and Cannonballers often do it not for the fame but for the inherent challenge of it.

These people embody the hacker ethos, and while their actions obviously inhabit an ethical grey area, challenges like the Cannonball speak to some adventurous souls in a way that no officially sanctioned event can. Note also, according to TFA, that the worst injury that has happened as a result of a Cannonball attempt was a driver breaking her arm after drifting off the road as a result of falling asleep at the wheel.

Cannonballers and people like them are akin to the skater kids of Dogtown and Z-Boys while the acceptable events that a child of your comment mentioned are events for the well-scrubbed kids being driven around by their parents for soccer or lacrosse practice. But even skating has been captured by the parents and the commercical skate parks. We should pour one out for the death of yet another activity that people used to practice, yes maybe a bit for the possibility of fame but more likely, for the pure joy of that moment when everything comes together and you hook up.

That’s why I’ve been doing start-ups for over twenty-five years. That’s why I rode my motorcycle solo between Brooklyn and Long Beach, CA, in fewer than four days, that’s why I’ve ridden solo to Alaska and across the Trans-Labrador Highway.

I am posting this anonymously not because I’m afraid of anyone’s downvotes — I’ve whored my way to enough karma to burn at will — but because I don’t want to publicly associate myself with what I’ve done. The rewards of doing many of these things are quiet and private, and talking about them in public take something away from their merit because it amounts to boasting.

These people do this for themselves, or to people able to share a beer with the people they did it with or someone who knows what they’ve gone through. These people, in all of their moral ambiguity, need to be respected. And “respected despite the moral ambiguity” is something that too few people can do today.

everyone5• 6 years ago

Its nothing like the skater kids of Dogtown. A skateboard is not a ton or two of metal and plastic, a skateboard travels at a fraction of the speed. Its potential to crush and maim innocent people and cause damage on public roads is not comparable.

bradleyy2• 6 years ago

I can assure you that the vast majority of folks doing these runs are not wealthy. Some? Sure.

For instance, The 2904 was famous for requiring you to do the whole run in $2904, including the car!

mauvehaus2• 6 years ago

If you found this compelling (separate from whether or not you approve of it), you might enjoy The Emerald Mile, which is the story of the fastest recorded run of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. The team took advantage of similarly extraordinary conditions and pulled it off with incredible style in a dory.

Interwoven with that story are the stories of the commercial river trips that got caught in the perilous conditions and the struggle to save Glen Canyon Dam from catastrophic failure.

Edited to add: I don't want to oversell this or anything, but I'd say it's on my list of candidates for greatest story ever told with the likes of Miracle in the Andes and Touching the Void.

Theodores• 6 years ago

Driving long distances at super-stupid speeds is something I have done, albeit only on British roads. I had a bully of a boss who made me do it in his cars, all of which were powerful for the time.

What it gives you is a very different perspective on car shows where they test cars on closed circuits and runways. If you are going downhill for ten miles or so then you are going well above what the top speed of your vehicle is supposed to be. Skill level is approximately zero as you are just pushing a pedal and totally ready for that moment when you get stopped and banned from driving for what must be forever. Maybe with jail time.

The other perspective is on those police chase shows where the bad guy is only doing something like double the speed limit. You have been tanking along somewhat faster than that.

My weapon of choice was actually a brick shaped Renault Espace with a V6 engine in it. That could roll along at aforementioned speed for mile after mile, no mechanical woes at all. I am sure it wouldn't get to these speeds with the Stig on Top Gear, but, if you are driving the length of the country, then something magical happens even if the 150 to 151 mph time is 301 seconds. The speed just keeps going upwards.

Youthful stupidity means this is possible with walls of snow on either side of the road at 3 a.m. which amounts to the clear roads the recent Cannonball runs had.

There is also an adjustment afterwards when you are driving normal cars at normal speeds. For me this was just not what I wanted to do so I actually quit driving, having got away with many crimes. Nowadays, Ed Bolian aside, I detest anyone going at stupid speeds on normal roads. If you crash then you are going to have your brain crash inside your skull making you brain dead. Not to mention inconveniencing the world with the road closed and the people in the other car in hospital.

As far as driving is concerned, I have 'lived' and got several cars cruising along at that top speed figure few drivers would dare get to. Although I will never do that again I have scratched that itch. If I was to get back into driving I would recommend a vehicle with a good view so the scenery can be enjoyed at a safe 65 mph. I would also recommend a full roll cage with harness - for those maximum 65 mph speeds. As it is most motorway driving is more dangerous than people appreciate, not least because the roads are shared with crazy idiots like my younger self.

huhtenberg• 6 years ago

In addition to The Cannonball Run movie, there's also a very enjoyable The Gumball Rally -

https://www.imdb.com/video/vi508673817

It's one of my all time favourite movies actually. Highly recommended.

gameswithgo• 6 years ago

This on the one hand is fun and fascinating but also I hope everyone involved in these goes to jail for a little bit.

ProAm• 6 years ago

Just like every startup that flouts the law?

whalesalad2• 6 years ago

If this stuff is interesting to you, the VINwiki YouTube channel is a gold mine: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCefl-5pmhZmljwZTE2KrcdA

(Rabbit's episodes are my favorite, though)

packetlost2• 6 years ago

Ed used to rub me the wrong way. He comes across as this kind of stuck up rich asshole type, but after watching the CarTrek series, my opinion of him has increased. He's kind of funny in an awkward, dry kind of way.

whalesalad2• 6 years ago

Totally know exactly what you mean. I think that is from all his time spent working in high end dealerships.

bradleyy2• 6 years ago

Ed is a super nice guy, genuinely kind, and he's done a lot to preserve "Cannonball history".

sandworm101• 6 years ago

> The rules are simple: Drivers start in Manhattan [...] and finish [..] in Redondo Beach, California. What happens in between is up to them.

There are plenty of other rules. Some seem obvious, others less so.

(1) It has to be a single car, not a relay. This means you cannot just hop between prepped/fueled cars. No pony express runs.

(2) It has to be "driven". No packing the car into an aircraft. No aircraft/car transformers. No putting your tesla on a rocket.

(3) It has to be unescorted, at least not be government officials. Blocking/support cars maybe, but no cops escorting you through traffic.

(4) It has to be on public roads. No paying to have roads shut. With today's crop of billionaires, closing large sections of highway to "film a movie stunt" is an option.

Documenting that you have abided by these rules, that you haven't used two identical cars and flown the driver, means you basically must produce video footage. Video footage means you have documented your actions and any number of police agencies could arrest you on the spot.

areyousure• 6 years ago

Is there a place where some of these rules are collected?

I dream of a legal attempt at the Cannonball Run. I naively imagine that it should be possible in under 24 hours, with roads safely cleared with police protection (likely for under 1 hour in any given place)?

kwhitefoot• 6 years ago

any number of police agencies could arrest you on the spot

So why aren't they arrested?

The Great Cannonball Boom

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