The untold Lotus crash story from the World’s Longest Street Race

I don't want to tell them what I'm doing in case I blow it up I want it to still be under warranty [Music] to set the stage for the cannon ball in 79 you have to go back to 71 when Brock and Dan Gurney ran into Daytona and it was a an article in Sports Illustrated about it so I'm over at my neighbor's house with my from one of my friends and you know he got Sports Illustrated I wasn't that into the sport so you know because hey you got to see this cuz the two of us were always talking about how cool Baja was and the fact that these guys were doing it and maybe one day we could you know do something like that and I've got my license and I was like yeah yeah you know we could always plan for this but we're still in high school what do we know we're both looking at the article and reading it and it gets to the point where you know Dan has this famous quote at no point did we ever exceed 175 miles an hour and it had a great picture of them you know with the speedometer and he's holding on with two fingers and he's like 170 plus and it's going like this is so cool you know I hadn't even really been keeping up with Car and Driver at that time or anything so I didn't really know about it's the first I'd heard this is something I would kill to do you know I have got to try to do this if the opportunity ever comes up finally in 78 I started thinking well you know maybe they'll run it soon and I saw you know I loved lotuses all time adventures the TV series thing and I saw that there was an Esprit for sale in northern Jersey and I think it was like seventeen thousand dollars which was a boatload of money and I talked to my brother who happened to be up from the army and he was looking for a new car he had a a 260z and we decided we would see if we can get it so I sold my cars he sold his car he took out a I think the maximum finance he could get on it was maybe $10,000 I took out a personal loan for $4,000 and together we pooled our money with the understanding enough they had the Cannonball I would get to run the car but meanwhile it was his car to use down in Georgia so it was you know it was the cool thing and then I said subscribe to Brock's newsletter and suddenly he wrote down let's do it I was like what and I remember I was down in Savannah when I you know first read it and it's built they're doing it I got to apply you know can I use the car and he goes yeah I sent one you know sent a thing in letter and he sent me the application I filled it out it was pretty simple but he wanted to know any racing experience which I had had two years Formula Ford racing at that time between California and Canada in the Jim Russell school I had my Canadian national license and the guy who was going to be my partner was Dick dodge Jr who had just won Pikes Peak Hill Climb that year he had just beaten Bobby on sirs 11-year old record by like three-quarters of a second so I sent in the application and it comes back and says congratulations you've been accepted you know and expect to travel on these dates we want to keep it as quiet as possible so don't you know tell anybody about it if you can can't expect to transport a tux unwrinkled across country so don't worry about that and just generally you know be aware of you know Ohio two weeks later they gave us the date and the time to be there at the lock stock and barrel and it's kind of like well okay that's not the red ball good all right why not I go down about two or three days before the start of a cannonball which is not a lot of time my friend and we fly down to Savannah I pick up the car and drive it back tested it out on the way like my friend took it up for the hundred it's like the first time he'd ever gone that fast like yeah go man go he was like so impressed so then we get back home and I look and it's like these tires in the rear looking kind of hmm half slick on the inside and apparently my brother who doesn't have much mechanical sympathy never bothered to notice and it's the first time we'd ever heard of a four wheel alignment on a car well apparently the dealer never did it either and then we picked it up all right I want to get it checked out at the dealership in Jersey and I don't want to tell him what I'm doing in case I blow it up I want it to still be under warranty I'm going in and I'm being kind of cagey and it's like Saturday morning and the event starts Saturday night I can't do it this soon these tires have someone going to LA and he goes well I should take it easy you know these will make it it'll be fine I'm gonna like no I mean you know I'm not so sure they're gonna make it and he had six other sprees sitting there and going could you just like take the tires off of this one in the rim and just swab him now pay form you know anything because no no no so I show up and you know it's no way I was gonna find any tires at that late stage so I'm like all right in and you know guys in the parking lot start noticing and I was worried about you know Brock was gonna say something what everybody did Brock had basically done a Noah's Ark list on me cannonball he had two lotuses freeze to 308 Ferraris to Porsche turbos to you know Boom Boom Boom's much as he could do one of the things that really surprised us when we got to the shopping center because we were all pulled around the back to keep it hidden was there was a ton of cars and I didn't know how many until a couple hours later but there were like 45 cars registered like man that's a bunch because before I think the most I'd ever had was maybe a dozen and had become this huge underground cult thing and everybody was just in there and remembered the drivers meeting just looking around and brought the standing on top of a dumpster with George Lyle who owned the lock stock and barrel addressing the crowd and it was like a sea of humanity and like are all these people involved in this this is amazing and almost a more I think everybody did it just because of the opportunity whether or not it continued again nobody even thought about it it was just kind of like let's do it while we can we had our starting orders and I think I was like the tense one to take off so I was pretty early in the pack and it was drizzling slightly we get off and I miss Dennis men to see nice take off in the truck up the hill which I do remember him down there getting things looking things over and wondering what he was up to going along and it's Saturday night traffic on 95 going from Connecticut through New York City to the George Washington Bridge and surprisingly it wasn't too bad I caught up to the Ferrari 308 in front of us and he took off to go across the Tappan Zee to avoid the city traffic and we make it into the George Washington Bridge and I look at my partner I said if you want to bail now is the time to do it because no no no let's let's do this we're going through Pennsylvania and the long climb up the hill it was foggy from Stroudsburg to Pocono and the car was kind of like struggling a little I'm gonna queque keep an eye on the gauges I don't want to blow it up so quick and so we find plateau and car starts running really good and now it's about eleven something at night and we're out near Dubois PA which is about 310 miles into Pennsylvania and I'm going like well I still got yes it'll be fine you know the gas gauge is reading okay and I get about a mile past the exit and starts going oh no I'm at a gas back in the old days you didn't have cell phones you know you didn't have anybody to come bail you out you go had to get out and walk and I made it back to the scare station about a mile behind and the guy was getting ready to close up the kid I said look I need just small key annexes I'll give you 20 bucks deposit for the can just give me a gallon of gasoline and I'll come right back and I'll give you your can and I can fill up me because like hmm all right and somebody gave me a ride back up to the car dump the gas in the car find a place to turn around come back down and now it's like midnight and we fill the car up and take off again so it's like well we lost about 45 minutes doing that we get further into Pennsylvania and again this was the 80s the same weekend as Three Mile Island was melting down so nobody you know in the right minds and me included was gonna go near Harrisburg running across an 80 was just torn up really bad and it was this one bridge you come down a hill and you make a right-hand turn at the base of the hill and there's this really long bridge you know it's really high because it's so long before you hit the bridge the cement had sagged a little so we're coming down at about a hundred hundred and ten and my partner's driving at this point and we hit it in the front end lifts up and stays up and I'm going like keep it straight keep it straight and I'm like leaning forward doing whatever I can to try to get the car to settle down and he just held it steady and it came down and was like straight as hell was like thank God Laurie dodged that bullet get to Ohio there's a car off to the side right on the border like a Chrysler and on CB he starts kind of near Blue Lotus and Blue Lotus in it you know the third time I finally answered I'm going like yeah goes are you number three I said number three and what he goes cannonball I'm like what's that it's like okay we know we're the third one through here and the guy in the Ferrari who had taken off ahead of us we get and this is with my 45 minutes down we get into Akron and he's right in front of us again later on I was talking to him in LA I says what the hell happened he goes he got stopped three times in span of five miles in Akron the last time they hit him 456 miles an hour and as he's rolling the window down the cop says you were in a hurry mark oh it was like okay they knew we were coming and it was Ohio you know another interesting phenomena is my entire life of driving which is you know racing cannonball for one lapse of America everything I have never gotten a speeding ticket and I'm just like super paranoid and now I'm driving an old piece of crap Toyota so it doesn't go that fast anyway and it's invisible because it's the Corolla so it worked fine and we were like cruisin through Indianapolis we're making good time we were about a hundred miles used to st. Louis in this little town called Effingham and we've gone about close to 1,100 miles at that point in 11 and a half hours or so maybe 12 hours and it's like yeah okay this still we're still doing good and we hit a puddle as we're going around a turn with these interstate splits and the cards just snapped and I had just fallen asleep for the first time in like 40 hours and I wake up and I see the guardrail coming at me sideways and I'm like oh so I lean forward and I put my hand in my head and smacks the one you know side window and the impact and it spun around and he caught it as it bounced off and straightened it out and he goes we lost a tire like all right well we pulled it over and I looked under the car just open the door and put my head down it's like no they're all up so he fires it up and we get about a half mile down the road and nothing cuts out again and it would just start up it was going like oh crap I'm really screwed something up what's going on and the steering rack was bent out because he had the wheel and my partner was a last-minute replacement for the original guy who was and this guy was like six foot four you know Lotus Esprit is not a good combination and when the car lost it he went to catch it in his hand hit his leg so he couldn't get full lock on it and it hit and then he opened his legs up and was able to catch it on the rebound it was too late at that point and then it was his turn to go get a tow truck I did the first one and it was raining and it was miserable and about an hour later Rutger shows up meanwhile Brock goes buying the ambulance and he could smell something wasn't quite right there the guy takes us back when just a little town with nothing to do it's it's a Sunday and we waited five hours in the bus stop for a ride to st. Louis the gun in st. Louis I said you know I'm checking into a nice hotel we got into the Marriott I made reservations to go fly out to LA because my brother was flying out with his friend to pick the car up to take it back after the race and my other partner is like no I'm going back to Boston right fine so I went that was the end of cannon ball for me and I went out to LA and proceeded to have a great week with the guys it was insane and a lot of it came down to luck of the draw the time you left the time you got there because when you got 45 cars running the guys in the back the cops are wise yeah so they're gonna get most of heat wearing their front it's easier to slide under it so apparently like I said we were the third one into Ohio on the interstate 80 at the time even with our screw-up so yeah you know again it's all just a bunch of luck but it was fun and that's what it was all about a sense of adventure fun maybe a little rebellious then wiki wants to thank Otto tempest for supporting our channel and making it easy for our viewers to find their dream cars we love Otto tempest because it allows you to compare the results from Craigslist nationally with all the top listing sites so visit Otto tempest calm today and find your next dream car

Channel: VINwiki

Views: 533,295

Rating: 4.8102927 out of 5

Keywords: Cannonball Run, John Harrison, Brock Yates, Lotus Esprit, James Bond, Cannonball Baker Sea to Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, 1979, VINwiki, Car Stories, NY, Darien, Connecticut, Burt Reynolds, Lotus, British, exotic car financing, hal needham, the rat pack, ferrari, ohio, pennsylvania, crash, history, storytelling, The 2904, C2C Express

Id: hoiKKqS_nlo

Length: 13min 0sec (780 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 25 2019