Finish Line - Vegas, Baby!
Once a year for a week, a great group of friends meet together and take a road trip. The formula is always the same: 3,000 miles, 6 days, 8 parties, 50 cars. Of those 50 cars, 30 are veterans, participants who have at least 2 years of rallying together. For the 6th time, this past week, those friends drove from New York to Las Vegas at insane speeds, in very capable cars. That road trip ended this past Friday night. I have intentionally waited an extra day to write this, so I could step back from it all and process what has really happened in the last week.
But first, the last day in short:
The Bullrunners departed the oven-like heat of Scottsdale, Arizona (why would anyone build a city someplace so hot?) But not before visiting the Taser International factory. Tasers, if you've never heard of one before, are a non-lethal form of protection that produce about 20,000 volts of electricity. They can either be used in close range by hand, or shoot barbs from 20 feet away to incapacitate an attacker. One of the Bullrun entrants, team Aston Martin 007, had been heavily involved with the Taser Foundation, which helps families of cops killed in the line of duty, and they held an auction for charity to nominate the right to have someone Tased. Dave Piersol, of Team Maserati, donated $2,000 to have Bill Wu shocked, but Wu ran and locked himself in his car. We guessed he wasn't interested anymore, and Mark from Team Limousine stepped up to take his place. He, along with Flag Girl Karen Soto got publicly tased for our enjoyment.
Back on the road, Team Black Magic's luck ran out again, when Tom got pulled over and ticketed for Criminal Racing on a Highway, along with Team BMW, Aston 007, and Lexus. That's a mandatory court appearance, so I guess we'll be returning to Arizona before long. Because we were stopped on the side of the road for nearly an hour, the four of us (Black Magic Girls Brittany and Christina rode with us) decided to skip the checkpoints and go straight to the dinner stop in Laughlin, NV. We weren't in a position to get a trophy anyway, so we didn't really need to drive the extra 200 miles that day.
But I had made a critical error, and it's consequences bit us right back not long later. For a minute, we had considered trying to run from the cops, and during that thought process, I had set the navigation system to "avoid highways." Well, after Tom got stopped, I forgot to set it back. We didn't realize that, until we reached a sign that said, "Pavement Ends." Too late to turn back, we drove the Shelby GT500 over 40 miles off-road. With less than 1/4 tank of gas. Towards a rain storm. Past road signs that read "Impassable when wet." Yeah, this was a good idea.
After nearly running over a family of Quail, and almost hitting a cow, we finally saw tarmac again, and made it to a gas station with only 12 miles remaining on our tank of fuel. I took over from there. and drove the car to the dinner stop in Laughlin, NV. Only 90 miles remained between Laughlin and the finish line. Those 90 miles were among the smoothest roads we've ever driven, and we topped out the Shelby at 157 mph for a full 2 minutes straight out in the middle of the desert, without seeing a single other car. The thermometer registered 117 degrees. With the top down, it felt like blowing a hairdryer directly in your own face.
14 miles from the finish line, I passed a cop parked on the left side, shooting KA band radar. The speed limit was 65, I was going 70. I figured 5 over is pretty standard for most "normal" cars, and would hardly be worth stopping me for. I was wrong. I got pulled over, and after 20 minutes of arguing with the cop, he wrote me a ticket for 66 in a 65. (And if you're reading this, Officer, I have our whole conversation on video, and at the court appearance I will play the tape of you where you say you didn't actually see me do anything at all). So I'd now gotten pulled over in the first 15 miles and the last 15 miles of the rally, I suppose it was poetic justice. While pulled over, I saw the entire Bullrun field pass by me. We were now in last place. I pulled back on the highway defeated once again, and angry at a system of justice that essentially rewarded faster, more reckless driving, and punished those who showed restraint, by ticketing them because they couldn't catch the faster group. Thanks for keeping us safe, officers.
A ticket wasn't the only thing we picked up on the side of the road. We also punctured a tire in the shoulder, and 2 miles more, 12 miles from the finish line, the tire went, at 80 mph. It wasn't just a flat, it was a blowout, and the Shelby GT500 doesn't come with a spare. We pulled over on the shoulder of the 515, on the top of a hill with a perfect view of the Las Vegas Strip. I called AAA, and requested a flatbed. They said it would be 45 minutes. We called a cab, put Brittany and Christina in it, and sent them on their way to Las Vegas, while Tom and I stayed with the car. A nice man named Jay, who happens to hold the Guinness World Record for going backwards down a hill on roller skates (47.6 mph) stopped and offered to try to fit his spare tire on our car. It was from a 1992 Jeep Cherokee, but, miraculously, the bolt pattern was the same. We got it on, but it wouldn't clear the brake caliper, so the car wouldn't roll. Originally a promising solution, we accepted defeat, gave Jay back his donut and a case of Black Magic Tire Wet for his trouble, and sent him on his way.
And that's how our Rally ended. We didn't make the finish, or the awards ceremony, and we were disqualified for not making it to the final checkpoint, which, we hear, was probably the best finish in Bullrun history. Unfortunately, you'll have to get that story from somewhere else.
As for the car, the flatbed eventually came, and we took it to the Wynn Hotel for the night. It was too late to get anything done about it, and we weren't going to miss the party for anything. The following morning (er, afternoon), we called everyone we knew to get a replacement for the Goodyear Supercar F1 tire, which has only been in production for a month or so. There aren't any. Even the Shelby Factory, which is in Las Vegas, didn't have a tire for us. They did offer us a set of rears from a 2010 GT500, that we could use to get home and then ship back to them later, but the idea of having to ship them back didn't make us very happy either. Fortunately, our dear friend Jamal Hameedi, SVT's Chief Design Engineer, sent us to Chris Goeschel at Team Ford in Las Vegas, a major SVT dealership. They happened to have a set of rear tires that aren't the same brand, but would fit the car. We'd like to thank Chris and his group for helping us out when we needed it, and we'd especially like to thank Jamal and the SVT team for picking up the tab for the tires.
With our car back on the road, we were ready for our own personal last leg, back to Redondo Beach, the (not entirely coincidental) finish line from the original Cannonball Run. Our home is less than half a mile from the Portofino Inn, the Cannonball's one-and-only checkpoint, right on the Pacific Ocean. This year's Bullrun route, with our final leg included, was nearly identical to the original Cannonball route as well, so we just forgot about Vegas and called our final checkpoint home.
The most common question I get while on the Bullrun rally is: What is it really like? Well, in short, it's simply madness. The driving this year was, in all honesty, quite a bit crazier than I would have liked. It seems to get more and more intense each year, and, as we learned, as strange as it seems, the safest place to be (in terms of cops) is up at the front of the pack, which is the most dangerous place to be in terms of accidents. Those people cause other motorists to call 911, tell them about stickered cars racing on the highway, and the cops pull over the people in the back by association. We were victims of this no fewer than 3 times on the rally. Want proof? Who else gets a ticket for 1 mph over? No one.
Other people bring a slow, yet funny or themed car, and simply do the Bullrun as a drive with friends between parties. They don't race, they are just there to have fun. Hopefully, next year, I can be one of those people. I don't want to win, I don't even care who gets there first. And I don't think the risks are worth it anymore. I have nearly $2,000 worth of tickets to deal with, because a Shelby GT500 in Red and White is an absolute goddamn cop magnet that goes like hell in a straight line, but is absolutely terrifying to drive on twisty, bumpy roads at speed or in the rain. And tickets aren't covered by sponsorship money.
The second most common question people ask me about the rally is: What does it take to win? The answer is twofold. You have to be rich. Really, really rich. So rich that you literally don't care how many tickets you get, how many times you have to get bailed out of jail, and how much money you spend on booze and girls. Some of these guys have $50,000 or more in their glove box "just in case." Most have around $5,000 in there if they need to get bailed out. One guy bought 18 magnums of Grey Goose at the finale party, to the tune of around $30,000. (Thanks for that, by the way). That same guy bought a bicycle from a kid in Telluride for $700 that didn't have a retail value of more than $150. Some people bring $20,000 cars, and put $60,000 worth of electronics in them. All of these people, myself included, will have to make some sort of repairs to their car afterwards. Robert V, who drifted his Ferrari 430 in the final video, needs an estimated $30,000 of repairs to his car after this rally.
You also have to be crazy. I'm not kidding about that. You have to have such flagrant disregard for the law and other motorists that you're willing to drive balls-to-the-wall crazy, run from cops, and keep your foot in it, pretty much no matter what. If you do that, the cops won't get you, they will get the guys that are 10 miles behind you in the middle of the pack (read: me) and you will be long gone. That is, if you don't kill someone or yourself in the process. Most of the people on the rally are good drivers, some are not. You only ever learn who is which the hard way. If you do that, you win: absolutely nothing. A small trophy of some kind, and bragging rights for the next 12 months. For me, the reward is simply not worth the risk.
I don't want to win. I want to go back, year after year, and drive across the country with my friends. I don't want 10 tickets, as funny as it sounds to actually get them, I want to smile and enjoy our beautiful country. Hopefully Black Magic will allow me to return to Bullrun next year and make videos for you guys, and by then, I will figure out what we're driving and how we can stay out of jail and keep safe.
Until next year, Matt from Team Black Magic signing off.