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How the Cannonball Run Worked · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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  Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always is
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  Speaker 1: our good friend, Charles W. Chuck Bryant already, Chuck, your
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: good friend. How are you feeling right now? I'm fine,
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  Speaker 1: a little hot, I'm Schwitz. Yeah, Chuck is bright red
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  Speaker 1: right now. Everybody, it's kind of weird looking. Thank you,
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  Speaker 1: Martin and for that are super fans. Yeah, thank you.
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  Speaker 1: But he's not a super fan. He's a buddy. He
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  Speaker 1: has been. He he was such a fan that he
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  Speaker 1: actually became a friend. He's a friend that we haven't
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  Speaker 1: met yet. Yeah, So, Chuck, take us back to in
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  Speaker 1: the time machine. Yes, the way back machine. You're ready,
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  Speaker 1: Here we go. Okay, all right, Josh, I'm ten years old,
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  Speaker 1: knee high to a grasshopper. Disco is dead. Margaret Thatcher
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  Speaker 1: is the Prime Minister of England. I take issue with
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: the disco being deadline. I don't know that disco ever died. Man,
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  Speaker 1: You cannot make the argument that all modern R and
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: B pop soul is all Disco Disco is alive. Margaret
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  Speaker 1: Thatcher is the Prime Minister of England. Ronald Reagan is
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  Speaker 1: in office, just as Jimmy Carter has exited. Walter Cronkite
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  Speaker 1: resigned from the CBS Evening News desk. That was a
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  Speaker 1: said day. The first AIDS case was made public in California.
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  Speaker 1: Have you ever seen in the band played on? My
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  Speaker 1: brother worked on that. That was a great made for
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  Speaker 1: TV movie. It really was. It was really good and
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  Speaker 1: he had a great experience working on that. So find
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: people in that movie. Major League Baseball has just gone
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  Speaker 1: on strike in the summer for what will be the
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  Speaker 1: first of eighty times over the next five years. Right,
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  Speaker 1: So America is depressed, but not for long, No, because
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  Speaker 1: one Mr Burt Reynolds is about to dash across the
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  Speaker 1: silver screen in a little movie called Cannonball Run. Great, great,
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  Speaker 1: great movie. It was a great movie. I haven't seen
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  Speaker 1: it in forever. I think I probably saw it in
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  Speaker 1: like seven. It was one of the first movies we rented,
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  Speaker 1: along with Beverly Hills Cop. Very hokey and corny, but
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  Speaker 1: still beloved. What's What's Yeah? Everyone takes it as a
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  Speaker 1: comedy because it is a comedy. But this is not
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  Speaker 1: to say that it started out as a comedy. Actually,
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  Speaker 1: it was supposed to be serious and Burt Reynolds part
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  Speaker 1: was originally written for Steve McQueen, who died before he
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  Speaker 1: could film the movie. It was supposed to be a
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  Speaker 1: serious movie and it didn't turn out that way. Why
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  Speaker 1: would anybody want The Cannonball Run to be a serious movie? Well,
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  Speaker 1: because it was in fact based on a real race.
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  Speaker 1: What what true? Based on a real race? As you know? Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I I do know after reading this article. I think
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  Speaker 1: I had heard that before, but I had no idea
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  Speaker 1: the details. I didn't either until I wrote it. This
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  Speaker 1: was really amazing, Like I have. I'm just gonna come
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  Speaker 1: out and say I have a man crush on a
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  Speaker 1: seventy year old Mr brock Yates. He is a cool
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  Speaker 1: dude who I would have loved to have hung out.
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  Speaker 1: I bet he's still a very cool dude and hung
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  Speaker 1: out with in a strictly platonic sense. Yeah, maybe a
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  Speaker 1: little making out, but aside from that, Yeah, I bet
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  Speaker 1: he's still away cool guy. I get that impression he is.
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  Speaker 1: He Um, this is this is kind of what I
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  Speaker 1: gathered about brock Yates. From researching this and reading your article,
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  Speaker 1: go and say who he is. He was a pretty
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  Speaker 1: much the premier automotive journalist of his age. Eventually. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: but I think he started out as a journalist and
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  Speaker 1: something of a gonzo journalist, I take it. Um, But yeah,
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  Speaker 1: he he was very well known and respected in the field. Um.
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  Speaker 1: And in the early nineteen seventies, America was at a
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  Speaker 1: fork in the road, if you will speak, and brock
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  Speaker 1: Yates represented one direction and that was the out just
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  Speaker 1: go and if you die, that was your number was up.
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  Speaker 1: Kind of mentality behind the wheel that is, yeah, you know,
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  Speaker 1: damn the torpedoes full steam ahead. Right on the other
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  Speaker 1: side of the road. At on the other side of
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  Speaker 1: the fork was a guy named Ralph Nader who was
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  Speaker 1: still there on that other Um. He for those of
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  Speaker 1: you who don't know who Ralph Nader is, he's running
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  Speaker 1: for president a couple of times. Um. He got George
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  Speaker 1: Bush elected in two thousand four. Yeah. Um. But he's
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  Speaker 1: also a very dedicated consumer watchhot He has for many
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  Speaker 1: years lived in a tiny, little one room apartment. He
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  Speaker 1: uses a hot plate. Um. He just really he lives
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  Speaker 1: his very meager life so no one can say you're
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  Speaker 1: corrupt because he goes after everybody else. And in the
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  Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, in the early nineteen seventies, he was going
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  Speaker 1: after the automotive industry, right. He went after He wrote
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  Speaker 1: this book called Unsafe at Any Speed and it was
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  Speaker 1: basically about have you read it? I've read parts of
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  Speaker 1: it through research and stuff. Yeah, okay, Um, so you
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  Speaker 1: know then it was basically about how the automotive industry
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  Speaker 1: was producing these incredibly dangerous vehicles and at the time,
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  Speaker 1: we didn't really have much of a speed limit. So
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: uh as as a result of his book, we like
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  Speaker 1: got seatbelts became mandatory, new safety designs had to be
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  Speaker 1: instituted by car Manufacturer's a big deal. Um, so America's
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  Speaker 1: at this fork in the road brock Yates, Dowle one
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  Speaker 1: and and Ralph Nader on the other and America went
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  Speaker 1: down the Ralph Nader I think what you're referring to is,
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  Speaker 1: uh the national speed limit. That's part of it, definitely,
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  Speaker 1: But I think even more than that, it's a more
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  Speaker 1: of a you know, the way you and I were raised,
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  Speaker 1: where like we could do anything we put our minds to,
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  Speaker 1: and we were special. I think that that came out
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  Speaker 1: of that collective decision to go towards safety rather than
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  Speaker 1: you know, fun at any cost, reckless, abandoned exactly, devil
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  Speaker 1: make care sure. But yeah, the national speed limit was
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  Speaker 1: definitely one part of that. Yeah, that was which was
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  Speaker 1: that has since gone up quite a bit in certain areas,
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  Speaker 1: of course, has but even more than safety. Do you
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  Speaker 1: know why they set the speed limit at fifty five
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  Speaker 1: gas consumption? Yes? Yeah, the the Arab oil embargo had
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  Speaker 1: just taken place. OPEC was like, hey, US, we're not
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  Speaker 1: real happy with you for siding with Israel during the
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  Speaker 1: Yam Kapor War, so we're gonna cut off your oil,
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  Speaker 1: and they did, and prices spiked and the US said, okay,
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  Speaker 1: we need to rethink our dependence on foreign oil. Had
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  Speaker 1: a huge rippling effect. But one of them was setting
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  Speaker 1: the speed limit at fifty five mile per hour, which
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  Speaker 1: is too slow. It is too slow, especially in the
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  Speaker 1: opinion of somebody like Brock Yates. I thought, you're gonna say,
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  Speaker 1: Sammy Hagar, Yeah, he can't drive. He's tried, he has,
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  Speaker 1: He's made a concerted effort, but it just can't out.
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  Speaker 1: He tried. I love that song. It wasn't I don't
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  Speaker 1: like to drive fifty five or I would prefer to
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  Speaker 1: drive faster. It was I can't d tried and it
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  Speaker 1: just doesn't happen. It was very explicit. Yes, so chuck, um,
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  Speaker 1: this this is nineteen seventy one. Brock Yates saw the
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  Speaker 1: writing on the wall that the speed limit was going
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  Speaker 1: to be reduced. America was becoming something of a mamby
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  Speaker 1: pamby yes um. And what did he do as a result?
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  Speaker 1: He uh, in nineteen seventy one, he took a trip
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  Speaker 1: across the country in a Dodge Van with three travel
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  Speaker 1: mates and he drove from New York to Los Angeles
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  Speaker 1: as a way of proving slash protesting. I believe his
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  Speaker 1: quote said something like this, good drivers and good automobiles
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  Speaker 1: could employ the American interstate system the same way that
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  Speaker 1: the Germans were using their auto bonn Right. So he
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  Speaker 1: wanted to prove that you can drive fast if you're safe,
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  Speaker 1: if you're a good driver, you can get to point
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  Speaker 1: a to point being a car and it's safe. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and you you said reckless abandoned. There was definitely a
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  Speaker 1: certain level of professionalism or um. The people who he
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  Speaker 1: considered good drivers were actually good drivers like he had
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  Speaker 1: to be good driver to drive fast. In his opinion,
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  Speaker 1: it wasn't just like everybody go as fast as you can.
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  Speaker 1: That wasn't the point, right, So he did so. He
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  Speaker 1: drove a two thousand, eight hundred fifty eight miles from
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  Speaker 1: New York to l A in forty hours and fifty
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  Speaker 1: one minutes, which is an average of seventy miles per hour. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: which is pretty fast if you're talking about an average speed. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: because that included stops. I think stops, uh you name it.
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  Speaker 1: So um, after that happened, I think it got a
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  Speaker 1: little bit of publicity, um, by word of mouth maybe
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  Speaker 1: the racing world. And there was a famous telegram that
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  Speaker 1: came I guess a month or so later. Yeah, I
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  Speaker 1: love this. Can I read it? Yeah? Uh. It says
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  Speaker 1: this constitutes formal entry by the Polish Racing Drivers of
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  Speaker 1: America and the next official Cannonball Baker's Sea to Shining
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  Speaker 1: Sea Memorial Trophy Dash. The drivers are Oscar Kovaleski, bred
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  Speaker 1: Nementcheck and Tony Adam Awakes. If we can find California,
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  Speaker 1: will beat you fair and square. So basically the gauntlet
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  Speaker 1: was laid and the Cannonball run was born, although, like
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  Speaker 1: you said, the official name has always been Cannonball Baker
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  Speaker 1: s to Shining Sea Memorial Trophy. That right, So who's
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  Speaker 1: Cannonball Baker. Cannonball Baker, Irwin G. Cannonball Baker was a
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  Speaker 1: He was famous for for pushing the limits limits on
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  Speaker 1: a motorcycle. Yeah. So he would drive from Canada to Mexico,
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  Speaker 1: from New York to l A on an old Indian
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  Speaker 1: motorcycle and we're talking starting in nineteen fourteen, right, So,
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  Speaker 1: like the old Indian motorcycle was basically a bike with
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  Speaker 1: a motor. Yea, that's exactly what it looks like, you know. Um,
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  Speaker 1: he actually had a pretty well deserved reputation for like
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  Speaker 1: his nickname and just the stuff he was doing, his
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  Speaker 1: endurance level. Apparently on one ride, uh, he came around
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  Speaker 1: a curve and was about to barrel into a herd
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  Speaker 1: of cattle that was in the middle of the road
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  Speaker 1: because it's nineteen fourteen, and um, he swerved to miss him,
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  Speaker 1: hit a pothole, flew off of his bike onto the
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  Speaker 1: ba back of a cow, which bucked him off and
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  Speaker 1: eventually landed in a ditch, got up and drove away.
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  Speaker 1: That is the stuff of legends. That's how you get
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  Speaker 1: a race named after you, my friend. Uh. And he
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  Speaker 1: went on to become the first commissioner of NASCAR, which
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  Speaker 1: I thought was pretty interesting. So there you have that.
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  Speaker 1: Nothing to do with Moonshine though, or did he I
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  Speaker 1: don't know, maybe, ye curious? So yeah, Yates wanted to
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  Speaker 1: pay homage to Cannonball Baker, so he named it after him,
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  Speaker 1: although he did shorten the name. Cannon Ball was two
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  Speaker 1: words for Baker, Yeah, for Baker, but he shortened it
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  Speaker 1: to Cannonball to avoid any illegal mess. Right. Lawyers advised
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  Speaker 1: him to do that. Yeah, I thought it was kind
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  Speaker 1: of weird. Well, anyway, so you have the Cannonball originally
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  Speaker 1: called the Cannonball Dash, uh, and then it finally became
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  Speaker 1: the Cannonball Run, which is how we know it today. Right.
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  Speaker 1: And thanks to the Polish drivers of America who laid
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  Speaker 1: down the gauntlet it was a real thing. They didn't
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  Speaker 1: They weren't the only ones to participate in the first
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  Speaker 1: official Cannonball. That first run he made in the van
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  Speaker 1: was considered like a preliminary test ro and it wasn't
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  Speaker 1: the first Cannibal because there was nobody competing with him,
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  Speaker 1: so this second one. Uh. There was the Polish Racing
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  Speaker 1: Drivers of America UM and seven other groups, including three vans. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: There was a huge motor home. There was an American Motors,
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  Speaker 1: a m x an MGB G T and a Cadillac Sadanderville.
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  Speaker 1: And this is probably the coolest part of this entire story. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I love it. Uh. This Cadillac was UM owned by
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  Speaker 1: an old gentleman in New York in Boston, in Boston
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  Speaker 1: and he wanted to And this happened back then it
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  Speaker 1: may still happen now, where you would contract someone to
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  Speaker 1: drive your car from one place to the other case
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  Speaker 1: you can't get it there. Richard Pryor contracted Dana Carvey
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  Speaker 1: and moving really great movie. Dude, I didn't see that one.
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  Speaker 1: I thought it was a stinker. It was good. It
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  Speaker 1: was good. So this old man put out an ad
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  Speaker 1: in the paper and I need to get my car
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  Speaker 1: to Los Angeles. And these guys answered it and said,
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  Speaker 1: we'll get your car to Los Angeles. And unbeknownst to
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  Speaker 1: him it was it was one of the entries. And UM,
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  Speaker 1: I think one of the stipulations was the car not
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  Speaker 1: be driven faster than seventy five miles per hour at
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  Speaker 1: anytime or in the dark. Oh is that the other one?
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  Speaker 1: And clearly they broke both of these because the Cadillac
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  Speaker 1: averaged seventy nine miles per hour, right, which means they
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  Speaker 1: were driving out a heck of a lot faster than that.
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  Speaker 1: I think they came in third to third place. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: not not too bad, but I think they got the
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  Speaker 1: car there in one piece, and so good for them.
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  Speaker 1: They're like, here are the keys, pal, so, uh, go
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  Speaker 1: ahead and start with the first race? Where did it start?
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  Speaker 1: Where did it in? Well, it started in New York
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  Speaker 1: at the Red Ball Garage at midnight, I believe is
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  Speaker 1: when all of them started. Yeah, um, and this is
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  Speaker 1: what okay, novembeve uh And the ending place was a
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  Speaker 1: hotel in Redondo Beach what is it the Portofino in right, okay,
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  Speaker 1: which is from pictures I saw. It was a pretty
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  Speaker 1: lux little hotel. Um. And you didn't have to follow
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  Speaker 1: any specific route. He just got there any way you could, right.
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  Speaker 1: Basically the only rules were, uh, you could have as
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  Speaker 1: many drivers as long as the only one car, and
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  Speaker 1: you could leave at any point within the twenty four
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  Speaker 1: hour window. It wasn't like everyone started at the start
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  Speaker 1: line like a typical race, just like in the movie.
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  Speaker 1: You would punch a time clock for when you're starting
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  Speaker 1: time was, and then punch it again for when you arrived.
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  Speaker 1: And whoever won one and I believe there was no
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  Speaker 1: trophy at the time. It was only a fifty dollar
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  Speaker 1: entry fee. And then they donated two hundred apiece to charity. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I thought that was pretty cool. Why not? So apparently
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  Speaker 1: two days before the race, brock Yates had managed to
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  Speaker 1: finagle a Ferrari daytona brand new Ferrari daytona loner out
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  Speaker 1: of a out of an auto dealer. Um. And he
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  Speaker 1: had the car, but he only had himself. He didn't
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  Speaker 1: have a co pilot or a driver. Uh. And apparently
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  Speaker 1: he sent out all these invitations and a lot of
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  Speaker 1: two race car drivers, like legitimate race car drivers, and
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  Speaker 1: they were like, you know something, if somebody dies or something,
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  Speaker 1: that's gonna look really bad for the sport of racing,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: and I don't want to do that. And then, uh,
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  Speaker 1: one guy he had invited, Dan Gurney, who was a
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  Speaker 1: professional race car driver, had declined initially. UM. But he
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: apparently UM was told by his wife that his dying
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: father in law said you should go do this. Life
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  Speaker 1: is short. So Gurney contacts um Yates the day before
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  Speaker 1: the race and says, hey, can I still come? And
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  Speaker 1: Yates said heck yeah yeah, And that proved to be
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  Speaker 1: fortuitous because they won. They did can run, Yeah they did.
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  Speaker 1: They're winning time Josh was thirty five hours and fifty
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  Speaker 1: four minutes. Not bad cross country, not bad at all,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: and not Atlanta to l A, New York l A,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: which is further Yeah, because I've made it in thirty
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  Speaker 1: three hours from Atlanta to l A, have you. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's way I've always done it. Three eleven hour days
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: is how I schedule it out. I never time myself,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: but you know, I went and drove around the West
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  Speaker 1: for several weeks and lived in a van with the
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: dogs and all that, and um, I would drive, like
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  Speaker 1: I think the longest I drove is a twelve hour stretch.
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  Speaker 1: Um that's about all I can mustard. Yeah, that's enough
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  Speaker 1: for me. Yeah, depending on how much coffee I drank
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: or whatever, you know, then I could drive you know,
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  Speaker 1: six hours or twelve hours or whatever. But it's amazing
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: the toll that just sitting in a car with your
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: foot on the gas has on you, especially when you're
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: driving that fast. Uh. Should we talk about some of
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: the some of the things they preferred to do on
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: the on the first race, please? They One of the
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: common tactics that seemed like was to keep it slow
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: in the Eastern Seaboard. Um, I think New Jersey and Connecticut,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: in Ohio and Pennsylvania. These states are notorious for for
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: having some pretty hardcore highway patrolman. Yeah, still do. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: Like you'll get pulled over for doing sixty five? Isn't
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  Speaker 1: that nuts to you? That is nuts. I can't imagine
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  Speaker 1: if you're getting pulled over for anything less than seventy
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: two seventy five. In Georgia, by the way, everyone flies
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  Speaker 1: as fast as you can, as fast as you can
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  Speaker 1: get away with us. How fast two drives generally. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Even my my friend Derek used to say that the
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  Speaker 1: deal with Atlanta rush hour is everyone drives as fast
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  Speaker 1: as they can till somebody recks and then there's a
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  Speaker 1: been just stops. Yeah, it's pretty funny to think about that.
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  Speaker 1: So the trick was to kind of keep it slow
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: on the Eastern Seaboard and in the Midwest, and then
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: once you got to the Great Plains is when you
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: really opened up, yeah, and made up some serious serious time. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: they got it up to a hundred and seventy two.
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  Speaker 1: I think is how how fast they found out the
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Ferrari would go. Yeah. I think twelve speeding tickets total
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  Speaker 1: between all of the all the competitors. Yeah, between four
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: the competitors. Four of them didn't get a ticket at all,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: So four of them split twelve tickets. And the famous
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: quote l A Times it is like kind of a
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: blurb of an article from Dan Gurney, Right, Yeah, Dan
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Gurney famously said, at no time did we exceed a
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: hundred and seventy five, which is pretty cool. Yeah, So Chuck,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: that was the first one. And as with all cool things, uh,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: that also began. It's co option. News got out, word
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: got out by little Yeah, the Sports Illustrated covered it, uh,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: and so did the Los Angeles Times. UM. And so
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: when there was a second one, I think the following
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: year there were a lot more competitors, right, Yeah, they
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: had um twenty five entries a second year, and brock
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Yates finished second place, this time in a Cadillac Um.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: The third race, they skipped a couple of years, and
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: it was in nineteen seventy five, and they moved it
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: to springtime this time, and if Ferrari won the third
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: race with Yates and Gurney behind the wheel once again.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: But I didn't know they won the third one. Yes,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: oh no, no no, no, I'm sorry. They beat Yates and
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Gurney's record time the third year. Yeah, by a one minute, right,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: but it was not in them, you're correct. So by
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: seventy five, which is what the third one fourth one
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: third one was invent? Okay, by nineteen seventy five, it's
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: officially co opted. There's actually corporate sponsorship. The Right Bra
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Company placed three ladies in Pink in a limousine and
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: apparently the driver fell asleep in Texas and rolled the
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: thing and I guess rolled into a porter potty which
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: tipped over and drenched the um the ladies inside with
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: its contents and where exactly So by this time now
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: you can see why Burt Reynolds would have chosen more
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: of a comedic route than the Sharky's machine route. Yeah,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: well it wasn't Burt's choice. Let's should we move to
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: the final year. Yeah, what happened was Brock Yates was
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: pretty much finished with it, and he said, you know,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: it's run its course. He said he was worried that
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: somebody was gonna die, although no one ever got hurt. No,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: but the the the roads in the last eight years
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: had become much more congested. Um. He was ready to
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: scrapped the whole thing. But he had a friend, director Stuntman.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Hell need him, Hell need him? Or is it needed him? No,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: it's need him. And he was. He was famous for
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of the early Burt Reynolds movies. He hid
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: them Hooper, which is a great movie. Is it? I
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: even seen that one? Are you kidding me? I kid
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: you not, dude. I gotta get Hooper. That was the
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: one about stunt Mean, you have to see My Blue
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Heaven though, all right, we'll get to that later. So
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: he did Hooper, and he did um, the Cannonball Run
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: and a couple of other of the Burt Renold's films. Yeah,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: they did a Smokey and the Bandit too. Brock Yates
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: wrote that I'm sorry so uh over the place today
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: we are how Needham says, you know what, Brock, I
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: want to make a movie about the Cannonball Run, And
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: so I think the best way to do this is
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: if we stage another one and I participate with you
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: as my partner, and they did. They did that in
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: nine and they had a record forty six entries this time.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: And a lot of what happened in this race actually
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: ended up in the movie. Yeah, there's some zany madcap
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: stuff that was going on. Let's hear it. Well, Brock
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Yates UH and Hew need Him UH actually had an
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: ambulance and Yates's wife, Pamela posed as a woman suffering
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: from a condition and as a result, couldn't fly because
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: of the pressurized cabin, so she had to be zoomed
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: across the country at a hundred miles in the back
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: of an ambulance that was their vehicle of choice. UM.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: And definitely they modified the engine UH and it killed
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: the transmission, so I had to be eventually towed across
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: the finish line, which I thought was pretty cool, right,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: And in the film that actually happened. Burt Reynolds and
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Don Deloise were the Needham Yates characters, and fair Fawcet
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: was the was the wife. Didn't didn't what else happened
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: that was real? Three drivers actually did pose his priests.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: I remember in the movie. It was awesomely it was
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Sammy Davis Jr. And Dean Martin drunk priest in the movie.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: But I don't know that they were posing. They really were.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: They were probably hammered. What else, Josh, I don't know.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen the movie in a really long time.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: All right, well, I got it for you. Then, Uh,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: there were in fact um scantily clad skin tight jumpsuits
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: on a couple of ladies in a sports car. I
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: read the opposite. I read that that was the right
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: broad company that inspired that part. I read the opposite.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: We'll have to check that. All right, we'll do it.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: And then there was a wealthy entrant that had his
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: chauffeur drive him in a Rolls Royce. And in the
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: movie that was Jamie Farr played a middle Eastern chic.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: That's right, Clinger. Yeah, you know he and I are
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: from the same hometown, Talita Tala. Is that why he
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: always wore the Talita mud hints had and match. Yeah,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: and well he talked about it incessantly. He really was not. Yeah,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: and Tony Paco's hot dogs that he talks about all
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: the time, real place best hot dogs. On the planet
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: really had no idea. So those are just a few
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: of the things that actually happened in the final Cannonball
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Run that ended up in the film. Um and a
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Jaguar driven by Dave Hines and Dave Yarborough one that
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: year and they obliterated the time period with thirty two
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: and fifty one minute, eighty seven mile per hour average,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: fifty speeding tickets that year. Well, there were forty two contestants. Yeah,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: so that was the last one, and it has spawned
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: imitators over the years. Before the before Cannonball Run the
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: movie came out, there were already imitators. Really. Yeah, there
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: was one movie that came out in seventy five and
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: two that came out in seventy six. You want to
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: hear the weird thing about it. David Carriden was in
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: two of them. He was in Uh, Let's see uh
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Deathmatch two thousand, Death Death Race two thousand, which was
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: set in the future, but he was also in Cannonball
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: exclamation Point, which is a farticle take on the Cannonball Run.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: And there was a second one that had Gary Busey
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: in it, or third one that had Gary Busey, and
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: it called the Gumball Rally, right, and that's that's a
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: real one. The Gunball three thousand is still in existence.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Is that European or in America? Well, they do both,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: and they're quick to say that it's not a race,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: it's more like an adventurous road trip. And then the
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: lame tell him, yeah, tell him about the European version
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: of the Cannonball runs actually too, you know why, because
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: they call it the cannonball Run. They use that name,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: and this thing is not even a race. The goal
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: of the Cannonball Run Europe is to stay as close
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: to a sixty one mile per hour average as you can.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: And in two thousand and eight, a frigging smart car
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: one Oh, talk about a slap in the face. Were
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: brock Gates steady would have rolled over in his grave,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: he's rolling over in his Instead, he rolled over a
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: smart car with his bare hand. If anybody could do it,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Mr brock Gates could, my friend, So I think cannonball running,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: how fast have you driven? What's the fastest you've ever driven? Oh?
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know, a hundred and ten. I actually once
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: got a speeding to or no, you want to hear
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: a weird story let's hear. I don't know if this
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: will make the final cut or not because it's kind
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: of long, but get this. So, my friend and I
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: were driving from Atlanta to Charleston in my old Toyota Corolla.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: It was an eighty six Champagne colored Toyota Corolla UM
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: and I was doing a hundred and ten on I
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: twenty during a stretch where the speed limit I was
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: doing twice the speed limit. I get pulled over by
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: this guy in this car UM with a little dash
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: headlight on it, spinning around and I pull over and
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: this guy is just like a paramilitary cop and he's like,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: you're so dead. You're going to jail forever, right, And
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: he goes back to his car and calls somebody, and
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: this other guy comes out and he comes back. He's like,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: you're at least gonna lose your license. And he goes
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: back and talks to the guy, who he said later
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: was the sergeant on duty. And he comes back and
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: he goes, you're gonna get a ticket of some sort.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: And he goes back and talks to the guy again
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: and he goes, here's your license back. You guys drive
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: safely now, and let's just go. You're free to go exactly.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: So what my friend and I are looking at each
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: other like what just happened? But it was so surreal,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: and to this day, I wonder, have you seen pull fiction?
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Of course you have remember Zed. Yeah, I have the
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: distinct impression that these guys were into ZED like affairs
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: and something else was took precedent. I think my friend
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: was He's not a good looking guy, so I'm thinking
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: maybe they're like, we'll pass on these two. Oh, I
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: got you. So they were going to get you back
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: to the police station. And I don't think they were cops. Okay,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: what cop would not give you a ticket when you're
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: driving twice the speed limit? I got you. Yeah, I
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: got a story. Let's hear it. About four years ago,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: me and my buddy Scotty were doing it was actually
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: the last TV commercial job ever did. It was a
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: six Flags job and six Flags Massachusetts. Whatever that one's
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: called six flags over in Massachusetts? Is it? I think
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: it's a great America anyway. So we go up there
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: to do this job and um, what kind of do it?
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Was New Jersey? But we have to drive, h yeah,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: we we we we drive. At one point my friend.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: We have like two days off while we were up there,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: and I had a friend in Vermont and the third
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Star Wars prequel was being released that friday, So I said,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: hey man, let's go up and see John Pendel and
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: uh rent a car and drive up there because we
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: had a camera truck. He said, cheerless, do it? So
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: we ran. We rented a like a little Geometro whatever,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: the cheapest little four stroke engine car you could get.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: And we have a time limit because we have to
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: make the movie. It's like a six pm showing. And
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: so we're speeding through Vermont, like the hills of Vermont's lovely,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: and this little engine is like and we topped this
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: hill and we see one of those signs that say
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: your current speed, and it said your current speed and
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: it blinked and went one oh two. And I've never
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: seen a triple digit on one of those signs. So
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: we just laughed and blaze right through it and made
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: the movie. It's like call the police, and we literally
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: we made it right as the movie was starting, and
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: you know, the engine was like it was like ticking,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: it was red hot. And that that's my fast story. Well,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: if you have a fast story. We'd actually like to
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: hear it. Here's the caveat. Don't go out and commit
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: any kind of crime or act that includes fastness. Now,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: if it's already happened, then we'll hear about it. We'll
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: tell you the email right after we get to listener mail, right, Chuck, Yes, Josh,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: all right, let's go, Josh, I'm gonna call this, uh second,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: the only time we've ever read a listener mail from
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: the same dude. Oh, I don't know about this, Chuck,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: we have to This is the Hackster, Ryan Hack, my buddy. Alright, Uh,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: listen to the house History podcast, and I have a
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: creepy story. One of the houses I grew up in
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: as a kid had a hidden door. As you go
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: to the basement, it's more or less just blended into
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: the wood paneling. As you walk through the door, you
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: came to an open area with some shelving and a workbench.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: There are a couple of old bike tires and some
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: random parts still lying around. A guy names it, and
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: a guy names it. Every once in a while, we'd
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: hear what sounded like people working on their bikes and
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: chit chatting, pounding metal, gears dropping, laughing, chains turning every
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: time we'd go into the room. There was nothing weird weird.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Later on we found out the history of the house.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Turns out one of the previous owners was a couple
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: that enjoyed by Viking and they died in a Viking
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: accident and forgot to get the memo. So just thinking
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: about it gives me chills. And this is from Ryan
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: and uh, I'm gonna just go ahead and say that
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Ryan Hack has inspired me to exercise because he has
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: a blog called Hacks first five k dot blogspot dot
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: com where he started running in Lost Weight and is
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: into it now. And he got me listening to another
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: podcast called Two Gomer's Run a Marathon. I don't know
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: that I'm entirely okay with you leading this extra life
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: that I'm unaware of until you read a listener mail
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: I know. But Two Gomers Run a Marathon is actually
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: a really funny podcast. This these two guys that say
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: they're Gomer's kind of nerdy and they're they're completely unathletic,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: yet they want to run a marathon. So their podcast
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: goes through their trials and travails and it's really funny.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: They got a website called two gomers dot com. So well,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Ryan Hack, since you got all those plugs and because
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: you had to too listener mails read on there, you
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: have to go contribute twenty five bucks to Kiva dot
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: org on the Stuff you Should Know Team Chuck. You
• 29:08
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• 29:12
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• 29:15
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• 29:18
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• 29:20
  Speaker 1: two Americans. Yes I've heard. If you're a nationalistic or
• 29:25
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• 29:28
  Speaker 1: a press time, we have raised more than bucks in
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: about ten days. And uh who has seventy Chuck? Uh
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: the lousy cheap fans of the cold Bear quote unquote Nation.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: You know it's sad that guy's got way more fans
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: than we do, right, way more hundred ten members on
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: his team. We got a hundred and eighties so far already. Yeah,
• 29:48
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• 29:50
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• 29:54
  Speaker 1: For those of you who want to get on the trolley,
• 29:57
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• 30:02
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• 30:05
  Speaker 1: a member, and like Chuck said, you can contribute as
• 30:08
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• 30:11
  Speaker 1: you want, sure, you can roll it over again or whatever. Yeah,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: so Chuck, that's it, right, that's it. If you have
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: a cool high speed story, Chuck and I want to
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: hear about it. Uh. If you have a great unicorn story,
• 30:23
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• 30:25
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• 30:29
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• 30:36
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