The Cannonball Run (1981)
The race from Darien, Connecticut, to Redondo Beach, California, is called the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, named after daredevil driver Erwin “Cannonball” Baker in the early 20th century. This outlaw race stretched nearly 2,900 miles across the country. The record run was 32 hours and 51 minutes, averaging an insane 87 miles an hour. It started in 1971, when Brock Yates and Formula One star Dan Gurney won the very first one. In all, only five of these races were ever run. Across those years, drivers racked up more than a hundred speeding tickets, but remarkably, there were no accidents involving innocent bystanders. The entries were as wild as the concept: in 1971, the Polish Racing Drivers of America showed up with a van carrying 300 gallons of fuel so they could drive nonstop—though one mistake could have turned them into a rolling fireball. You...