Driven Radio Show #327: Cannonball Record Holder Jay Roberts
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Car
Harley-Davidson Softail Heritage
The Harley-Davidson Softail Heritage is a type of motorcycle that looks vintage but has modern technology for a comfortable ride. It's popular for cruising and has a classic design.
Car
Toyota Camry
The Toyota Camry is a popular car that many people choose because it's dependable and easy to drive. It's a good option for families or anyone looking for a comfortable ride that won't break the bank.
Car
Chevrolet Corvette
The Chevrolet Corvette is a famous sports car made in America. The 1965 version is one of the older models and is known for being stylish and fast.
Term
power brakes
Power brakes help you stop the car more easily. They use special systems to make it less hard to press the brake pedal.
Term
power steering
Power steering is a feature in cars that makes it easier to turn the steering wheel. It helps you steer without having to use a lot of strength.
Term
convertible
A convertible is a car that can have its roof taken off or folded down, so you can drive with the wind in your hair. It's a fun way to enjoy driving outside.
Term
automatic transmission
An automatic transmission is a system in a car that changes gears for you, so you don't have to do it yourself. This makes driving easier, especially in traffic.
Car
Mercury Mountaineer
The Mercury Mountaineer is an SUV made by the Mercury brand, which is a division of Ford. It was designed to be a comfortable vehicle for families and has good off-road abilities.
Car
Nissan XTerra
The Nissan Xterra is a tough SUV made for adventures. It was built to handle rough terrains and is great for people who like outdoor activities.
Car
Dodge Custom
The Dodge Custom 880 is a large car made by Dodge in 1964. It was designed to be comfortable and spacious for families.
Car
Toyota Prius
The Toyota Prius is a car that uses both gas and electricity to run, which helps it save on fuel. It's known for being very good for the environment and is often talked about because of its unique shape and efficiency.
Car
Buick LeSabre
The Buick LeSabre is a large car made by the Buick brand. The 1967 version is a convertible, which means the roof can be lowered, and it’s known for being quite long and spacious.
Concept
Cannonball Run
The Cannonball Run is a famous race where drivers try to get from one side of the U.S. to the other as fast as possible. It's not an official race, but it has a lot of fans and even movies made about it.
Concept
Muscat Ball Run
The Muscat Ball Run is an event where people race cars, but with rules about how powerful the cars can be. It’s a fun way for car lovers to come together and enjoy racing.
Term
horsepower
Horsepower is a way to measure how powerful a car's engine is. The higher the horsepower, the faster and stronger the car can go.
Car
Ferrari Portofino
The Ferrari Portofino is a fancy sports car that you can drive with the top down. It's fast and stylish, and people often talk about it because it's a symbol of luxury and performance.
Term
ZR1
The ZR1 is a special version of the Corvette that is designed to be even faster and more powerful than regular Corvettes. It has better parts and features for racing and performance.
Part
clutch
A clutch is a part in a car that helps change gears. It's important for driving, especially in cars that have manual transmissions, and some clutches are made to work better in fast cars like the ZR1.
Term
miles per gallon (MPG)
Miles per gallon (MPG) tells you how far a car can go using just one gallon of gas. The higher the number, the better the car is at saving fuel.
Term
auxiliary fuel tanks
Auxiliary fuel tanks are extra tanks that hold more fuel. They help cars go further without needing to stop for gas.
Term
factory fuel tank
The factory fuel tank is the gas tank that the car comes with when you buy it. It's made to hold a certain amount of fuel for the car's needs.
Term
adaptive cruise control
Adaptive cruise control helps you maintain a safe distance from the car in front of you by automatically adjusting your speed. If the car ahead slows down, your car will slow down too, and it will speed up again when the road is clear.
Term
airbags
Airbags are cushions that inflate quickly in a crash to help protect people in the car from getting hurt. They work with seat belts to keep you safe during an accident.
Term
semi-autonomous
Semi-autonomous cars can drive themselves to some extent but still need a driver to take over sometimes. They have features that help with driving but aren't fully self-driving.
Term
solo driving
Solo driving means that only one person is in the car, and that person is the driver. There are no passengers or anyone else in the vehicle.
Company
Waymo
Waymo is a company that makes cars that can drive themselves without anyone inside. They are often seen in cities like Phoenix and Atlanta.
Term
OBD port
The OBD port is a plug-in point in your car that lets you connect tools to check how the car is running. It's useful for fixing problems and adding new features.
Car
Tesla Model
Car
Tesla Model S
The Tesla Model S is an electric car known for its long range and advanced technology, including features that allow it to drive itself in certain situations.
Company
GM
GM stands for General Motors, a big car company that makes many popular brands like Chevrolet and Cadillac.
Car
Delorean DMC-12
The DeLorean is a famous car known for its unique look, with doors that open upwards. It's also popular because it was featured in the 'Back to the Future' movies.
Car
Toyota Rv
The Toyota RAV4 is a small SUV that is great for families and people who need a bit more space. It's known for being reliable and can handle different types of roads, which makes it a popular choice.
Car
Ferrari 308
The Ferrari 308 is a sports car made by Ferrari that was popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It became famous from a TV show called Magnum P.I.
Car
Lamborghini Diablo
The Lamborghini Diablo is a super-fast sports car that looks really cool and is very powerful. It's famous for its speed and design, making it a dream car for many people.
Car
Ford Edge
The Ford Edge is a family-friendly SUV that has a lot of room inside for passengers and their stuff. It's a good choice for people who want a comfortable ride without driving a big truck.
LIVE
Welcome to Driven Radio Show, your home for car talk covering the latest news to the greatest
views on the biggest names in performance, sports, and just plain cool driving machines.
Let's rev up the conversation.
Time for Driven Radio Show.
Hey all you gear heads and car fiends, welcome to Driven Radio Show, your weekly automotive
happy hour.
I am Brett Hatfield here with my co-host and engineer extraordinaire, Mr. Mark Groves.
That's me.
We are coming to you from Driven Radio Studios.
We're pretty nice today.
We managed to skate by without any rain, despite all the overcast.
Yeah, it's kind of like fall.
And, you know, it's 60s nice, a little breezy, and then Sunday it's going to be no degrees.
Like I've said before, I don't want to own every Harley, but I want to fix every Harley.
And found a 1990, it was this thing went through bring and trailer.
It was a 1990 soft tail heritage.
And, you know, just one look, I could tell.
Oh, this has promise.
This thing, this has potential.
And I bid on a little bit.
I didn't go very far.
I wanted to see if I could get a bargain and one bid at one guy outbid me.
And apparently he hasn't completed the sale and the Harley is in Lee Wood.
It's 15 minutes away.
So when they didn't, when the sale didn't go through, bring a trailer contact
to me said, you were the next highest bidder.
Do you have any interest in this?
And I said, yeah, some of the guys contact information, got ahold of him,
went over there a few days ago with my son in law.
We've got a chance to ride.
Nice weather. Nice.
And started looking at it and it does have a lot of potential.
And I did want to buy it.
But I started talking to the guy and said,
you know, if you and I just clean the hell out of this thing.
Yeah. We fix a couple of small things
because they're they're small issues, nothing big, right?
And just, you know, get the tires wide again
because they got wide whites on them and they're kind of yellow.
But I know how to fix that.
And we detail the hell out.
I told him come spring, you could probably sell this for five or six grand.
And my high bid was three.
Yeah. And so rather than buying it,
I wound up making a friend with this guy and he's coming over this weekend.
We're going to detail a hell out of this fight.
Of course you did. Awesome.
Rather than bringing home rather than, you know, adding another number
to Hatfield's home of her calcifrant Harleys.
I just told the guy, hey, this is what we do to make you a couple more grand.
Why don't you come over and we'll clean the bike and drink some beer and have a good time.
Nice. And he's coming over Saturday.
So that's awesome.
Yeah. Well, and it also kept me from telling my wife, hey, it followed me home.
Yeah. By the way, I did that on the last one.
She left town and I had a new bike when she got back.
So it's you. I missed you so much.
Hey, speaking of looking for bikes and looking for cars.
Yeah, I've got my huge list still going.
I got two, you know, that fifty nine teabirds still out there by the sucker.
It's so nice, man.
Just and the prices, you know, we talked about this a little while ago,
the price is beat Camry pricing.
Yeah, it's it's it's in my neighborhood.
Yeah, right in my neighborhood.
Yeah. And it's it's a hell of a buy for the money.
I think you're coming out way, way ahead on that.
And what I've already got plans for this weekend, but the weekend after is clear
and I'm seriously contemplating taking a trip.
What's interesting is there's two different vehicles, one's a fifty six
Plymouth that was that black and yellow one.
That's one on Omaha.
Yeah, that's in Omaha and this other vehicles down south
in your Springfield.
So it's six and one half dozen of the other.
Or as kids say now, six, seven.
Oh, whatever that is.
Yeah. For the distance.
Speaking of whatever that is, I got something else for you, too.
So we'll see.
We'll see if I if I end up knocking that down.
I would strongly recommend you call the T-Bird guy
and see if he'll take like a hundred or two hundred dollar deposit
to just sit on it.
True. Until, you know, that way, somebody doesn't come flying out of the wood,
scoop it up and leave with it.
Yeah, I would call him in a couple hundred bucks and send it
PayPal or Venmo or something like that and just put a deposit on the car.
Tell him I want to come look at it and ask him, you know,
would you refund the deposit if I find anything untoward?
And just do that. Yeah.
Just a thought.
One other thing before we get to our guests, who's very patiently waiting.
Yeah, it's very nice.
Talking to dad about Corvette stuff.
What a surprise.
Yeah, shock.
And talked about his sixty five a little bit and it needs
a little TLC.
That's a very, very nice car, but it needs a little TLC
and it's been repainted once in 60 years.
Oh, and the one repaint is due.
It's it's really showing its age.
It's done.
And talking to him last night and he
just kind of looked at me and he says, we got a lot of money in that car.
Yeah, I said, yeah, we do.
Well, we ought to make it perfect.
Oh, I got choked.
And I was like, you know what?
I'll call I'll call Rick tomorrow.
We're hunters, my buddy.
Yeah, I'll get us a slot, man.
So that's awesome.
Anyway, so is he going to pull the trigger?
I mean, is this a go?
Yeah. Yeah. No kidding.
That's awesome.
I think we're good to go.
I got a message into Rick.
I caught him busy part of the day, so he didn't get back to me yet.
But I'm going to get that stingray over there.
It is so lovely.
It's a silver over black knockoff wheels, power steering, power brakes.
It's a convertible car for those who haven't seen pictures of it.
And, man, it drives out really nicely.
It's kind of the opposite of mine.
It's an automatic.
It has exhaust out the back, not side pipes.
And after you've gone out and, you know,
raised hell and done all that crap in my car, you can get in this and, you know,
take a job where you can have a conversation with the person in the car.
You really can't. It's quiet.
So we're going to get this fixed up.
This is I think that car would be fantastic
for dad and I to go do Corvettes and Colors,
which they do until you ride third week of September.
And you drive around, you look at all the leaves changing on the trees.
And tell you, right, it's freaking gorgeous anyway.
Yeah. So really, really excited about the prospect of that.
Good job, dad.
And, yeah, I'd like to take a Corvette troop with my dad.
And I think we're going to get a chance to do it.
This sounds really cool. That is awesome.
Yeah, I'm happy about it.
I'm excited.
You know, me and just a chance to fix something.
Give me something to fix, man.
Give me something to fix, man.
Yeah. So there's that.
Let's take a break for some commercials about cool car people stuff.
Driven Radio Show will be right back.
You know, Daryl Ossipic might just be the most interesting man on earth.
Might be.
If you look at his collection of vehicles,
you'll realize this is a Renaissance man from weird old beaters
to serious performance hot rods.
All in one place.
Owner of Ossipic Automotive, Daryl is the car whisperer
practicing voodoo that brings vehicles back from the dead.
Just for for us here on this show.
Daryl has worked on Mercury Mountaineer.
Yeah. Classic Corvettes.
Oh, yeah.
Nissan Xterra.
Mine. Unusual Mercedes.
Yours.
And a 64 Dodge Custom 880.
Neither of ours anymore.
No, not no, Moe.
But you know why it ran?
Daryl Ossipic.
That's right.
In other words, we come to him with our whining issues
and he comes back to us with shiny fixed automobiles.
It is like magic.
Daryl has ASC certified mechanics and happily gives binding estimates.
You might not know he's happy, but that might be because he sees us
coming in and it erases all of his joy.
You'll watch that face drop.
Daryl will explain what he finds, what he plans on doing
and lets you make your decisions.
Nothing hidden, no mechanic bait and switch.
He's straight up and even guarantees all work for at least one month
or 1,000 miles.
Yeah. Ossipic Automotive.
That's OSI, PIK Automotive,
5920 Merriam Drive in Merriam, Kansas,
called Daryl at 913-831-3613.
What was that number?
913-831-3613.
Don't even have to read it.
It's been in my head for a while now.
Dude on the back of my skull.
Ask for the big D and tell him Brett sent you
after he sighs heavily.
And he will.
He'll get you taken care of 913-831-3613.
Ossipic Automotive.
Welcome to the House of Hell.
Hell, yes.
Casa Amigos at 159th and Merlin serves up some of the best
Mexican food this side of Mexico.
It's a driven radio show favorite for after the show.
We've been there.
And before.
Yeah.
And something during if we can get away with it.
Not wrong.
Jose Villasenor, the owner, makes food the old fashioned way.
You know, delicious.
Oh, yeah. Remember that?
Uh-huh.
Plus, he has a little red Corvette, so we already like him.
I saw that in your garage.
And a little brown Corvette.
Yeah, I'm helping.
I'm helping.
You're so kind.
I'm taking out and trade for chips and salsa.
Smart man.
Did I mention the food?
Oh, oh, yeah, that huge menu and margaritas that are pleased
to meet you.
Order takeout, dine in, eat on the patio.
It's all good.
Service is awesome.
Seriously.
It's the only restaurant I've been to where the owner comes out
and gives me a hug.
Make the drive to Casa Amigos at 159th and Merlin in Olathe,
Kansas.
Check them out online at CasaAmigosKC.com.
Living La Vida Local.
Casa Amigos, where flavor is your friend.
Si.
Si.
And now back to more Driven Radio Show.
Our special guest this week is a known Priusmonger.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Yeah, we've given Prius a lot of grief on here.
He's also an alleged cannonball run record holder
and unofficial timekeeper for such events.
Mr. J. Roberts, semi-retired former delivery driver.
He now does emergency deliveries for defense contractors
as he is known for driving long distances at high speeds,
our kind of guy.
J has done six cannonball run type cross-country drives
and holds some record times on those drives.
Most recently, he set a world record.
God, you're not going to believe this.
World record for driving the longest continuous time
in the same traffic roundabout.
Oh, my God.
For five hours and three minutes.
That's that's that's like being tortured on the merry-go-round, man.
Dude, it's like an Asgard nightmare.
Turn left and just keep turning.
Yeah, just just keep turning.
Just keep turning.
Anyway, I know I'm crazy.
My mom, I had me tested.
Jay, welcome to Driven Radio.
Thank you for having me on, gentlemen.
I appreciate it.
We're to be on your show.
We're happy to have you.
When did you realize you were a car guy?
Did you have early influences?
I did, I guess, you know, my father was in in the military.
And so we spent a lot of time
riding in the back of his big block
Buick's back and forth across the country as a kid
going to visit family stuff.
So always always have been a car guy.
I guess my earliest influences
I've always been a huge fan of Smokey you.
Oh, OK. That's a name that doesn't come up often.
You know, he was a guy that took the rulebook,
read the rules and figured out how to do things to skirt around the rules.
Oh, that's right. And and and beat the system.
You know, we've had John Fakara on before discussing
some of the stuff that Smokey did to try to skirt all the NASCAR rules.
Well, yeah, well, we have some mutual friends have been on.
I'm good friends with John and
Chris Michaels, who was on a few weeks ago.
So we run in the same circles.
Well, love having Christopher on. He's he's colorful.
He is extremely colorful.
One of the best storytellers I know.
Yes, he is. Yes, he is.
So what was your first car or maybe truck related job?
I was right in high school.
My first job was delivering newspapers for the local
news, news.
And I was 16 years old, got my first car.
And it was a 1967 Buicklesaber convertible.
Oh, my. Wow.
That thing's about a block and a half long.
It was. It was fun.
Parallel parking it on Main Street to deliver my newspapers.
And so it was, you know, right out of, like I said, first first car,
first license, but I had a lot of fun.
And, you know, my entire working career is involved
automotive, you know, from being involved in the pest control business
for many, many years to, you know, selling that and working that
as a delivery driver of always, always spent a lot of time
behind the steering wheel, staring through a windshield.
How long did you drive for a company that rhymes with red flecks?
I was with them for 11 years.
Well, what convinced you to leave?
Well, I was with them back when they were actually a good company.
Oh, yes.
Back when they first started with the independent contract subcontractor
model, working for them, it could be, you know, one man in a truck.
And that eventually got changed to where you had to have a minimum
of three routes instead of one route.
And I think they're up to like seven or nine minimum routes
you have to have now to be a contractor.
Do you have to be able to run the full route every day?
All of them? Yeah. Yeah.
No kidding. Yeah.
That's a lot of windshield time.
How long is the average route?
You know, it varies depending on the area.
You know, the route that I was doing, I was covering about 250 miles a day.
I was in a very rural area.
And that doesn't include all the stops getting
in the back of the truck, getting the packages out, pulling them out,
dropping them off, running back, getting back in the truck.
That's a lot of time, man.
I'm guessing did you work by the mile or were you paid by the hour?
I was paid a flat rate per day.
No kidding. Wow.
Didn't matter if you were at six hours or 10 hours, this is how much you got paid.
And so and I'm guessing they had load you up and really try to take advantage of that.
They would.
So but I was very efficient at it.
And the more that they gave me the faster I got it done.
So it was it was, you know, the only
difficult time I had was that that period between
the Monday after Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve,
working six days a week, very long days.
Yeah. Yeah.
And you're one one day off.
You didn't want to move.
You just want to lay it a bit.
Yeah, I used to work as a sorter for UPS between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
And I would work the the third shift
and I'd come home and run the hottest bath I could and grab three beers
and lay in the tub and drink beer.
I remember the the best and the worst truck I ever had to unload.
Best truck was an entire trailer load of baseball caps
and every box was a tube, a two foot cube, two by two by two.
And it didn't weigh much.
Oh, no, they didn't weigh a thing.
So you just just throwing stuff out of the back of the trailer.
You know, those UPS trailers, they've got bellies in them.
A lot of them, they go down low.
So they're taking advantage of getting more stuff in the trailer.
Worst trailer ever.
The entire belly was filled with ammo.
Oh, oh, and ammo boxes there.
I delivered a lot of ammo.
Yeah, they're small and heavy.
Exactly. Lots of them.
Lots of them.
Also remember getting a trailer full of now
you got to be a certain age to remember this.
Um, adult entertainment, VHS tapes.
Yes, with several of the boxes torn open, and they make you put those
in a special tub so they can go be sorted by somebody other than you.
I I I delivered quite a bit of that.
There was a there's a family show.
There was a box of one one morning, the people load the trucks, a box
of, I say, adult boys busted open and were spilling individually down the belt.
So many flashlights.
So it wasn't like one of them.
It was hundreds of them.
So yeah, it was quite entertaining.
A morning loading our trucks that day.
It's an avalanche.
Yeah, a few days later, a box of, you know, the candy jawbreakers.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, a box of those busted open.
And these were all over the building.
Yeah, they're like ball bearings.
Yes. And they were everywhere.
We were finding on three months later, stuff around stuff.
And it was just.
But the thing is, did they still taste good?
I didn't know I wasn't going to risk it.
But but you asked me why I left, you know, I saw.
Well, it sounded like they were just taking advantage of you.
Well, I saw things from the corporate world that was coming down from the higher ups
and they were slowly making changes.
You know, you ever worked in work in an environment and you had a boss
that made everyone's lives miserable.
Bosshole. Yeah.
Yes. Yes. And had a few.
That's that's what was happening here.
And it was coming from the top down.
The markets to be one now.
Only sort of. And and so I was like, you know what?
I'm done. I'm done.
It's like that that song from the who's a line in it.
You know, 11 hours in a tin can, Lord, get me out of here.
That's what it started to feel like.
You know, it's just no one cared.
It was drudgery and they they nitpicked you.
Oh, my girl managed you and made your life miserable.
Oh, boo.
OK, you got out.
So now you drive hella fast.
Yeah.
Can you can you talk about that a little bit?
I'm curious.
You deliver stuff for the defense industry.
Now, I'm not expecting you to tell us what kind of stuff.
I imagine that you don't get us talk about that.
But scotch and bullets.
Yeah, that's it. That's it.
Well, well, there's, you know, defense contractors,
they provide some materials that, you know,
people think we're covert and other materials that are ordinary
everyday items, but they are things that are needed.
And in this case, it's industrial ductwork.
And does the duct work?
Yes. OK.
That might be as simple as.
Ducting for a manufacturing process to remove
welding fumes or sawdust or even exhaust parts
for military vessels. OK.
One of the most emergency runs I've ever done
was parts going to a Coast Guard ship.
No kidding. And the ship was not moving
until I arrived there with these parts.
Well, how much? Wow. How much ground are you covering here?
How? How far are you driving?
Anywhere in the United States, including Canada, I can be
anywhere in the country in 48 hours from from my home base.
Wow. Well, I understand how that works.
Are you doing this in a Prius?
And I'm doing it in a Prius.
Is it the same Prius?
The exact same Prius.
We're going to talk about that card a little while,
because you've done some interesting stuff in it.
I have. And apparently to it.
Yes. That also.
How did you get involved with timed long distance racing?
And what runs have you allegedly competed in?
Well, my introduction to it come from
back just prior to covid started watching YouTube
and I run across a channel titled Ben Wickey.
And the gentleman on there at Bollion was talking about
this cannonball style. We've had that on before.
Good guy. Great guy.
And so I remember the movie as a kid.
It really, you know, didn't set me a lot of just, you know,
another comedy movie, but I became so intrigued by it.
And next thing you know, I'm ordering, you know,
Brock Hates book and and Alex Roy's book, Ed's book.
And I'm digging deep into it and watching this.
And the whole time I'm studying and watching the videos,
I became more convinced that this was something that I had
the skills, the training and experience to do.
But the problem was, who are these people?
Where are their group? Where can I find them?
And how do I get involved?
And I just kept digging deeper and down to Google rabbit holes.
And I found a website forum
dedicated to radar detectors. OK.
And in there, a gentleman mentioned
a cannonball run and I just messaged him privately, like, hey,
Mr. Sted and cannonball run.
And we chatted over a period of few months and he thought I was crazy.
But I convinced him that I was capable.
And John Fakari mentioned earlier was doing an event called the Muscat Ball
Run. Yes. And the roles of the Muscat Ball was
the cars had to have one hundred one horsepower or less.
I thought, well, I got a prize.
I wonder what the horsepower is on it.
Probably not a lot.
And it turns out one hundred and two horsepower on the dyno.
OK, so what kind of penalty do you have to pick?
Because I know John had dreamed up a lot of stuff
for that particular run.
And some of it involved at one point, I heard something about
a live lobster in a tank on your lap.
And correct. That was one of the options.
The other option was I had to add
ten pounds of weight for every horsepower over. OK.
That was easy.
And then, plus, I had to assemble a puzzle.
Glue the puzzle to the car.
Glued to the hood at the start.
Well, my car being only one horsepower over, it was a hundred
piece puzzle.
It was some cars that were, you know, twenty some over mad at
five hundred piece puzzle, you know.
So he staggered out the size of the puzzle.
Well, and he gave us the puzzle and a bottle of Elmer's glue,
the glue to the thing.
I stand there.
Surprisingly, when I got to the finish line at the Portofino,
the puzzle was still glued to the. Wow. Oh, wow.
That is surprising. Yes.
I was, you know, I pulled in and everybody was there.
And they started looking at the hood.
I'm like, what's going on?
Because I thought, you know, that puzzle was gone by the time I
cleared Pennsylvania. Sure.
And but it was still there with the one rainstorm in the front
edge of it was folded up a little bit.
But it was still intact and glued to the hood.
It was the craziest thing that Elmer's glue and a puzzle stay attached.
That's amazing. That's a testament to Elmer's glue. No doubt.
Yeah. That's fantastic.
So that run, I may or may not.
I was supposed to do that.
And then I wound up having a conflict.
I had to go cover something for a magazine and did not get to go.
I was very saddened by that because it looked like you guys had a ball.
Oh, it was it was so much fun.
And and I was I was hooked, you know.
Well, you were kind of a run man.
Well, I was, but I I didn't know who these people were.
Like, how do I become friends with them?
How do I get to know them?
And it's tough not to become friends with John.
It's yeah.
And well, all the members of the cannibal one community
are the kindest, nicest people I've ever been associated with.
Well, and we like I said, we've had Ed on before.
And I've gotten when I was in Monterey just last
just in August, got a chance to meet him in person.
He's very gracious. He's a super nice guy.
And John, I've been friends with for a while.
Um, every time I talk to him, he because I'm a Corvette guy,
he just gives me hell about some Corvette or other.
Ask him about ZR1 clutches sometime.
He might actually do you physical harm.
But he's such a sweetheart of a human being and all all the guys, Christopher.
Jesus, Travis Bell, everybody.
Yeah. Travis Bell.
I was just telling my son-in-law about him today.
I think Travis is the human being.
We should all try to be more like.
I have said that to other people.
It's like if you want a role model in your life,
copy what Travis Bell does.
He's a fantastic human being and he's so positive all the time.
Yes, furthermore.
God, have you ever seen anybody else act like a bigger juvenile delinquent?
And and have more fun doing it.
No kidding. No kidding.
I did an emergency run a couple of months ago and it was to Boise, Idaho.
They called me at 2 p.m.
on a Monday and asked me if I could have this part to Boise, Idaho
by the close of business on Wednesday.
That's what happened.
Where did you have to pick it up?
Just an hour from my home.
OK, so it was close to Carolina. OK.
Yeah, it was almost 2,500 miles one way.
Jeez, Boise, Idaho. OK.
Yeah, that's a good run.
Yeah, it was.
And after I dropped it off on my way back,
I stopped at Travis's house.
Well, unbeknownst to me, he was having his holding weekend part.
Yeah.
And so
I pulled in this place Friday night is after dark
and went around his big, big shop, garages around back.
And he didn't even know it was coming.
And sitting there in his garage was Travis Bell,
Sam Hart from Hard Up's Garage and Dustin from the Mischief series.
Yeah, I spent time with him in the past and it was like, what's this?
You know, the wife thought I was going to be home Friday night late.
I didn't get home till Sunday.
Yeah, it's a slight detour.
That's a little detour. Yeah, it's far.
It's like, how can I leave now?
You know, all my friends are here. Yeah, no kidding. No kidding.
So. So.
I guess the first question to ask is what runs have you done?
What have you been involved in?
Allegedly. Allegedly.
I hope they're out from underneath the statute of limitations.
They are all out. You don't have to use the allegedly.
OK, enough. OK. I've been pretty open about it.
So one of the most good ball run, my goal was to break the nonstop record.
OK. And I learned a couple of valuable lessons on that.
Number one, I found the limit in speed where a Prius gets horrible.
You look out what's the balancing point?
About 109, 110, you're good for 32 miles to the gallon.
Still still. That's pretty impressive.
But when you drive at six hours and 115 miles an hour,
which is its top speed, it will not go any faster. OK.
I covered 678 miles in six hours.
Jesus, that's hauling the mail.
What kind of about 19?
OK, so it really, really drops quite a bit.
I mean, so I learned that.
And I realized that the the twin 32 gallon auxiliary fuel tanks
that I had in the back, was it going to be quite enough fuel to do it now?
Wow, no kidding.
And that's in addition to the as do you still have the factory fuel tank in there?
Correct. Wow. All right.
So what's factory fuel tank, 18 gallons, eight, 11, 11.
OK, well, 11 and 64, 75 gallons of gas.
And you can go an awfully long way with that.
You can.
I read your if I wasn't doing
paintball speeds, I could probably do you a hypermollet and do the whole way.
But, you know, to try to set a nonstop record, I was like,
all right, I want to need another tank.
And I'm going to have to adjust my speed
of down a little bit to maintain the fuel economy.
Yeah, you know, all right.
So so I removed the front passenger seat
and installed a third 32 gallon auxiliary fuel set.
And I left with a red ball garage
with a hundred and seven gallons total fuel load.
And I made the run in 33 hours, 45 minutes without stopping.
Gee, wow, that's impressive.
So how did you choose a Prius in the first place?
Was it just strictly the economy?
Well, it kind of started back to the cars running the musket ball.
It was a car that I already had.
I actually had two of them. OK.
And so I had my car, which is the older one.
And the car that is now mine, that I've been bequeathed,
was my wife's. She bought a brand new. OK.
And when we were planning the musket ball run, I was going to take my car.
But she insisted that I take hers
because it had modern tech on it and better safety features that mine didn't have.
All right. All right. OK.
So, you know, the adaptive cruise control and your butter airbags and things like that.
So she must like you.
We've been together 30 years.
So nice.
You know, either that or she's
I don't know how to tolerate you.
There's there's some of that as well.
So is that your fastest run?
The musket ball run?
No, the nonstop one that I did a year later.
OK, now it's the nonstop one.
I wanted to make sure make sure I understood what you're talking about.
There's a rumor floating around that you may have broken one of Alex Roy's records.
Did that irritate him?
I've broken Alex Roy's record twice.
OK. And which which records are we talking about?
It was the semi-autonomous record that he set in a Tesla in 2016.
OK, one of the questions that I had for you is before you get started on this,
please explain to us the difference between solo, semi-autonomous and autonomous.
What are what are the what are the differences?
Well, solo means there's in the modern day means there's a single driver in the car.
No passengers, no one else in the car.
OK, kind of self-explanatory.
Right. The difference between semi-autonomous and autonomous.
Um, semi-autonomous means there's a driver who can take control.
If the conditions need it at any time.
Autonomous means it's a driverless vehicle.
So like the Waymo, Cads that you see popping up around.
OK, the Phoenix, Atlanta, you know, I've been in one a couple of times.
All right. Apple on your phone, you order like ordering an Uber.
This car comes to your location.
There's no one in it.
I've not written in one of those.
Can you is is are there limitations to how far you can tell it to go?
Yeah, there's a geofenced area.
OK, and so the basically all of.
Greater L.A. area, you can get one all over.
OK. And in Los Angeles, I know Atlanta,
there's some limitations, you know, size, but they cover
the most of downtown, a lot of other suburbs around Atlanta.
OK, so.
And but riding in a driverless vehicle.
It was a non-event just to be flat honest with you.
You get in it, you put on your seatbelt, the app on your phone,
you tell it you're ready to go and off it goes to your destination.
Well, that's how it's supposed to work.
Right, that's what it's supposed to do.
And it did everything perfectly.
And I was a skeptic that on my first ride.
Excuse me, there was a a moving van.
Parked on a residential street with its hazard lights on.
It was in our lane.
All right. This driverless vehicle pulled up behind it, stopped.
Waited for all the traffic on coming traffic to go past us.
Signaled left, got in a wrong lane,
passed the moving van, signaled right and continued on its way
without any human input.
Well, and it did it perfectly and flawlessly.
That's interesting.
It's got to feel so weird.
And so I'm watching this go down in the steering wheels moving
and signaling I'm going, OK, I'm sold.
You know, it does the it does a car listen to you.
Does it can you give it verbal commands or it's just doing what it's doing?
The only options you have is your choice of ambient lighting
and your choice of music.
All right. Well, that's interesting.
I haven't ridden in one of those yet.
So now like you mentioned, you know, semi-autonomous.
A lot of people don't realize it,
but you have driven a semi-autonomous.
Both of you have.
All right. You've been in a car with adaptive cruise control or cruise control.
That was a form of semi-autonomous driving.
All right. So which let's talk about the records of Alex Roy's that you broke.
And after that kind of how did he respond?
How do you take it?
Well, there was a cannonball run reunion when I was considering this
and had a big dinner and after dinner,
I want to have said, Alex,
and when you set the semi-autonomous record in 2016,
how did you measure the percentage of all time?
And as I was like, Jay, what are you doing?
Like I said, no, no, no, no, after my question.
And he explained how they did it.
And then I told him what I was planning to do.
And there's a device called comma AI.
It's a piece of hardware to mount in your car.
The car has to have factory equipped adaptive cruise control
and self lane centering. OK.
Mounts up on your windshield,
plugs into the OBD port of the car.
And it's so simple.
You would think it'd be a lot more complicated than what it is.
You go out, set your cruise control, like go the steering wheel
and it will follow the car in front of you.
It'll maneuver around curves and speed up, slow down.
It'll car in front of you stops.
It'll bring you to a full stop.
It does everything and you don't have to touch anything at all.
Wow. That's I'm sitting here considering
how much does that thing cost?
A thousand dollars. Oh.
That's it.
Yeah. But can it heat your coffee?
I mean, let's let's talk about the real thing.
Let's get to the important part.
If you could probably plug in a coffee pot in your car
and software developer can write the code to have your coffee.
There's a wilderness away.
Yeah. And a hot dog roller in the back seat.
And we're one of the software developers.
Fort wrote a code code program called Taco Bell
and he would get in his car, turn on the system, start it.
It would self drive to his nearest Taco Bell,
take him through the drive through land.
He would order and it would drive him back to his apartment.
It's like if you Uber'd yourself, you know, basically.
That's pretty awesome. Wow.
You can sit in the back seat with no driver, the front seat.
What's the people who drive through freak out?
Well, you can't do that.
If you remove the seat belt, it will not work.
If there's no driver.
Oh, there's an easy way around that.
Yeah, there's an easy way around that.
You just go to the junkyard, find a wrecked one,
cut the buckle off, not the belt, just the buckle.
Go back, put the buckle in your seat belt.
It doesn't know what to do.
Take your life in your own hands and get your tacos.
There you go.
Because I want to put my foot up and get a taco.
Sack a bird seat in the front seat, put the seat all around.
That's a 250 pound sack.
But there you go.
Like I said, no will, no way.
That's a lot of birds.
So I explained all that to Alex and he was he was like,
he was super excited about it.
Alex and I become good friends.
And a lot of what he and I both did to do semi-autonomous stuff
harkens back to the early days of the transcontinental runs back
in 1903, when they made the first runs back to
when Cannonball Baker became famous for doing cross-country drives.
He did not so much to prove that he could do it,
but to prove the technology, you know, the first cross-country drives
happened in 1903.
We man hadn't even flown in an airplane yet.
No, you know, you know, put that in the context.
The the first drive in 1903, there was less than 100 miles
of paved roads in the United States.
Oh, wow. I didn't know that.
Right. And so a lot of the drives that he did
was to prove the technology.
And he was kind of a PT Barnum of his time.
And that's how he got paid.
Manufacturers would come to him and say,
will you do a drive in my car?
Will you race my motorcycle?
And OK, and his motto was
if I don't set a record or I don't win, I don't get paid.
Oh, oh, really?
Yes, that's interesting.
And so.
And so manufacturers come to him with a new model truck or car motorcycle.
And he's like, I can't set a record.
And yes, I can't win this.
This won't work. It's not good enough.
But others like, yeah, I'm set a record in that car.
Let's go.
Alex and I are trying to prove modern day technology
is viable.
It can be done.
It's usable in the same way that Cannonball Baker did
over 120 years ago.
Got it. Well, the car that
pioneered that was the Tesla Model S
has.
And I'm sure there are lots of other cars that have it.
What's the who's got the best drive
is self driving car right now?
Who's got the best technology?
Um, believe it or not, I think the GM system is the best.
Is it really?
Best in terms of safety.
Do you do you think that thing would make an autonomous run
cross country or semi autonomous?
It could.
Part of the way the GM system
is relying heavily on mapping.
And so they it's only will work on roads that have been
heavily mapped in detail.
So it's not like the common system.
It doesn't care where you are.
OK, you know, it's got forward facing camera.
Oh, OK, I understand.
And it reads the lines on the roads.
It'll work if there's no lines on the road.
You can drive.
I can drive on the wrong side of the road.
And it thinks it's in a legitimate lane.
It doesn't know any different.
OK. All right.
You know, I could take my car with it over to the UK,
driving the wrong side of the road.
It doesn't know any different.
The GM system is is focused on safety.
And so that only is only allowed to be used on roads.
They've not.
All right. OK, now I understand.
See, this is this is new to me.
I'm I'm impressed by having, you know,
power steering on my old Corvette.
Tell us about your Prius.
And you said you've got two as one and daily for you
and the other ones for cross country stuff.
Or how do you have them set up?
And which do they have specific purposes?
They do. After, you know, I kind of commandeered my wife's car.
She went and got her car and she's got a Prius V.
And that's the larger model in Europe and Asian markets.
It's actually has three rows seating in it.
Oh, really? Yes. Yes.
And a Prius and a Prius.
And so it's a much larger model.
It looks like an SUV.
A lot of people don't even realize it's a Prius.
You probably seen them and didn't realize it yourself.
Well, hers, I would guess not.
Hers has been heavily modified.
It's on oversized tires.
It has a two inch lift kit front and rear.
You found a lift kit for a Prius?
Yes.
OK, the rear seats have been moved
and it has been turned into a mild overland camping setup.
All right, OK, we've been all over the country camping in it.
And so sleep in the back of it.
It's got a I'm built a custom kitchen box that goes on the back
with, you know, the cooking supplies, solar panels.
A clip to it.
Battery packs.
We can we've lived out of this car for two, three weeks at a time.
So it's the last time back to throw cars off a cliff twice.
I'm for the fourth of July.
Yeah, I love that every year.
It's so cool. Freedom.
So is the other Prius the one you used to do the high speed stuff?
Yeah, and is that also your daily or is it my daily?
I know that you deliver stuff for the defense contractors.
Is that just your your sole job?
Is that the one thing you do?
Yeah, yeah. Nice. Wow.
How did you fall into that?
I'm a friend of a friend worked at this place and
you know, they used to do delivery and they had a situation
that they they had the item that had to get somewhere as they be
critical and their regular shipping methods.
No one could get it there for several days.
And he's like, I know, God, let me call him.
It's like, hey, hey, we got got a thing that needs to be down in Georgia
and needs to be there today.
Call me like nine, ten o'clock in the morning.
Be right there.
You know, OK, showed up, got it done.
And they was like, wait, you got it there today.
That's what you said you needed, right?
So I got it done.
And so they get me on the standby.
I might not hear from them for, you know, weeks at a time.
But when they call me, it's on their last resort.
Yeah. Yeah. OK. All right.
So something is messed up in the supply chain.
An engineer that ordered stuff, got it wrong.
It was an accident at the oil refinery, you know, oil refinery.
It's something like that. OK.
And so like that trip to Boise, Idaho,
the quote to put the part on a plane and send it was almost $20,000.
Oh, oh, my Lord.
So this is big stuff.
This is sizeable cargo.
It has to fit in my car.
OK. And what's the biggest thing you've hauled?
Well, what's an 18 inch diameter
polished stainless steel laser welded 90 degree elbow.
How how long was it?
I'm about five, five and a half feet.
So this really filled your car up nicely. Yeah. Yeah.
OK. Wow.
I have so many questions about that don't really fit into the interview.
Does this pay well?
Is I mean, is there a pretty substantial
pay bump for being Johnny on the spot and having it there immediately?
Yeah. Yeah, they they don't bulk.
They say how much and they give me a ride and they ride me check
and because I get it done. Nice.
That's fantastic.
And how do you have the car equipped for that?
Is it any different than for the time drones?
No, I have the same equipment.
I have, you know, a Valentine one radar detector.
OK. I have a full laser jammer system front and rear.
I run two phones, an iPhone and an Android phone.
And the Android phones connected to an app
that's connected to the radar detector.
Oh, OK. This Android phone also
notifies you if there's a law enforcement
aircraft within an 10 mile radius of where I'm located.
No kidding. Is that a separate app or part of the radar detector?
It's it's part of the radar detector app.
That's cool.
Oh, why JBV one?
Why Android and iPhone?
Is the is it just to make sure everything overlaps?
Well, the Android phone is not connected to cellular service.
And so I ordered to the hotspot on my phone.
OK. It's called a dedicated countermeasures hall.
All right. You know, so it's always in the car, always on the dash.
Well, you know how many people are listening to this
who are interested in doing this kind of thing.
And they're going, I'm writing all this stuff down.
OK, they are.
OK, so dedicated countermeasures
phone with the Android and then the iPhone.
Is that just are you running ways?
Are you on ways and Google Maps?
OK, so something else the Apple and Android phone does
is it populates a history
of all crowdsourced police alerts.
Yeah. And it and it does a heat map.
So you're driving down the highway
and the colors.
If it's green, there hasn't been a lot of reports in this area.
If it turns red,
you know that this is a high law enforcement area. OK.
And it looks at the history over the last 90 days
of how many police reports have been reported in this location.
And so that gives you an indication well before you get there.
OK, this is a hot song.
So running across country as frequently as you do,
are there highways and roads that you're familiar with?
And, you know, they are heavily watched
or they're not watched at all and you can really fly here.
Or is it like that? Oh, cool. Absolutely.
There are some states and some areas and states where
you know, they're going to be there, you know, on the town of Rolla, Missouri.
Oh, that's not far away.
They are always going to be there because the city police that there's
artificially low speed limit through the city limits of that town.
And the city police are going to be there and they're going to be riding tickets
all the time. Yeah. Wow.
If you're driving through Rolla, Missouri, just just to speed limit.
It's in 10 minutes, you'll be through the town and gone. OK.
Other areas, it's the total opposite of that.
Never see law enforcement there. Really?
Yeah. Oh, I got it.
We got to talk once we're off air. Yeah.
I want to know where I can fly. That's cool.
All right. So in addition to doing these cross country runs
and it sounds like you've you got us figured out,
how did you become the official timekeeper for some of these events?
Well, there's an event that happens in.
In the early part of the year, every year, it's called the Southern Classic.
Yeah, I may or may not be there this year.
So, well, your listeners may not know the Southern Classic is as close
to being a bandit run in the ideology of smoky and abandoned as possible.
Yep. You look, we literally start in Atlanta
where they film portions of the the movie.
You go to Texarkana, Bicorps beer, come back to Atlanta.
And all the cars have to be 1984 or older.
And to keep it very correct.
And you'll see anything and everything.
Last year, someone made the run into the DeLorean.
Lord, really? Yeah. Yeah.
They got to make a run in a DeLorean.
They got a DeLorean to run that far.
They did. It made the entire trip.
That's impressive in itself. Yeah.
And, well, I never heard of this run.
This was right after the musket ball. Yeah.
And I didn't have a car that qualified.
And so I have this old Toyota RV.
I reached out to the event organizer and I said, hey,
I said, can I come down and hang out at the start
and I'll bring a time clock and everybody time cards
and I'll punch them out when they leave.
And they'll hand me the car when they come back in.
I'll punch them in and log their time.
He's like, that'd be a great idea.
So that's what I did. I showed up spent the night
at the fairgrounds in Atlanta
and pushed them out and pushed them in.
And it added.
Added a layer that to the run that everybody loved.
And every year I just keep going back.
The same event organizers started another one called the US Express.
And that's a full coast to coast run.
And I did the time clock for that.
But this time it involved having the time clock
double analyzed by TSA at the airport.
Did they think it may have been something explosive?
Yeah, it triggered some things in their X-ray machine
when they scanned it through my carry on. No kidding.
And they, yeah.
So they looked hard and swabs and asked some questions.
And I said, my story's been the same every time
saw on the thrift store thought it looked cold taking it home.
Oh, OK.
So what did they say when they look at it and the thing
like a stopwatch is running? Yeah, it's ticking.
Well, I do not leave it running on on the plane.
So I got a battery pack I travel with
after the last car leaves from one side and plug it.
I throw it in a carry on suitcase, run it through TSA.
They scrutinize it when I get to the to where everyone's finishing.
You know, I keep it on East Coast time and set it and I have it down.
I can set it within 30 seconds of the time.
So, you know, where I unplugged it and
but everybody's working off the same time, whatever I said it is.
So that those few seconds don't matter.
OK, OK. And so
Southern Classic.
Yeah, US Express.
Press heavy.
And there was another event called the War Between the Interstates.
Yeah, which was that was a fun one.
It was basically a as fast as you want to go.
Scavenger hunt at Civil War battlefields all over the South.
And it was it was the North Team versus the South Team.
It was who won involved the North Team one.
North Team. Yeah. OK.
So, yeah, and it was a lot of fun.
And were there specific rules about cars and manufacturing dates
and all that good stuff?
There was. And so it's the same thing.
1984, older, the upcoming Southern Classic.
The it's getting harder and harder for people to get 40 year old cars.
Yeah, they can make these runs.
And so the event organizer is considering a
allowing a musket ball exemption.
Cars that qualify for the musket ball.
OK. So they will be slot fillers
after all the legit cars come in.
OK, so there's a chance. OK.
A chance that the next event,
the Prius will be making a run in it.
So I have one vehicle that absolutely qualifies and one that's kind of a fudge.
But they're both two wheeled.
I've got old Harleys.
I've always wanted to try to do this on an old Harley just for the giggles
of it to see if it would even work.
Do it.
Last year, he allowed a two wheel entry.
Good friend of mine named Andrew, and he did it on two wheels.
But legally, it was a scooter.
Really? Yeah, he did it on.
I believe it's a hunt, one of the newer Honda Silverwings.
That's awesome.
What kind of a time did he set?
And tell us what a good time is for Southern Classic.
I believe the record for the Southern Classic is 14 hour change.
Wow, man, that's a pretty good turn around.
That's yeah.
You know, the average most teams are doing in 17, 18 hours round trip.
OK. And how many miles are we talking?
It's for almost 1400 miles round trip.
And somebody did it in 14.
And 14 change.
Do you know what they were in?
Yes. So it was a Ferrari.
Oh, OK.
All right.
It's a Magnum PI era Ferrari 308.
I'm guessing it had been breathed on a little bit because those aren't that potent.
Yeah. And a close second to that was
a Mercedes 6.9. OK.
Yeah.
And that would do it.
And then it had been modified.
It was a six speed manual swap, 6.9.
Jesus.
It was basically built just to do these events.
Who did the swap?
Was it GKB or was it somebody else?
It was Cameron Davis in
Iran's DC motor works in Atlanta.
OK. OK.
All right. He specializes in those kind of cars.
Yeah. Yeah.
I think I've seen him on Ed's channel a few times.
Yeah. Isn't he the guy who did the massive service on all of Ed's Lamborghinis?
That and got the the Victoria's Secret Diablo running.
Yeah. We haven't had a chance to talk to Cameron, but I'd really like to.
Yeah. I reach out to him.
I'm sure he'd come on the show. He's got a lot of stories.
All right.
So the question that a lot of guys are going to have
and I already know because, well, we'll just skip that part.
How does one get invited to these events?
Well, they say 90 percent of success in life is just showing up.
And I found that to be true amongst the people like myself that do these events
and do these runs and join the look up on the Southern Glass Classic page
or the US Express page.
We have a page that's somewhat open to the public.
Kind of talk to us, get to know us.
Yeah, talk to us, get to know us.
You know, people are vetted a little bit to join these events.
And, you know, we'll talk to you, get to know you.
And if you're not, you have the right attitude.
Yeah, that helps. That does help.
And if you're not going to do something absolutely crazy,
like stuff for Prius with 96 gallons worth of gas.
It was a hundred and seven.
It was a hundred and seven.
Well, that's 96 gallons of auxiliary tanks, plus the 11 gallons.
Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah.
I wouldn't want to I wouldn't want to trim the 11 gallons off you.
You never know. Yeah.
Yeah, you might need that. Yeah.
But, you know, we do some crazy things,
but the biggest thing in these runs is the safety record.
Yeah, because nobody has ever sustained a serious injury
on any of these runs.
And that's a fairly impressive record to have.
It's hard to believe, but these runs and the cannonball run
has the safest record in the history of motorsports.
Oh, yeah, it does.
We just can't brag about it too loud.
Exactly.
And and that's why we are careful about who comes into these groups.
Yeah, absolutely.
You're extremely reckless.
If you're not a safe driver,
you have some ideas that aren't going to fly.
You're not going to get an invite, you know.
Well, and you've got to it is about having fun, but you got to.
You got to have your head about you.
You can't just say, oh, I'm going to go real fast.
And that's it.
There's quite a bit more to it than that.
And that's part of what has made this so safe.
And we've never had anybody.
I say we.
I've been invited to a bunch and haven't been able to make it yet.
But there's a there may or may not be a car being prepped.
Currently, neither confirmed nor denied.
Yeah, I can't can't do that.
And also, stupidly, I still want to try one on a Harley, just just to do it.
You should you should do it.
Harleys are not fast, but they're kind of fun.
Yeah. So the the motorcycle record for the
Cannibal Ron is currently held by Harley.
Is it really?
I thought it was I thought it was the guy who had the BMW RT.
You know, oh, yeah.
Oh, OK.
Well, um, yeah, I'm down.
So don't discount Harley too much.
But just remember, it's the time of the year you're going to be doing.
It is in late January, early February.
Yeah, I know.
And it's down south and they still get stinking snow.
And yeah, yeah, but I've I've thought about that an awful lot.
I've got one bike that's fast and it would be stupid to do it.
Probably rattle my fillings out and another bike that's not quite as fast,
but it's big, it's comfy, it's got a windshield.
You could probably put an auxiliary tank on it pretty easy.
You know, that's what I like to do it on.
Yeah, that's that's the one.
I don't want to ride either of them in the snow.
I've ridden the fast one in the snow before.
It's stupid. Yeah, it's not a good idea.
Alrighty, here's the rub.
Here's what we were going to talk about from the jump.
Jay, you recently set and kind of an odd record.
What was the record?
Where did you do it?
And whose idea is this place?
Blame, please.
Yeah, I will place blame.
Jake, if you're listening, it's all your fault.
I'm a good friend of mine.
Jake Vonell, we have a small chat group and he dropped a thing.
He's like, there's this world record for driving continuously in a roundabout.
And it's only four hours and 20 minutes, eight minutes is a record.
We should do this.
I'm like, where's 28 minutes?
That's it. That's all it is.
Let's go.
So I immediately I immediately have a question, sir.
Yeah. So when did the first cop show up?
Well, we decided to do it same weekend as our annual
Cannonball Run reunion in Connecticut.
OK, and I picked a roundabout at a small village
20 minutes away from where the reunion is.
Oh, OK.
And so that's where we did.
It was in Connecticut and it's a fairly small roundabout.
Probably wasn't a good choice to do it on.
But oh, no, no, no.
We were committed.
And it's like once we started, it's like, well, we're going to do this.
And it was about an hour in and I think people were calling us in.
They were confused by this car just going round and round and round.
He called the police and a police officer pulled up
to the entrance of the roundabout, rolled down his blended
and pointed us to the exit.
We just waved at him, kept going around.
He pulled out into the roundabout, blocked us
and pointed us to the exit.
I leaned my head out and I was like,
we're doing this set of world record and raise money for charity
and we're not breaking any laws.
He just threw up his hands, rolled his eyes and left.
Because
did it.
Did he have any because they're mad about it.
But at the end of the day, we weren't breaking any laws.
Yeah, did at any point to yell you jackass.
No.
Well, he pulled over and we could see him out just that passed around about.
And so I told Jake, I was like, call the dispatch local police department.
We got a video of it.
He called this batch, explained what we were doing.
Then we weren't breaking any laws.
We're harming anybody, doing it safely.
The dispatcher laughed, asked what charity we're doing it for.
We thanked us.
Thirty seconds later, the officer pulled away.
Never saw him again.
OK.
What charity were you doing this for?
We did it for the Brock Gates Memorial Fund.
Very, very worthy charity.
How did you get people to sponsor you?
And so, well, we kind of kept it quiet that we were doing this until we started it.
And we flooded the reunion's Facebook page that they were doing this.
Our personal Facebook pages, Instagram, all of that.
Well, we also live streamed it.
Oh, wow.
Yes, we live streamed it.
As a good friend runs a business in Montana, Gearshift Garage.
OK.
And he sells these live streaming devices.
And he set me one to use for this event.
So there was people literally sitting at home,
had it on their big screen TV on the YouTube channel,
watching a scope round and round.
It was boring. Oh, my God, I can only imagine just one endless.
Yeah, that was it.
And, you know, every hour we would update and, you know,
our goal was to raise one hundred dollars an hour.
But hey, we raised five hundred bucks.
We'll be happy.
Pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah.
How much did you raise?
We ended up raising almost eighteen hundred dollars.
Nice. Wow. Yeah.
How much have it paid for tires?
I got that question a lot and I looked at the tires
and realistically, we didn't go fast enough to damage it.
Oh, we did it.
Yeah, we did a total of sixty point three miles
was a reset trip for computers in the car.
Sixty miles around a tight circle.
And but our average speed was twelve miles an hour.
Oh, my God.
It didn't go fast enough for the tires to be an issue.
At any point, are you thinking I could be doing Sudoku
or a crossword puzzle three hours in?
It was like, I got paid.
Oh, no. I had to. Oh, yeah.
Oh, no. The rules for the record
is the driver has to remain in the seat the entire time.
Oh, wow. All right.
So how about that Gatorade bottle?
Yeah. Now, luckily, Jake and I didn't have to
embarrass each other by doing that.
And, you know, the live stream didn't want the sounds of that.
So. Oh, God, that's right.
So, you know, we held out.
But but by the time we stopped,
both of us was not looking for the nearest bush.
So Jake was in the car with you the entire time.
Oh, poor guy.
I feel bad for both of you, man.
Well, he had to hit some drama,
meaning that he was filling off.
He said, oh, yeah, I was.
That's the other question I hadn't minded,
either, if you get kind of dizzy or nauseous.
No, I didn't.
But I don't get to see sick, both sick, any of that.
So it didn't bother me at all. So Jake, though.
Yeah, Jake, he had some issues.
He was a little green behind the gills a couple of times.
But he got through it.
So what do you as you're doing this?
Are you I assume you're just looking for
hell, you could have had that AI device with you.
That would have been perfect.
I had it with me, but it won't activate
until you get up to 28 miles an hour.
We never reached that state.
So I couldn't use that system.
You think a dammit.
If I could just do this faster,
I wouldn't have to worry about anything.
Yeah, if we picked a better roundabout,
I probably could have used it.
So how was this one really tight?
Was it like a single lane or something?
Yeah, the single lane roundabout.
Oh, man.
Like you're watching Mr.
McGoo out there for an hour across the middle.
I walked across the middle of it and it was 11 steps.
I walked from one side of it to the other through the middle.
All I'm picturing is.
You're after school, got in trouble.
You got to write, I will not flick spit wads
three thousand times on the board.
That's a punishment.
Oh, my Lord.
That this was punishment.
One thing I did learn is most people have no clue
how to use a roundabout.
You're not absolutely frustrating.
No, in this country.
No, they don't know not a clue.
They're utterly lost.
So yeah, maybe one in a hundred cars hit it right.
They'd come up.
They'd see that they had an opening.
They were gone.
You know, they did everything perfectly.
Yeah, the next question is, how many people did you piss off?
A few dozen.
A few dozen.
Many as I could.
A few dozen.
Yeah, one of the cars I think they saw us go around
about four times and they pulled out behind us, blew the horn,
yelled stuff out the window at us.
They went and pulled off down roundabout.
And about ten minutes later was our second police pop.
Oh, OK.
OK, and it was a full lights and sirens, everything.
No, wow.
Did you call the dispatch and explain to them what was going on
and have them call the cop or how did that work?
Well, one of my buddies was standing on the side.
He was live streaming it on his Instagram and TikTok channels.
OK, nice.
And we were about 10 minutes from tying the existing record.
So you absolutely don't want to stop.
And so we kind of pulled over on one side, but left the wheels
in the roundabout. OK.
And my buddy went to the officer and explained what we were doing
as to if we could continue.
We did.
The officer pulled over, got out and it was the funniest thing.
When they got out of their truck or female officer,
she had her hand on her hips and she had this real stern look on her face.
Every lap or facial expression changed.
Really?
And and by the third lap, she was laughing.
My buddy standing beside her, explaining everything.
And she's hung out for 10, 15 minutes, watching us.
They were in a great conversation when she finally decided to leave.
He asked her to pose for a selfie with him and she did.
Oh, cool. Very cool.
Good on her. So, yeah, so she was she was great about it.
But again, we were breaking laws.
Only reason she was there was someone called the police.
Yeah, so tight little roundabout.
Five hours and three minutes.
Three minutes. Yeah.
How many times did you go around?
We did the rough math on that and we based the math on
how many miles we drove and the diameter of roundabout.
We also did it based on time.
We were averaging four laps every minute.
OK. So.
And so we run the numbers both ways
and they were within 30 laps of each other.
OK. So our best guess is one thousand two hundred and fifty.
Oh, my God.
Wow. Wow.
Just shoot me now. Wow.
Yeah. Screw that.
Congrats. Well done.
No, it breaks in the top five things
of the dumbest thing I've ever done in my life.
I mean, why would anyone choose to do this?
Yeah, on purpose. Yeah, I'm on purpose.
I'm curious myself for the charity fund raising part
and the record part.
You know, even my dumb orange cat will stop chasing his tail.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah, that's awesome.
That congratulations.
That's why. Thank you.
Fantastic. Over a thousand times around a traffic circle.
Oh, man, at some point, I just be thinking, I want to eat a bullet.
Jesus Christ.
What kept us entertaining was the other people.
That's what kept us entertaining was other people.
Really? And watching the charity fund raiser, people donate, people sharing.
OK, that's cool.
Yeah. So that's what kept us going.
Well, here's the thing.
In five hours, you made $1,800 for a very good charity.
And it all it really cost you was gas.
Now, did you have to refill?
Did you have your auxiliary tanks on?
Had had none of that.
The one of the other rules was the record is you had to do it in one tank of gas.
And so 11 gallons filled.
Yeah, I stopped and filled up the car just before we did it.
And when I reset the trip computer at the end, it showed we got 49 miles to the gala.
We used a little over a gallon of gas in five hours and three minutes.
Oh, my word. Wow.
Oh, my word. That's really impressive.
That's it. Yeah, that's not bad at all.
Yeah. Here, I'm thinking I, you know, I got an old Mercedes that's really comfy,
got a good stereo in it.
That might be OK to do it in, but I don't think it would do it.
It would never get that mileage.
No, sir. Yeah. Not even close.
So is there a better roundabout to try to do this on next time?
You think? Do you pick out a better one?
Turns out, turns out there is.
And it's conveniently located to a place.
Many of the scoff walls that do cross good free runs.
No, well, OK, about about 30 minutes away
from the Fino Hotel and Marina Beach.
OK, OK, the official end point of the Cannonball run
is the largest roundabout in the United States.
No kidding. How big is it?
And so I do not know the exact size.
I think it's do you have any lanes?
I think it's about a half mile.
Wow, no kidding.
Yeah. So do you happen to know how many lanes?
Is it like three or four lanes wide or three?
Get into that inside lane and just stay in that inside.
Seven cruise. And exactly.
And take your A.I. thing with you.
You might be able to get, of course, 28 miles an hour
going around a circle.
Yeah, you might wear out one of the bolsters on your seat.
There's there's I've heard there's been some discussions
on future of events of utilizing that roundabout
is a way to earn bonus time on a really.
Yes. That's interesting.
I'd like to see how that works.
Well, there's some there's some rumblings going on amongst
amongst some people. We'll see how that turns out. OK.
OK, all right. That's that's interesting.
All right, I imagine you're 30 minutes away from the finish line
and here's this roundabout.
You might be able to gain 10, 20 minutes as a bonus time.
Well, there's that. OK.
There's that. Yeah.
Yeah, I'd like to I'd like to see how that conversation pans out.
Yeah. All right, Jay, aside from endlessly driving in circles.
What's the dumbest thing you've ever done in a car?
Oh, that one's easy.
Um, I left my co-driver.
While I was doing a cannibal run,
I accidentally left them at a gas station.
Oh, no.
I happened to be married to that co-driver.
Oh, dude.
How the hell did? No, I don't even want to know.
Honey, we got to go.
You see as you lose, baby.
Yes.
It was on the first run when it beat the
city of Tim was still in the autonomous run to beat out towards Redford.
And we it was late at night.
It was raining before we stop.
My wife was driving.
I said, hey, when you're inside, give me a bottle of Gatorade.
You guys know why. Absolutely.
We won't.
And so I gassed up the car, cleaned the windshield.
It was no one in the truck stop.
And instead of going inside, I said, I'm going to use this bush.
I hear it's edge of the parking lot.
She comes out and she's the bathroom inside.
She's got some things with some water and stacks.
And I said, hey, did you get the bottle of Gatorade?
She said, no, I forgot. That's OK.
So I want to go pee.
Let's go.
So I go up to the bush, take your business, turn around.
And it was going to be my turn to drive.
Well, they was I took all the back seats out and it was a mattress in the back
so we could take turns sleeping.
Sure. I need to.
I looked over my shoulder.
I see her getting into the back seat like, oh, she's going to stretch out back there.
I finished what I'm doing.
I get back in the car, crank it up, pull away.
Didn't want to wake her up.
Right. I'm just getting on the exit ramp.
My phone rings. It's her calling me.
I'm like, oh, she's in the back.
I go, hey, babe, your butt down on me and I turn around.
I get halfway around.
I realize the car is empty.
She's not that big.
She's standing in the parking lot of the truck stop
calling me, not in the backseat, but darling whoops.
Oh, boy.
What did you say to her?
What can you say to her?
Yeah, what do what do you say?
I was laughing.
She was laughing.
Was four miles to the next exit to turn around, come back and pick her up.
The we had a private Facebook page
where, you know, other people were watching it, you know,
had their live tracking and everything.
Oh, no. So this is posted by she posted
that I just left her at the top of the fuel shop.
When I pulled in, she was lapping so hard, tears were streaming down.
Oh, God. That's all right.
OK, we both felt equally horrible
because the last thing I knew saw she was getting in the car.
Yeah. Well, she saw me at the bus.
She goes, I don't want to get that bottle of Gatorade.
She did. Oh, no.
Me seeing it or knowing it, she run back in to buy the bottle.
As she come back out of the store, I was pulling away from the box.
So we aren't mad about it.
No, no, you know, we were both the blame.
We were both equally responsible.
And that ranks as something I'll never live down.
Only the dumbest thing I've ever done in a car.
Well done. Well done, sir.
That one's pretty good.
Co-driver, we're co-drivers.
Who?
Whoops, we've been speaking with Cannonball Run record holder
and vicious Prius monger, Jay Roberts.
Jay, please tell us where we can find you online and on social media.
Gonzo Prius on Instagram, one word.
That's appropriate.
Yeah, that is absolutely appropriate.
If you're a fan of Hunter S. Thompson, you will get the guns over there.
Both of us and probably lots of people listening.
Jay, thank you so much for being with us.
We appreciate you taking the time.
Thank you. It's an honor to be on your show.
That Jay is that's a special kind of nuts.
What a good guy.
I don't know if I could do that many laps.
Jay, I love you to death and God bless you for raising money
for a very, very worthy charity.
But geez, man, five hours driving in a circle.
Really? Two different cops showing up.
And one of them actually taking a selfie.
Just wow, wow.
I'm happy that he's found a bigger traffic circle to do it next time.
Yeah, a single lane really tight just
for five hours, man, at 12 miles an hour.
Miles an hour.
You know, what do you do?
Do you listen to music, listen to a book on tape?
Do you put your little phone up in front of your, you know,
your speedometer with your role in Netflix?
I mean, what do you do for that long?
I don't know.
If I was riding shotgun, I'd want to be goofing off
in like 19 different ways, hanging out the window.
Yeah, the fact that somebody rode with, you know,
and had your plus one.
And had to take Dramamine.
Yeah. Oh, God, imagine getting carsick.
Hats off to the co-pilot.
Yeah, he's starting to get motion sick and then not being able.
Yeah, can you pull over so I can yak?
Plus, I'm going to bomb across the country.
And I use that word appropriately with one hundred and seven gallons of gas
in my small, in my small Prius.
You are a gas can on wheels.
Yeah, I mean, it's like Pinto is saying, no, I'll hold your beer.
You're you're a definitely hold your beer.
Yeah, I'll hold your beer.
You go you're you're a rolling gas can over a hundred miles an hour.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
I don't I don't got those kind of cojones.
No, no, no, that's that's balls that clank.
Yeah, well done.
It just is. So, Jay, hats off to you, man.
That's really, really thoroughly impressive.
Thank you so much for spending time with Driven Radio.
We honestly love what we do and we wouldn't be able to do it without the support of our listeners.
You can find us online at drivenradioshow.com.
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If you have a story you would like to tell, like our buddy Jay or someone you would like us to interview,
please contact me at Brett, that's B R E T T at drivenradioshow.com.
I am Brett Hatfield for Mark L Groves.
Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time here on Driven Radio.
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About this episode
Jay Roberts, a record holder for the Cannonball Run, shares his wild experiences in long-distance driving, including his recent world record for driving continuously in a roundabout for over five hours. He discusses his unique choice of vehicle—a Prius—and the modifications he's made for both speed and efficiency. The episode dives into the challenges of high-speed driving, the camaraderie within the Cannonball community, and the humorous mishaps that come with such extreme automotive adventures. Jay's passion for cars and storytelling makes for an engaging listen.
Original notes
Brett and Mark welcome Cannonball Run record holder and vicious Prius monger Jay Roberts to discuss driving cross country in a Prius full of fuel bladders, leaving his co-driver at a gas station, being a hotshot driver for the defense industry, and setting a record for driving in circles. All this and much more on this week's Driven Radio Show!
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