“Triple digit speeds” means going faster than 100 miles per hour. At that speed, it takes a lot longer to slow down and mistakes are more likely to cause a crash.
A “cannonball” is a reckless kind of road trip where someone tries to drive a very long distance in the shortest time. People usually drive extremely fast and may try to avoid getting stopped by police.
Concept
law enforcement potentially around every turn
This describes the cat-and-mouse aspect of aggressive road challenges: drivers anticipate police presence and plan around it. It’s less about a specific car feature and more about situational driving strategy under enforcement risk.
A “smoke screen” is when you create smoke to make it harder for others to see you. Here it’s being talked about as a trick people might use to avoid getting caught.
Place
Red Ball to the Portofino Inn
They’re talking about a specific place they parked/stopped at during the trip. It matters because it’s where they planned to leave the car.
The Ferrari Portofino is a high-end sports car made by Ferrari. It’s meant for longer drives where you still want it to feel quick and exciting. The podcast mentions it in connection with an event and using the car for a specific setup.
The Chevrolet Corvette is a sports car made by Chevrolet. It’s designed to be fast and fun to drive, and the podcast mentions how it feels to sit in the car and how its fuel setup works. People talk about it because it’s a performance car you can still use day to day.
“Screw in plugs” refers to a tire puncture repair method where a plug is inserted into the hole to seal it. It’s a common roadside approach for tread punctures, but it’s not the same as a proper tire repair performed by removing the tire and patching internally.
Term
face the flat
They’re saying they don’t carry a normal spare tire. Instead, they bring tools to handle a flat quickly.
They’re describing the experience of driving in New York, especially how hard it is to park. It affects how you plan your trip.
Term
two-way taped
“Two-way taped” here refers to using tape to secure small devices in the car. In car/track contexts, taped-on gadgets are often used for temporary mounting when you don’t want to drill or permanently install hardware.
Go-karts are small race cars you drive on a track. People often start in them because they’re cheap, fast enough to learn real driving skills, and great for building race experience.
Term
sprint cards
A sprint is a short, fast race where you try to go as quickly as possible for the whole time. It’s the opposite of a long endurance race where you manage the car and yourself over hours.
Spotters are helpers who watch what’s happening ahead of the car. They can warn the driver about traffic or hazards so the driver can keep going fast without getting surprised.
Mission control is like a command center for the driver. People watch traffic and conditions on screens and help decide the best route so the driver can keep moving efficiently.
Overwatch here means someone watching from the sidelines and helping the driver make better decisions. They look for problems ahead and suggest route changes based on what they see.
Countermeasures are things you do to deal with problems or threats. Here, it sounds like they used their own tactics to handle obstacles since they didn’t have a full support team.
This means an engine bearing failed badly. Bearings are small parts that help the crankshaft spin smoothly; if they fail, the engine can get damaged and need major work.
“Sub 30” is shorthand for achieving a cross-country elapsed time under 30 hours. In Cannonball-style runs, elapsed time is the key metric, and “sub 30” indicates an extremely fast average pace.
They’re saying traffic conditions strongly affect how fast you can drive across the country. Their timing choices were based on avoiding bad traffic and construction.
Defensive driving means you drive in a way that assumes other people might do something unpredictable. You keep more space and make safer choices so you’re less likely to get into trouble.
Diesel is a different kind of fuel and engine than gasoline. Diesel engines squeeze air more, then fuel ignites from the heat of compression, which can make them efficient on long drives.
It means staying behind a big rig to use its “wind shadow.” That can make your car work a little less and sometimes helps gas mileage on long, straight stretches.
A CB radio is a simple walkie-talkie style radio you can use while driving. Truckers use it to talk to other drivers on the road. The host is saying they try to contact people with it but don’t always get replies.
An exit ramp is the road you take to leave a highway and get to the next exit. They pulled over on one to get out of traffic. It helps explain where they were when the police approached.
“Cannonballing” means trying to drive a long distance as fast as possible, usually with very aggressive timing. It’s dangerous because it often involves speeding and rushing. The officer is basically asking if that’s what they’re doing.
A U-turn is when you turn your car around so you’re going back the other way. The police officer tells them they’ll need to do that to get back on track. It’s part of the re-routing plan after the wrong exit.
Here, “copilot” just means a second person in the car who helps the driver. They keep an eye out and help the driver focus on driving instead of fiddling with things.
Satellite radio is a subscription audio service that broadcasts music and talk over satellites. In cars, it’s often used as background audio, but the speaker emphasizes they keep attention on driving rather than listening.
Term
finish line
“Finish line” here means the end of a timed run or driving event. They’re saying once they reach the end, they’re mentally and physically wiped out.
“Radar” here means the police using equipment to detect how fast you’re going. The speaker says that when you get a radar warning, braking right away can make a big difference in what happens next.
A police scanner is a radio you can use to listen to police communications. The speaker uses it to understand what’s going on around them so they can decide when to slow down or chill out.
I-80 is a big highway route in the U.S. The speaker is saying that on that highway, the truckers made things worse for them.
Term
CV
“CV” is likely referring to a CVT, which is a type of automatic transmission. Instead of fixed gears, it can smoothly adjust to keep the engine in a good range, especially when you’re crawling in traffic.
The Cadillac CT4 is a luxury four-door sedan. The podcast talks about a 2022 CT4V Blackwing, which is the sportier version, and notes that it was customized with blacked-out styling. It’s brought up because it’s a compact luxury car that can also be performance-focused.
Deer whistles are small add-on gadgets on the front of a car that are supposed to scare deer away. People argue about whether they really work, but the hosts say they’re cheap enough to try.
These are gadgets people put on their car to mess with police laser speed checks. The goal is to prevent the officer’s device from getting a clean speed number so you can slow down safely.
GPS (Global Positioning System) uses satellites to determine your vehicle’s location. Here, it’s used to help the setup find new locations automatically and to support the scanner/navigation workflow so the system can react based on where the car is.
Waze is a navigation app that uses reports from other drivers. In this segment, the host uses it for road hazards and sometimes for alerts about police.
An “air patrol alert” is a warning that aircraft are nearby. The host says it used to go off a lot, but they learned some alerts were false and could verify using aircraft location info.
Auxiliary fuel tanks are extra gas tanks added to a car. They let you drive farther between fill-ups, which matters when you’re trying to keep a long run going.
A “cannonball run” is a long-distance, very fast driving challenge where people try to get across the country as quickly as possible. Because it’s so fast, fuel economy usually drops.
The Porsche 911 is a sports car made by Porsche. It’s known for its classic look and how it drives. The podcast mentions that an older 911 can have low fuel economy, meaning it may use more gas than you’d expect.
This is a 2022 Cadillac CT4 Blackwing with a twin-turbo engine and a 10-speed automatic. The automatic has lots of gears, so it can keep the engine working efficiently without you constantly shifting.
They’re saying the comparison only makes sense if the situations are basically the same. Otherwise one attempt might look better just because the conditions were easier.
Concept
run from Red Ball to Portofino
They’re talking about a specific “fast trip” route between two named places, and then turning around to do it again. It’s basically a repeat run with extra planning.
“Fast lane” refers to the lane on a multi-lane road intended for higher-speed travel, typically the left lane in countries like the U.S. The host uses it to describe aggressive driving behavior—staying in the faster lane while trying to maintain a high speed. That matters because it affects traffic flow and increases the likelihood of creating a line of slower cars behind you.
Alaska is the farthest endpoint they’re talking about. Getting there by road usually means traveling a huge distance and often crossing borders. That’s why they’re focusing on route planning and consequences.
They’re planning a real driving event based on a movie called “Vanishing Point.” The goal is to recreate the movie’s kind of long-distance drive with cars.
The Dodge Challenger is a famous American muscle car. Here it’s mentioned because a movie uses a Challenger as the main car for a long, fast road trip.
“Midlife crisis” is a phrase people use when someone feels like they need a big change or wants to do something exciting. The speaker says it’s not really that—more like they’ve always wanted to go fast.
A “truck run” is basically a group drive where people coordinate routes and try to get to the destination first. It’s like a planned meetup, but with a competitive vibe.
They mention “Red Ball garage” as a place where the group would meet before heading out. It’s like the starting point for their drive.
LIVE
our attention is in the mirrors and what's in front of us. And that is it. So seriously,
like us doing really high triple digit speeds, I think it's safer than
Karen going to work and putting her makeup on at 40 miles an hour.
Mr. Tommy Thomas, how's it going, man? All right, how are you? I'm very good. I was just
telling everybody I was just telling Tommy how we had Alex Roy on the podcast way back in the day
and this this cannonball thing is kind of like this enigma that I think a lot of car guys wish
they could do. You know, it's very romantic to think that you can hop in your car, basically do
all this stuff that is questionably legal with law enforcement potentially around every turn.
It's almost like takes you back to being a kid when you would do stuff just to see if you could
get away with it or not. Does it kind of feel that way a little bit? Kind of sort of. You throw
in a little Bond James Bond into it and you know, because there's a lot of gadgets that go into this
to second, third, fourth guess where the police might be is what it comes down to. You know, the
more things that tell you they're not there, the more likelihood they may not. And then again,
it could be. You never know. Yeah. It's interesting. Like you think about all the gadgets and stuff.
And I want to get into that later, but you think you guys would come up with a smoke screen at
some point, right? Yeah. Smokes key. You know, maybe some oil, you know, for some oil out of the
back. I mean, but some of the kids actually dropped a little jacks out of the back of the car.
There you go. I have seen that one. Yeah. But now I don't think it wants to go on that far yet.
Let's see. Why did you do this, man? What did this, what did cannonball first show up in your life?
Well, way to hell back in the early 80s, a buddy of mine got arrested,
sold Darryl McIntyre, me and him. That was our discussion piece all through high school.
And, you know, graduated in 85. He got to about 32. I wound up getting married, got kids,
got a job, got in the fire department, actually driving the fire trucks. And there was no way
I could do this without losing my job if I got caught and thrown under the jail.
Yeah. Yeah. At least you wouldn't be driving the fire truck, right?
No, no, no. I'd be flipping burgers somewhere, Megan, but
was it the movies that inspired you back then? What was like kind of like,
why did, how did you find out about it back in the 80s?
Movies, all the movies. I mean, and people will probably second guess this, but if in my day,
Duke's a hazard, cannonball run, you know, anything to do with the guys who are out
running the cops, you know, Hollywood nights, you name it, they were always the cool guys.
And the cops were either the nerds on TV and of course it's a TV. They're either the nerds
or the bad guys, you know? So it kind of had a role reversal back then. And, you know, now
obviously it's more pro police and all this stuff, but my thing had to go on hiatus until
I retired like almost four years ago now. So how often did you think about it?
Oh man, all the time. Yeah. I mean, my kid, he's 25 now and he's my copilot most of the time, but
hell, he buy me flashing lights for like, Hey, yeah, you know, dad,
Merry Christmas. This might help you on your run when you get to do it. You know,
that kind of stuff. So yeah, everybody knows, everybody who knows me knows I wanted to do
this forever. And that's my buddy Mason in that picture. This last run that we made,
which was, I mean, you can see it coast to coast. It was Jacksonville Beach, Florida,
the San Diego dog beach tires into sand on both ends. And it was a great run, you know,
everybody is confusing it with the cannonball run. And I had so many comments on social media
saying, why didn't you just do the cannonball run? Well, we did. We've done the cannonball run
three times now. The first time I did, this is what I did. So I saw Jacksonville and then I started
digging back and back and back. And maybe we can start at the first one and then go all the way
through Jacksonville. Yeah. Yeah, well, we started with the first cannonball and
we did not know anything other than YouTube, you know, Ben WikiVideos, Alex Roy, who you had
on here a couple of times you said, and he quickly became my hero as far as like the best storyteller
ever because the guy can just talk. Yeah. And, but anyway, so we knew the starting point. We knew
the ending point. We knew, you know, Manhattan to Redondo Beach and in the location it took place
at at Red Ball to the Portofino Inn. We put some devices in our car and I actually bought this
Cadillac. I wanted an American car to get on this list, man. Yeah, it's like the Germans got this
ship figured out. Their cars go fast. They get decent gas mileage. But I just wanted an American
car to be on the list. So I bought this Cadillac just for this and me and my son took off to New
York and we drove that first, right? Like you were thinking I had a core, core of it first.
It seems like the ideal case, right? Yeah, I saw this new Troy had one and it was like, man,
you know, you can't do the same thing twice. It just, you know, it would have been corny. Plus
that Corvette, I mean, you're sitting in there with two gas tanks right behind your head, you know,
and I had two 22 gallon fuel tanks in there and it gets a little sketchy after a while when you
start adding more and more equipment into a Corvette. You just run out of room real fast and
even in this four door sedan that I have now, you know, your, your, your doctor car, you know,
family, family truckster as you may call it. But it's a, I run out of room in it. I mean,
because I'm carrying like, you know, we don't carry a spare tire. We carry, face the flat,
we got plugs, we got the screw in plugs, we got a floor jack, we got an impact to take the tire
off if we can't find the hole quickly. And, uh, you know, it's a pit crew on the side of the road.
And, uh, so the slow down was, and, and then of course you got your luggage and you got your
snacks and drinks and whatever you need along the trip, you know, but the first one, me and my
exactly, exactly. You don't plan good snacks. This is a failed attempt already, man. So,
but yeah, me and my son headed to New York. Of course, it's a 24 hour, 26 hour drive to get there.
We get there, we sleep for about six hours and we went to take off and we quickly found out that
in New York, you are not allowed to park your own damn car pretty much anywhere in the city.
There is, and I've got gadgets like two-way taped and hanging all by a thread. Only I know how to
like move it so, so stuff don't break off. And anyways, after a couple of different arguments,
we figured, okay, we're just going to park at the red ball garage. Can't get no better than that.
Oh no, they moved my seat, broke some stuff in. We got out there an hour later than we wanted to,
which we didn't have any of the, the gadgetries that we have now in that car. We had some,
but very, very little. So, we got pulled over twice on that run. And one time was a state trooper
in Indiana who took his job very serious. You know, and he's one of those, you can't do this on
my road and I'm thinking back to Spicoli back in the days. And it's like, oh, Mr. Hunt, ain't this
our road, you know? But anyway, that, that shit wasn't going to fly with this guy. He was just
pissed off. So, I didn't know how fast he got us for. And if you can get on your brakes quick enough,
and he was kind of coming around a corner, allegedly, we might have been doing 145,
but he got us for 88 and a 70. So, we took that and, but he held us up forever.
Um, first run was a disaster. We got into LA during rush hour traffic.
And if the GPS is telling me like 70 miles to go five hours, and I'm like, oh, this is bullshit,
yeah, but it was not. And anyway, long story short, first run taught us a lot of stuff. And
the second cop that pulled us over, I don't know what this guy was doing, but he come bebopping
up, latest hellbos in the passenger side, just happy as shit, younger guy. And he was like, well,
what the hell are y'all doing? And, and, and I'm thinking back now, because after the first one,
we were unprepared. But now I'm thinking back to Ben Wickey School of Talking Shit. So,
I pulled out and Ed Boley and think it, but his was legit. Mine was just talking shit. But
I was a firefighter. My son was police. We both have badges. He pulls us over. What are y'all doing?
And I said, well, we're coming from New York. We just did a run from New York to Buffalo and back.
And now we're going up to Nevada. We're going to do the same thing over there. And then we're going
to head back to Texas. But we do this once a year for falling police officers and, and,
you know, basically raising funds. And he was like, you're doing this for me. And I was like,
yeah, and he said, well, get the hell out of here. And I was like, holy crap, that worked well. But
anyways, probably will ever work again. So anyway, yeah, first run, we did a 3316.
Not great. If I'm just hopping in the car at that garage, and I'm driving straight through,
like going the speed limit, maybe 78 and a 70, you know, like about 42 hours is what
Google Maps says. And it depends on the day, the traffic. So you figure anywhere from 39 to 42
hours is what they're going to take. You know, there's two different routes you can take,
which is the northern route, which is a lot more scenic. And I like it a lot better. You get to
drive the mountains. You feel like you're in a, you got your own personal little racetrack there
for a little while. But we'll get to that here on our last run that we had, or the last run,
run before the last. But anyways, at 3316, we were sleeping in the car for five hours in traffic.
It was ridiculous. But it got us on the map. We learned a lot of stuff. We talked to some
guys that have been doing this for a while. And, well, you know, they invited us up to a
reunion in Ohio. And that's where we met a lot of good people. You know, we actually got to meet
Alex Roy and Ed Bolian and, you know, Doug and Arnie and just everybody who's ever done this,
you know, and it's really a big family of fraternity of lunatics, as they call it.
But yeah, what a great time at that deal. And then try to another one. My son could not go. So I
picked up a guy that we had at the reunion and we ran a 30, 36, I believe. And we caught rain for
hours and hours on end. We couldn't do anything over about 50 miles an hour through Ohio.
And you just can't make up that time, right? You know, I don't know, you know, anybody you look at
the little computer and it says what your average speed is and you're scrolling through on your
modern car. And I always think I've been going 80 miles an hour for three hours. How is my average
speed 55? How exactly? Exactly. Anytime you stop anytime it is the amount of drag it is just to
take a shit is unbelievable, right? You stop you're in real trouble, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
It's the average time or the mile per hour is I kind of put that towards losing weight, because
man, you can gain weight so quick, which is the losing time on this end.
To lose the weight, that's kind of like trying to gain time. And if you just don't do it from
beginning, you're just not going to do it. And so yeah, second run, we did better. We got to
almost 30 or under. And then like on the way, you're like 75% of the way there and you're just
like, it ain't going to happen. He just shut it down. Now you just keep going for it because how
competitive is shit? Yeah. And my son, he raised go-karts from about each five to 10. And yeah,
we've been all over the country running these sprint cards and stuff. And he's competitive,
just like me. So we're going to go for the best time that we can, but we've learned a lot of
things in the runs that we've done. And that is you cannot slack in the beginning. You have to go
for it the entire trip because making up time is horrible. It's so hard to make up time. Losing it
is so easy. The last actual cannonball we did from Red Ball Garage to Portofino Inn,
it, we kind of went for it a little better. Our only doubt followed the whole thing is, you know,
we did it on a weekend where they had the cannonball reunion in Connecticut. So we went to
that for a couple of days, hung out, got some good sleep. And that's the key part of this for me,
anyway, being a 59-year-old guy who had to retire to do these crazy things. But
we had no spotters. Like the guys who have the record, I mean, they had tons of spotters. They
had people taking hits from the police to get police out of, out of in front of them.
Lots of things going on. We had zero. There's a thing called mission control or
overwatch where you have one guy at his house with computer screens everywhere, watching
everything, traffic conditions, weather, alternate routes, whatever you might need or
what you want to take. And they're invaluable is what I found out on our last run. But the
cannonball we did, we had zero. They were all having a good time in Connecticut. So
we had no help. We had one guy, John, who did 200 miles in around Utah and the Bata area,
but 200 miles out of 2,820 was really a drop in the bucket. So, yeah, we did this whole
thing on our own with just our countermeasures and John for 200 miles.
Is that making you nervous? Not having any spotters?
Not really. Because we were trying to go so fast that it was going to be hard for spotters to
stay in front of us anyway, but that's where it comes into. If you can have 50, 100 spotters,
that comes in handy. Well, they're watching traffic cams and stuff too, right? Because you
can look at the- Mission control is watching traffic cams. They're watching everything, man.
And it's unreal the stuff that these guys can do from their house. But, yeah, spotters on the road,
and that just gives you such a good feeling of, you know, hey, you're clear to hear and you're
like, all right, he said, we're clear to hear. They don't mean a policeman couldn't have pulled
on the road between him and you, but, you know, it's a lot better than just rolling up into about
three of them on the side of road drinking and coffee and waiting for the speeders. But-
Yeah, you only got one spotter and it's your passenger, right? That's your spotter.
That's it. That's it. And he stays in a set of Fujinan, Stabilization, Marine Drake binoculars for
80% of the trip, maybe more.
How do you say that, boredom and fatigue? Because that sounds boring.
It is, man. Everybody that I talk to, my friends, they all say, man, that's gonna be fun. And I'm
like, no, it's just brutal as shit. But it's just a bucket list thing I wanted to do. And then after
I did it, it's like, I can do better. And then I can do better. And so now we're kind of on a roll,
man. Me and my buddy Joe, the others, there's another event that we do and the Southern Classic.
And me and him got first place in it at the first of the year in February.
This next run after the cannonball, which is technically the Southern Trail or Spanish Trail.
And the difference is, you know, everybody, not everybody, there's a lot of people going,
this was not a coast to coast. Well, the Spanish Trail, Southern Trail is more coast to coast than
the cannonball. The cannonball, you are 20 something miles from the Atlantic Ocean, from the coast,
when you're in Manhattan, that's a red ball garage. So you're not technically in the sand,
but you know, it's one state that's closer to another state that is on the coast.
Well, they used to fly planes for that one, right? They used to fly planes and do like records in
the air on this one. I really don't know that history, man. They used to hop in planes and go
coast to coast on planes from that same spot. Yeah, no, this stuff started back then, like the
19, I'm just guessing now 10 or so. But yeah, there is apparently one guy,
this is from our historian, Jay. I guess he started out on motorcycle and he had wound up like
spinning a bearing in a crank. He did something, I don't know, but he had to wait like a month
to get apart and then he continued on. So I mean, his run was like 34 months, you know,
where now we're doing so many things in 22 to 25 hours, you know? But yeah, it's what a lot of
people didn't get on the social media was, you know, why didn't you just do the cannonball? Well,
the cannonball, we did it three times. I think we did really well on the last one. It ran a 28-53,
so we went sub 30. There's only 12 cars ever to do that. And it was a fantastic run, man,
just a lot of fun. And of course, I've heard this from a record holder, Arnie Tolman, who says
the faster you go with the least amount of time you are on the road, said he's right. If you can
do it in 25 hours while you want to do it in 35, 10 hours more, you know? But yeah, this third run
before we, you know, like, what was that? So you did the first run, it went okay, but you learned
a lot. The second run sounds like it was kind of a disaster. Didn't really work out. You got the
rain and everything else. Oh, yeah, the rain just killed us. What about the third run? Tell me about
the third run? Yeah, the third one was great, man. We left the reunion in Connecticut to head to the
Red Ball, me and my son. And although nobody was at the Red Ball to see us off, or they were all at
the reunion, so they were all in the parking garage and outside and filming us and congratulating us
already just to go do it. Because a lot of it is just to just go do it, you know? So many people
talk about doing it. I've seen so many posts, you know, oh, I could do that in this. I could,
well, then go and do it, man. I mean, it's, you know, get ahold of me. I'm on there. Obviously,
I'll follow you on Joiner and we'll verify your run. Hey, no big deal. The craziest thing on this
last, well, that last cannonball was, everything went pretty flawless. I mean, we got out of the
tunnel in like nine minutes or less. We left about two in the morning and we learned the
hard way. Don't ever think Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday traffic is a good day because it is not.
We took off on Columbus Day weekend, which is a big thing up in the north. And so when you're
traveling, the road crews are off for the weekend already in. So there might be construction,
but there's not really construction crews out. The traffic when you leave at two in the morning on a
Sunday is very light, you know, until 10 o'clock in the morning or so. You might get some, you know,
churchgoers or, you know, people going to the store, but it is nothing like rush hour traffic. So
I think we finally got the sweet spot of when to leave. I mean, the only other thing that could
be better than that is God forbid another COVID and ain't nobody want to see gas prices go up.
But Chris, if the trucker strikes, I'll be taking a 20-something hour drive to New York because we
can get them truckers off the road for a day. Oh my gosh, it's like they have a vendetta to just
to move in the other lane every time they see somebody coming. And, uh, yeah, it's, it's.
Some have been really cool. One got us to slow down so he could take pictures.
Yeah. But then you got other ones all back over you and this and that. And I'm like, no, dude,
you just really need to get in your lane, driver. Yeah. I mean, he's been hovering the other lane
for 30 miles now. Are you like, Hey, what are you doing? Yeah, I'll tell him, hey, driver,
you know, or whatever the company might be on the trailer or whatever. I'll call the name out.
And I'll be like, Hey, yeah, I got to express low. Can you please move in the right lane?
Well, I'm trying to make a low two, you know, something get defensive. Some are, some are
actually cool. You know, like to do the one is a slow down to take pictures. But I wish that
all the new truckers would watch smoking in the band. It are one of these other shows. I mean,
the truckers are supposed to be helping us, not hurting us, but a different time, man. He
looked at trucking back in the day. It was, uh, oh yeah. It was, it's even different than like
20 years ago when I would, I've driven across country at a normal rate of speed. Many, many,
many, many times. And there was, I remember having an old Volkswagen rabbit pickup truck.
It was diesel 38 horsepower. It's very slow. Yeah. Like 50, 60 miles a gallon.
Yes. Yes. Very good feel. If you could find a way to get in behind a truck, they would just pull it
because it weighed like 1,800 pounds. And I would just be like, Hey driver, can I,
can I just tuck in behind you? And most of the time they would always be like,
yeah, sure. Just remember, I can't see you anymore in that thing. And you could feel
your foot come off the gas physically. Sometimes you have trouble. I have a
CB radio in my, in my Azuzu. Excuse me. And I'll try to hail people and I don't get a response,
man. Yeah. The truckers have gone to cell phones now more than anything. So, but you still catch
some, yeah, but you can't call the guy in front of you on a cell phone. You don't know that guy's
number. How are you supposed to know if there's a barrack up, up ahead? Yeah. Yeah. No doubt,
man. No doubt. But yeah, it's a, I got a backtrack to our second run because this was the coolest
shit that ever has happened to me. But we got pulled over by the police. My son's looking and he's
going, I don't think it's a cop. It's a black charger, but he couldn't see a cage. He didn't see
a spotlight. He didn't see the black wheels, anything that you'd look for. So we eased
by him and, you know, we're at a higher rate of speed. Now all these red and blue lights turn
off. So we pull over on an exit ramp to, you know, get them out of traffic and stuff, you know,
and us. And he comes walking up and he is like, well, what are y'all doing? I said,
with the help of, I told you I was firing you as police. And he said, well, maybe if you tell me
what you're doing, he said, tell me the truth. Are you cannonballing? And I said, yeah, we are.
He said, do you know how to get back on the road from here? And I'm expecting this big ass ticket.
And I'm like, you know, you're like five GPS as well. I'm sure we can figure a, he said, no,
you got off on the worst exit and you're going to have to go down like five miles,
hit a damn toll booth, hit the toll back down the other way out once you do your U-turn. And
he said, follow me. I'll block the road for you. And I ain't lying to you, man. I wish I'd have
had this dude's name. If you see this video and you were our Pennsylvania police that
helped us out, don't tell your captain or chief, but man, he pulled it up on the damn overpass
and waved us through. And, uh, yeah, coolest police experience. Yeah.
There's probably a thing where it's like the most, if you, people would consider this dangerous. I
this guy is doing this. You'd be like, that's dangerous. That's really dangerous. However,
I feel like the most dangerous driving is too slow, inattentive, or the inability to make a
decision, the inability to make a decision. And especially if something's going to go wrong
is, is a huge problem. No, we don't want, you know, everybody trying to do a cannonball all at the
same time. That kind of hectic, but I would say I would warrant that you guys are one of the safer
guys out on the road when you're doing it. No, it's anybody who's done this a time or two.
This is the only thing I can promise anyone is we ain't, that's why we got a copilot, man.
The driver is not looking at the radio. He's not adjusting the station. We rarely even have the
music on other than barely like to hear some satellite radio or something, you know, but
our attention is in the mirrors and what's in front of us. And that is it. So seriously,
like us doing really high triple digit speeds, I think it's safer than
Karen going to work and putting her makeup on it 40 miles an hour. 100%. There's, there's no
question about that. I mean, you talk about the intense focus that you guys have to have when
you're doing it. It's exhausting. Yeah. I mean, it's just, definitely it is. Yes, it is. When you
get to the finish line and you're just done. I mean, but, and then of course, you're adrenaline
kicks back up and you go get something to eat and you screw her out for a while and then you just
pass out for a day. But, but yeah. What do you guys talk about? I mean, are you just, is it intense
focus all the time or are you, you know, you're with your son for some of this stuff? There's a lot
of, a lot of really flavored language, you know, people pulling in front of you and stuff, but,
but no, he's in the binoculars and I really don't want to hear a word out of his mouth,
other than, I don't want to hear, I don't want to hear, uh-oh, I don't want to hear
stop. I don't want to go yet. Oh, he thinks there was a good looking girl. Maybe he hears
all I want to hear is cop. If I hear cop, it's an instant slam on the damn brakes. And people who
say, well, you're just giving yourself away. Well, I can tell you from a couple of radar
to experiences that you slam on your brakes. That might be the difference of you being impounded
yourself and your car versus a ticket. Um, but they have to lock it, right? They have to,
because it's always always on radar is constantly going up and down depending on the car. There's
always a couple of seconds that it's going to take for it to get back to them. You know, so
once you get it, you're getting it why he's getting a bunch of vehicles. And of course,
the bigger vehicles always take the brunt of it. Um, but yeah, you just hitting the brakes.
We, we've met, we've successfully made three runs, two from Red Ball to California and this
other one from Jackson Beach to there with zero stops at all. And you know, that's because of
the equipment that we have acquired along the way, uh, friends that have helped us set this
stuff up that's in this community. Um, you know, big thank you to Mason who was my copilot for
the last run by the way, but, um, but yeah, the second run it, uh, so weird because the Cadillac
looks like somebody funded a federal police officer or something because it won't pass for a
basic police. But I think because it just with the antennas that you're seeing, you know, and
everything else on this car, people just don't know what to think. And everybody thinks the police
are the biggest issue. The police are your least amount of issue. It's all the other people on the
road calling in black Cadillac just flew by me wasn't maintaining lanes. And we hear it on our
police scanner that we have. And, uh, this last run, I didn't hear our car at all on there. We
heard other people's cars, you know, and not people doing a cannonball, just normal people
weaving through traffic and whatnot. You know, so, um, and that's the good thing about the police
scanner. You kind of got to know when to call your bullshit. You know, if they're behind you,
that's one thing. If they're up on a mile marker ahead of you, you might want to chill out for a
Yeah, we wait for a pretty good opening to get up to some good speeds. But at the same time,
you got to keep good speeds for this whole run. If you want to do a Doug and Arnie,
you know, 25 hour cannonball, because I mean, we wound up doing in the 2028 53.
And I thought we were cooking pretty good. The thing that really got us was Nebraska truckers.
They, those guys were so bad. I 80. Yeah. And then we got, and I lie, and we, we flew out to the
mountain, me and my son about two months prior. And we drove the mountain. I've never seen it
during the day. We're always going through it at nighttime and daytime is way different than
nighttime. And anyway, we drove the mountain probably 67 times in a rent car. And, uh,
we're like, man, it's going to be so much fun. We got it down. Holy crap. We get coming up to
the mountain and everybody is stopped. And there's like a mile of traffic in front of us. And now
we hear on the CV that there was a fatality on the mountains. They had the mountain closed.
So we sat there in park for an hour and a half to two hours. And now we had to go through the
mountain that like snails pace following all of the other mile of traffic in front of us.
So that killed us. Otherwise, we were on track for a 25-ish hour run on that one. So, um,
yeah, the little Cadillac that could, it was, was doing some work. Yeah. And, um,
tell me about that Cadillac a little bit. Tell me about the car. Oh, man, it's a first. Did you
choose obviously you had the Cadillac or I'm sorry, the Corvette and some bizarre Juno cars.
You know, why did that? What other cars did you consider other than the Cadillac? Or was it
always, always? I looked at like this fast, but it's not that fast, right? There's a,
yeah, I looked at like the ZL1 Camaros, the Z28 Camaros, and they're just a little too flashy,
man. It's a, there's so many videos out there right now of people getting pulled over that are
on rallies and whatnot. And the cars that are not sport cars don't get pulled over, but you know,
the Lambos, Ferraris, Corvette, they're the ones that are on the side of the road usually.
It goes, well, I don't know. The cops are jealous, pissed off. I don't know what their deal is, but
so we tried to blend in. You know, you look at my car, it looks like a basic four door.
It's a 2022 Cadillac CT4V Blackwing and we blacked everything out on it as much as we could to kind
of go with the whole police theme. We got the lights in the front because they are crucial in
Pennsylvania and Colorado mountains, you know, to catch everything on the side of the road.
We even have deer whistles in the front of this thing for like a just in case. You know,
some people say they work, some people say they don't, but for $20 or less, I'm going to gamble on
shit. Let's try them. You know, I mean, what the hell? It ain't going to hurt. So we got
ALP laser jammers. We got three in the front, two in the rear, and those are controversial, but
you got to know how to use them. You know, apparently there was a guy when they first came
out in Texas, put him on his car. Texas, because I live in Texas, is big on laser. And he was just
going everywhere and the police was getting a zero reading on him. So they finally pulled him over.
They made a law out of it here where they're illegal in Texas and they're illegal in some other
states too. But if you play it smart, this damn device will tell you, you know, it makes a big
ass noise. It'll tell you whatever their laser gun is, whatever their LiDAR is, whatever it be,
like a dragon or what it'll say, dragon laser, blah, blah, blah, and this and that. And your goal
is to get down to a speed that you're comfortable with or to speed and shut it off. And then when
he actually gets you, he gets you at a speed limit or five over or nine, you're fine, 10,
you're mine. You know, I've heard that before, but that's the catch. You got to shut it off.
You can't just go passing by these guys with nothing, because then they're going to pinpoint
you and come and get you. So you got to learn how to play the game. So we have that automatic
at all. Are those like, yeah, completely automatic. When I turn the car on, they come on and it'll say
no, no, I mean, when they, they hit you with that laser and that thing jams,
is it like jam for five seconds and then turns off? Or do you have to do that yourself?
It's supposed to be for four seconds, but the quicker you can get to it, the better.
And a lot of times we'll catch laser as they're lasering somebody else. I don't know how that
works, but that's where my copilot on the last one come in handy because he knows all this stuff.
He's going to dial those in for me, but so yeah,
you got some insider info there though, right? Oh my gosh, man. This dude is the tech guru. Everybody
calls him the goat. You know, this dude, when it comes to tech shit, he is the man with the plan.
His name is Mason. He's the kind of long haired blonde guy in my pictures there from our last run.
But the last run that we did was I was just going to go get some rope therapy and I thought, you
know what, let me do this run. And I'm thinking, I started looking at the spreadsheet, which is a
lot, a lot smaller than the Cannonball Run spreadsheet. So I'm going, man alive. You know,
I drive 80, 90 all the time. I could be in the middle of his list. So I texted, uh,
texting Mason and said, Hey, Mason, I'm gonna do this run. Nobody needs to know about it. If you'll
just follow me on jointers so you can verify so I can get on the list somewhere. I'm good.
And before our conversation was over, he was like, you know what, I might be able to go with you.
Now, how do you tell the guy running this whole damn thing that they call the goat?
No, I don't want you to go with me. But I was like, the shit's yeah, let's do it. So he flew in.
He fixed all of my screw ups on my technical shit that I got.
What were your screw ups? What did you do wrong? What did he correct you?
I didn't know how to dial in the police scanner for shit. Like we're catching a lot of EMS stuff,
but really not too much police, but he got it all dialed in and he got it working with the GPS.
We were having to put zip codes in every hundred miles or so to get it to find a new location.
Now I don't have to. Now it does it automatic.
The other things that we run, I run an Escort 360 and a Max cam 360 in the car.
And I love the Escort. Everybody else says Valentine Uniden, they're all good.
I got a Valentine in my other car, but I just particularly like the Escort.
We got to run Apple Maps off my phone. We were on Waze, which is going to tell you
invaluable for objects in the road more than anything, I think. But it will pinpoint some police
also. We run Highway Radar and we run JBV1. And all of these, these other two, will actually tell
you where police are, traffic conditions, what airplanes are in the area and who are flying them,
which is crazy because my Escort used to go off all the time saying air patrol alert. Well,
now I know some of it's just BS when it says that because I got a thing to show me where the
airplanes are. It tells you how far out they are. Who's flying them? Yo, it could be Chris,
Tommy or Department of Public Safety or Colorado State Trooper. And then you might want to chill
a little bit. So you have all these devices and sometimes they all do the same thing and tell
you what's going on. And sometimes one will tell you something and the other ones won't.
But by using all of them, you've got a better chance of catching police on your route.
So what else? I mean, how often do you have to stop? You got extra fuel tanks in there. What's
some of the other gear from like, obviously that's kind of like the interference, right? You run
that? Yeah, yeah. We got the police scanner. We got the CB radio. We do have two auxiliary fuel
tanks. One is 22 gallons. The other one is 17. And I have a rig. Because the car is probably 20,
right? 17 and a half. Yeah. And of course, when I'm calculating all this stuff out, this is the
biggest thing of making a good run is calculating out your run. You know, how many gallons of gas
do you have? I always say a gallon less than what it says. So if my auxiliary tank is 22,
I say 20 or 21 and so on. And so I'd rather have more gas than not enough. And then you got to
calculate your fuel stops. And now you're on the computer zooming in for gas stops at about
6, 700 miles is what we can go on a tank. And I'm talking at a high speed.
We've managed to get 16 miles a gallon on a cannonball run. And this last one that we just
did was about 12 and a half. So it kind of tells you the difference in driving. That's pretty good,
though. This thing over here, this old 911 gets at best 15. At best. Yeah. Yeah. This car will get
28 on the highway. It's a 2022 CT4B Blackwing B6 twin turbo with a 10 speed automatic transmission.
And I know everybody loves the manual trans and so do I, but not for driving 30 hours. I need
something that's going to, I don't want to have to cut across something and think about clutching
and shifting after driving for 20 plus hours already. And that 10 speed rolls through the gear
so well anyway. But yeah, we managed 16 down the 12 and a half. We got everything dialed in. We
had a good handful of spotters on this last one, the Spanish Trail, Southern Trail, whatever you
want to call it, coast to coast, like legitimate coast to coast. And guys took us like out of Florida,
the parade, the craziest thing. We had a guy in Louisiana, took us into Texas of Ways,
and he's from Beaumont with Mission Control. Oh my gosh, we had this new Rob doing Mission
Patrol for us. And I could not believe, I mean, it's like, you are clear from this mile marker
to this mile marker. At this mile marker, you have two police in the median. At this next one
up here on the Holber Pass, you've got one police. I mean, and he's like, oh shit, I just saw y'all.
And we were like, what's that? I said, what the hell are you talking about? He got a picture of us
on a traffic cam going by. And phenomenal. This guy, like this is between him and Mason,
my cofis, the reason we broke this record on this one was just the help, the help that I had. I'm
old, I don't want technology, I just want to drive. But yeah, we had spotters there,
in San Antonio, which was my son. And to top it off, the only place we had to go slow was
San Antonio, that had rain. And then we caught a state trooper, God, for 80 miles going through
West Texas. So my home state killed us. But we still almost broke the last record by an hour.
The kicker on this run, and we had people in San Diego that took us through San Diego also to
take us to Dog Beach. The kicker on this whole thing was when we stopped, gentlemen named Christopher,
he was on the phone with Mason, congratulating the hell out of us, our mission control Rob,
and then our spotter in Louisiana, who actually paid for our gas and had the gas pump ready for
us to go at that gas stop. That's like a NASCAR pit stop, dude. Oh my God, his name's Brompton,
man. But those three guys, they're the ones that we got the record from. They had the record,
and they've been over backwards and beyond to help us. So that's what I like about this,
is we have a fraternity of folks that will literally take the shirt off their back for you.
But yeah, the only downfall we have was Texas, which is where I'm from.
Everything else ran smooth. We got a little slow down in California. But other than that, I mean,
You're going to try it again? You know it's possible now.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we did that one in 22 hours. 22 hours. And what we do it in? It's on my shirt
here somewhere. 22.38. Too many numbers to remember. Remember that part about me getting old.
But we did it in 22.38, almost an hour faster than the last team. And you know, 80% of this
is luck. The rest of it is how much are you willing to chance? That's what it comes down to you.
So we just had a little bit better luck than the last team. You know, they had a flat tire,
they got pulled over once in Texas. But you know, apples to apples, I mean, like, you know,
everybody keeps going back and forth with the Doug and Arnie because, you know, they're the kings
of the cannonball, you know, with their 25, 39, maybe you're something like that. I might be wrong,
but fast, just fast. But, you know, it was done during COVID. They had a bunch of spotters,
they had to mission control, they had everything going for them. And for us, I mean, it's like
our cannonball, we had nobody. And I thought that was pretty damn good to be three hours away from
their time, especially with the mountain stop and everything else. But yeah, this one was super
cool, man. It's a lot of more people are doing this one now because the cannonball record is just
untouchable. I don't want to say untouchable. If that 80% luck kicks in of 80%, do you have that
80% luck? Oh, shit. It's doable, but you are not going slow anywhere. Yeah. So does anybody ever
try going backwards doing it? Yeah. Yeah. Some people do. Yeah. In fact, in fact, there's the run
from Red Ball to Portofino. And then there's been a good couple of handfuls of people who
go from Red Ball to Portofino, instantly turn around and go back to Red Ball. They call it to
see, to see, to see. And so that's a whole another spreadsheet. You know, so, you know, people who
say, well, you shouldn't do the cannonball and there's several things, several spreadsheets of
things that we do. Okay. So is Prudhoe Bay to Key West or Key West to Prudhoe Bay on that spreadsheet?
It is not. But what a trip that would be. I don't know. Prudhoe Bay. Prudhoe Bay. Where's that at?
It remains somewhere. That's Alaska. Alaska. Oh, I'm sure somebody was up there. You have to put up with
the mounies in Canada is the only problem. Yeah. Yeah. I think the biggest catch is, and these
guys do everything, they've gone up to Alaska to launch their cars off the cliff. I mean,
you know, obviously not their cannonball cars, but you know, these guys are car guys, you know,
and they get it. They're not the car guys like, you know, there's so many car guys you talk to,
and they're going to throw times out there at you. Oh yeah, man, my car runs eights or my car runs
elevens or, and I throw the bullshit flag on it every time until they actually go do it. Because
they know I'm ever going to go do it, but I drag race motorcycles or used to anyway. It's been a
couple of years, but yeah, I've run eights, you know, on a bike and that ain't no damn joke. You
know, as a guy that's here in San Antonio, pretty big figure, Mike Marillo, he used to see me at
the track and he'd be like, what the hell are you doing? We used to run up and down our, our
old drag up here when we were kids, yo. And I said, Mike, I just got the money for a fast-ass car.
I got enough to put this bike together though. So yeah, poor man's speed. What do you think Daryl would
think of all this? Who's that? Daryl, your friend back from the eighties. Oh my God. Yeah, he would
love it, man. We talked about it so much. Poor guy got MS and actually passed away at age 32.
You know, we're the same age. But yeah, our first run was all dedicated to him. We did it just for him.
And after that, it kind of went a whole crazy other route. But yeah, Daryl, just a cool ass guy.
Every day, that was our conversation. You know, we were in auto mechanics together and
that's all we wanted to do, whether it be like the natural cannonball or one lap America, which is a
little tamer, just something to do with it, you know, because all the shows that we used to watch,
that was the shows we loved. You know, back in the day, you know, if I'm smoking the band,
it'd be cannonball and yeah, you name it. But and trust me, there ain't no policeman out there
that's going to correct me on this one in those movies. Okay. Fictitious movies.
The guys out running the cops were the cool guys and that just the way it was. So in order to try
to be a cool guy, you got to go fast across America. I guess I don't know. Maybe I follow in the rules.
I don't care if it's the eighties, seventies or today. If you're following the rules,
you're cool. You're not going to have fun. Yeah, not going to have any fun, man. But yeah,
now this is kind of my thing. I don't want to be laying in a hospital bed one day passing away
going, I wish I'd have done this. I'm doing every damn thing I can think of. So my apologies to the
people that we fly by. Don't get all mad. We're out of your way in two seconds. Yeah, move to the
right. You'll never see us again. I mean, so yeah, I don't even know why they get mad. It's like,
just move to the right and you're never going to see us again. Give us one minute. You'll never
see our tail lights. That's ego, man. That's ego. People, it's just the guy that won't move over.
It's a power trip, dude. It's a weird power trip thing. You know, it's,
Oh yeah. And then they get in the fast lane and they're like, well, he says seventies,
I'm going to do 70. Yeah, they're all right. Now you got a line of traffic behind them because
even the people not doing the cannonball or trying to do 75 or 80, but do you think
it's worth trying to go through Canada? I mean, it starts to get like international,
right? So like if you were to go from Key West to Pruto, you'd have to drive up
Northwest through United States through the Northwest territory all the way to Alaska.
I wonder, I mean, the consequences would be very high.
Oh yeah. And I'm sure if you're going that route, you're probably going to have to go
through Virginia. I'm not sure. I don't know the route, but Virginia is one of the
few states that outlaws even radar detectors. So yes, I know. I always have to take mine down
and put it in the glove box. Yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to bring up Google Maps here. I'm just
curious. So yeah, Florida to Pruto, Truba, Alaska. Let's take a look here. I'm curious. This is
going to be really tiny on your screen if you're on your phone, but we can take a look. All right.
What do we got here? It is. Oh, all right. So it's Georgia, Tennessee, Illinois. Well, you don't
want to go through Illinois either. That's terrible. Oh my God, Illinois. No, thank you.
Iowa, North Dakota, Saskatchewan, Alberta. It's 5,500 miles. Yeah. Just by you putting this out
there, I'm almost positive there. Some of our guys are going to do it just because I mean, this is it.
This is in the continental North America. I mean, you don't want to be in, you could obviously
going down to, you know, Panama would be the, you'll, you'll never get out of there alive. Let's
not be, let's be honest, but this is 5,500 miles, Key West, Pruto Bay. It is the farthest drive that
you can do in North America minus. Yeah. Yeah. That is insane, man. But 91 hours it says.
Yeah. Yeah. Crazy as hell. It is somebody. Six hours probably. Somebody will be saying,
we can do it in 40, but it won't be me. I can get a guarantee of that.
Just imagine how little traffic there is up, up here, up in Canada up here. It's like wide open.
Well, hopefully, I think it'll be fun for somebody to try it. I won't do it.
Somebody is definitely going to try it. I almost guarantee you that most of our events,
they're based off of the movies, man. You know, we do the smoking the bandit thing and Atlanta
takes our cannon back, you know, actually take back beard a whole bit. We do the new one that's
coming up within the next year or so near future is a old movie called Vanishing Point.
Kowalski taking his white challenger from Denver to deliver it to a guy who'd never got it in
San Francisco. So that's coming. That's going to be an event, but
have you been to where that car blew up?
Been through there. Yeah. Yeah. I went there. I stopped there. There's a concrete barrier that
just says Kowalski lives right next to the old post office that's there. Yeah. But all these
movies that I thought were so cool when I was a kid now, I'm getting to kind of relive them a little
bit, man, but you know, midlife crisis. I would love to say it's a midlife crisis, but it's not.
It was, I had to retire crisis first. And I've always wanted to go fast.
Well, Tommy, it was my pleasure having you on the podcast. It'll be fun. I love this stuff.
I think it's cool. I can live vicariously through you and the other fraternal partners that you
guys have doing this stuff. And it'll be interesting to see where it goes.
You've got it really well. It's only going to get worse. These laws and capabilities get worse
and worse up, but uh, yeah, I guess so. I mean, at some point, if anyone wants to do this, they
better do it now is what I got to say. Yeah, you probably got, you got 10 years, probably 10 years
left. They're talking about drones. They're talking like speed, camera, intervals, all kinds of stuff
going on that day. So it's getting tough, you know, and I'm getting to days where I need to
kind of hang this shit up anyway, possibly. I've always wanted, I've always wanted to,
always wanted to, I try to do this when these guys did a truck run one time, but I would love to meet
like just say Doug and Arnie at the Red Ball garage. We flip a coin through who gets the
north route and who gets the south route. And then we take off and whoever gets their first wins,
regardless of what time it might be. But I think that'd be interesting, especially for the other
guys who are watching this on a joiner. Yeah, I think it'd be a, it'd be great just to be like,
Hey, whoever gets their first has to buy the beer. Just make it a super simple.
I just think it'd be a fun event to have. Cause on that one, you're out there by yourself.
So yeah, to have somebody in competition with you on a whole separate route where you don't get
mistaken for street racing, obviously. I just think it'd be fun. I mean, but that might be the
only way I ever do another actual cannon. I think I kind of got to cut my, my losses where they are
of like getting away with murder on the last one. So anyway, Chris, well thank you for having me
and, uh, every time. All right, you take care of yourself. All right. Thank you.
About this episode
Romance, risk, and logistics collide as Overcrest talks through “cannonball” culture—why it’s so appealing, how people try to avoid trouble, and what real-world constraints look like. The guest explains why he couldn’t attempt it due to his fire-truck job, while the hosts compare their own coast-to-coast efforts, police stops, and navigation confusion. They also get into setup details like spotters/mission control, auxiliary fuel tanks, and even police-like styling and deer whistles.
Tommy Thomas spent high school talking about the Cannonball Run and the next four decades not doing it. A career driving fire trucks will do that. Retirement changed the math. Now he crosses the country with a co-driver, a trunk full of countermeasures, and a Cadillac built to look like nothing at all. We get into the laser jammers, the truckers who help and the ones who don't, the cops who go either way, and what it takes to get from one ocean to the other before most people finish a weekend.
