
The Cannonball Record has been broken again - slowhand09
https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a30085091/these-guys-just-drove-an-e63-amg-across-america-in-a-record-27-hours-25-minutes/
======
S_A_P
Huge car/gear nerd here and I just cant get behind this at all. The problem
with this is that while you may get drivers with great skill, preparation,
network and just plain old luck to have a successful run, you can also have 2
knuckle dragging morons who just want to go fast in the name of fun and
"adventure". And its not a question of "if" its a question of when something
will go wrong as the record requires a faster and faster average speed. If you
look at the GPS "proof", their top speed on this run was 193. At that speed,
you are traveling roughly the distance of a football field every _SECOND_. A
deer, slow moving vehicle, mechanical failure or miscalculation will cause
things to go very wrong. Even cars built for autobahn travel will not survive
a major crash at that speed. Other vehicles are not going to expect someone to
approach them at that speed and are also likely to make a mistake as they sort
this out. This is a bad idea anyway you slice it. If you want to traverse the
country quickly, catch a flight...

~~~
MuffinFlavored
> This is a bad idea anyway you slice it.

I do not disagree at all. I am just confused on why this is 'romanticized' and
'published'. If I went and robbed my neighbor of $10k in a record breaking
"quick" fashion, would I get journalists at my door looking to publish
articles around it?

~~~
tomatotomato37
No, because anyone with a bumpkey and a couple days to kill on staking the
place out can do that. If you went and broke into the Natural History Museum
to steal the Hope Diamond than you too would have journalists breaking down
your door in order to get your story, because the latter actually takes an
impressive amount of skill.

------
ablation
The tech is interesting, granted. And I find the overall idea of it quite
beguiling from an outlaw/risky/renegade POV. But I can't help but feel it's
still massively irresponsible from both a public safety and environmental
perspective.

It's one thing to drive your car into a tree in the middle of nowhere at
120mph, quite another if you drive it into someone else obeying the speed
limit and going about their day.

~~~
nodesocket
> environmental perspective

Rolling eyes. Going insanely fast sustained > 100mph and putting other peope's
life in danger I agree with. The drive being a detectable impact on the
environment I'm suspect.

~~~
namdnay
That's the tricky thing about the environment - nothing we do individually has
a detectable impact on the environment. And yet all of us doing it has a
massive impact. So maybe the best is to just try to be a good person and not
pollute unnecessarily

------
zaroth
> “When all is said and done, there will be three kinds of reactions to an
> achievement of this kind. One will be outright indignation that anyone would
> endanger public safety by traveling at such speeds... To date, no one has
> been killed or seriously injured doing a Cannonball or setting a cross-
> country record in the U.S., but American motorists don't expect such high
> speeds, and truckers usually resent it. There's potential for disaster.”

> “The other responses will be from another crowd—Cannonballers and motorheads
> of all stripes who believe that driving skill, and not traffic law, is more
> beneficial to actual safety than simply slowing down. From this side of the
> aisle there will be unadulterated joy that such a cross-country time has
> been posted, as well as begrudging appreciation from former record holders
> and disappointed fanatics who may have been planning record runs of their
> own...”

> _Was it a good idea? No. It never has been and it never will be. But like
> Everest, it presents itself as a risky challenge that is, to some,
> irresistible._

To those who think it was irresponsible to attempt such a feat, a lot of what
we do as humans—at our best—is frankly _irresponsible_. Humans acting
perfectly responsibly, obeying all the laws of their local jurisdiction, never
willing to put themselves and even perhaps others in harms way, and worried
more about their carbon footprint than whether they can accomplish some
mythical (to them) feat...

I imagine that without the traits that lead to these types of attempts, and
without a society that is willing to at least tolerate (if not celebrate)
their achievements, we would lose out on a lot of inventions, discoveries,
freedoms and social progress that stems from people with the same basic
instinct to _leave a dent_.

~~~
jeffwass
On the Everest comparison, the difference is Everest climbers primarily risk
their own lives as people who agreed to make the climb.

Whereas Cannonballers risk the lives of everybody sharing the road with them.
Ie, regular drivers who have not agreed to let someone charge up behind them
at >100 mph.

~~~
celticninja
Honestly that's not true anymore. Very few people are climbing it unaided and
it is Sherpas who help that are also killed alongside these climbers.
[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48464030](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-
asia-48464030)

[https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/04/14/599417489/...](https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/04/14/599417489/one-
third-of-everest-deaths-are-sherpa-climbers)

~~~
ubermonkey
The Sherpas who climb professionally have also chosen to climb, and are
compensated for it.

~~~
rtkwe
Somewhat. There's the very distorting fact that Sherpa-ing is multiple times
more lucrative than any other job they could possibly get in the area.

~~~
ubermonkey
Yes, yes, yes, but you're picking apart a metaphor here. This distinction does
not damage the comparison.

Cannonball participants are taking large risks, and are imposing those risks
on many, many people who have no real way to avoid them. This is unkind and
immoral.

------
Merrill
Their AMG doing 120 mph in Nebraska on I-80 on Sunday is probably a lot safer
than the Governor's Chevy Suburban doing 91 on the Garden State Parkway.

"Corzine's car was doing 91 mph before crash" \-
[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-corzine/corzines-car-
was-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-corzine/corzines-car-was-
doing-91-mph-before-crash-idUSN1720648420070418)

>Corzine was not wearing a seat belt, the statement said, confirming earlier
statements by Corzine’s officials.

------
LeonM
VinWIKI (its founder is the former record holder) did an excellent video where
they interviewed the team [0].

I guess it's congratulations to the team, but I would never endorse such
record attempts. It's just to dangerous to do.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6s9o6uIWZw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6s9o6uIWZw)

~~~
nodesocket
> At first glance, the AMG looked more like a mid-2000s Honda Accord from the
> rear, not like a car that would be cruising at 160 mph or faster.

When the police on the radio don't know the make and model because they
removed all the Mercedes Benz badges and covered the carbon fiber is great. "A
silver passenger car..."

~~~
LeonM
If you look at the pictures, you'll see they blocked off a portion of the rear
lights with a plastic wrap that matches the car's color. This makes it pretty
hard to recognize the make/model from behind.

The typical MB front (the grill) would still make it easily recognizable, but
at the speeds they are driving I doubt many people had time to take a look at
the front.

------
nkrisc
Going 120mph with other traffic just going about their day is dangerous and
anti-social. Nothing commendable about it. It's all fun and games until
someone gets killed.

I hope they have good long think about why they chose to endanger everyone
they passed for some silly record.

~~~
sgfdsagfsagf
Well it's been 100 years and no one's gotten hurt.

I wouldn't (couldn't?) do it, but there are people who are amazing drivers.
The difference between most drivers and someone who just cares about driving
as a skill is huge. These guys are the cream of the crop.

Plus they had taken precautions that are insane to avoid collisions. Heat
detecting cameras to avoid deer? Do you know how hard it is to stop in time
after spotting a deer?

These guys are far less likely to crash then someone on their cellphones.

~~~
froindt
>Well it's been 100 years and no one's gotten hurt.

I'm curious if this is true. If there was a high speed crash anywhere along
that path, the best move for the driver is to _definitely not mention they
were doing the Cannonball Run_. Participating in the Cannonball Run is a
guaranteed way to get 0 sympathy from a jury for a civil claim, and get the
max sentence from a judge for whatever criminal charges you'll be facing.

I think it's entirely possible people have been hurt/killed without much fuss
getting linked to the race.

------
drivers99
This was fascinating from a logistics, tech, information warfare, planning,
etc. perspective.

It’s too bad the comments here are almost all the same pearl clutching, even
if someone else has already said it, and the article starts and ends with
discussions of whether it is dangerous or condoned that is more in depth
already anyway.

------
fredrik-j
Is it possible for the states they traveled through to revoke their drivers
licenses? I mean they've presented ample evidence that they've intentionally
exceeded speed limits on average over the entire route.

~~~
frob
I think they can also be brought up on criminal charges in most states they
passed through. Their radar detectors and, especially, their jammers are
strictly illegal in many, if not most states in the US and yet they just gave
the authorities pictures of their illegal setup with their names and faces and
testimony that they used said illegal setup to enact willful and flagrant
violations of the law. I really do hope the authorities come knocking holding
a warrant with this article as the justification for issuing it.

~~~
ng7j5d9
It looks like radar detectors are legal in most US states and territories.
Virginia and the District of Columbia are the two exceptions and the NYC->LA
route wouldn't pass through either.

[https://drivinglaws.aaa.com/tag/radar-
detectors/](https://drivinglaws.aaa.com/tag/radar-detectors/)

------
nabla9
These people are assholes endangering others in the public roads.

------
9nGQluzmnq3M
> _To date, no one has been killed or seriously injured doing a Cannonball or
> setting a cross-country record in the U.S_

...but four people died in a (legal!) Cannonball event in Australia in 1994.
Two were contestants, two were race officials.

[http://www.cannonball.info/other-events/cannonball-
run-1994](http://www.cannonball.info/other-events/cannonball-run-1994)

------
blakesterz
"... L.A.'s spiderweb of interstates for a total of 2825 miles—Toman and
Tabbutt were able to maintain an overall average speed of 103 mph..."

I've driven cross country a few times and I was always happy if I could
average more than 50mph over any long amount of time driving. I can't
understand how they averaged 103, that really seems impossible without getting
incredibly lucky!

~~~
vidanay
Yeah, I've made several 20-22 hour trips from Chicago to a fishing cabin 8
hours north of Winnipeg, and it's HARD to keep your average speed north of 50.
If you make a stop for gas or food, you can literally watch your overall
average drop by a few MPH.

~~~
AshleyGrant
There's two big things they did:

First, they minimized their stops to four fuel stops.

Second, when they were moving, they were moving FAST whenever possible. Well
north of 100 mph.

~~~
vidanay
Third, don't drive a F150 loaded with enough food and beer for four fat guys
for 10 days while towing a boat. :-)

------
Ididntdothis
If these guys had balls they would go on a race track and see what they really
can do. This is just a competition of recklessness, not skill. They are just a
bunch of idiots who mainly endanger other people.

At a minimum they should deactivate their airbags and safety belts to make
sure they themselves get hurt when something happens.

------
ncmncm
The fuel cell remark confused me, being followed later by mention of turbos.
What is the fuel cell for?

~~~
AshleyGrant
"Fuel cell" in this context, is another name for "fuel tank." They added an
auxiliary fuel tank in the trunk (boot) of the car.

~~~
steverb
I would love to understand their reasoning for not making the tank as large as
absolutely possible though.

Maybe not worth the extra cost of all the work required to absolutely fill the
trunk with fuel? 22 minutes spent refueling is incredibly low either way.

~~~
driverdan
There is a weight trade off. Liquids like fuel are dense. If they filled the
entire trunk with fuel it would have added another 500+ lbs to the car,
possibly requiring additional suspension changes.

------
savrajsingh
I guess law enforcement and we as a society should now be scratching our heads
wondering how this is possible in 2019. If speeding laws were truly enforced
they wouldn’t have gotten out of NY/NJ without getting pulled over :)

------
nickthemagicman
That's awesome. It seems like one could up their chances as well by having a
caravan ahead of you as sacraficial police lambs.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
They did have spotters along the way:

> In all, they managed to rustle up 18 lookouts along the run. These were
> people who drove hundreds of miles in many cases just to scout the road
> ahead of the fast-moving AMG for a stretch and let the team know of any
> police activity or other hazards ahead.

And, of course, they were familiar with that idea from the classic movie
"Smokey and the Bandit" as referenced in the article, so they probably had a
good reason for not doing it that way. I'd guess that hiring a caravan of
people willing to get jail time, lose their licenses, and having their
expensive, fast cars seized would be really, really expensive and would only
keep a few officers busy for a few minutes. Plus, in hindsight, they were
successful without it.

However, I find the downvotes on your comment interesting having read the
"Help me ask 'Why you didn't just'" article posted yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21675717](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21675717)

You met several of the criteria for reducing the insult factor: Your comment
is impersonal, forward-looking, and not condescending, without being passive-
agressive. But you were still downvoted.

~~~
sgfdsagfsagf
Yeah, but he also said that what they accomplished is awesome. The HN crown
mostly (not all of us) frowns on this type of thing, even while still finding
the news interesting.

~~~
nickthemagicman
What is the issue with saying it's awesome? Is it the lack of objectivity? Or
the lack of professionalism?

~~~
sgfdsagfsagf
Neither. A lot of vocal people in HN really don't like motor vehicles and that
people can have with them.

Motor-bikes, -cars, -boats, -whatever. A large part of the HN crowd doesn't
like them. HN also has healthy minority who are motor-heads, so it balances
out.

------
ben7799
I find it hilarious the author claims the car was superbly prepared and then
talks about them having engine issues at altitude.

Almost guaranteed this thing had a hacked up EFI modification done by some
tuner... those guys never really know what they're doing, AMG/Mercedes almost
certainly won't share how that computer works since modifying it on a street
car almost certainly is illegal and will cause the car to fail inspection.

In general it is always interesting most of these guys seem to be from NYC and
born into privilege in a car dealership family. Alex Roy fit that model. It
seems like you need to be born into that privilege to end up being a
professional race car driver but you also have to have more talent and hard
work. The cannonball stuff seems like some kind of 2nd tier automotive fame
seeking. When I was into racing & stuff I'd meet tons of guys who all thought
skill was more important than following the law.. but none of them were that
successful in competition and all of them had plenty of accidents.

Even if you don't find any of this interesting Alex Roy's book is a great
read.

Having once rode a motorcycle 1000 miles in well under 24 hours I get the
appeal of this but not the super illegal speeds.

The increasing use of electronics and internet to escape detection is pretty
interesting.

~~~
zeusk
The engine issues were result of the low octane fuel. Performance engines
require high octane fuel to avoid "knocking" (or pre-detonation of fuel). The
92/93 octane recommended for stock performance engines is not available
everywhere, let alone Ethanol blends and 95+ octane required for tuned
engines.

> Almost guaranteed this thing had a hacked up EFI modification done by some
> tuner... those guys never really know what they're doing, AMG/Mercedes
> almost certainly won't share how that computer works since modifying it on a
> street car almost certainly is illegal and will cause the car to fail
> inspection.

You sure as hell don't know what you're talking about either, because most of
the tunes don't touch the software as much as they change "maps" or the data
tables that the ECU uses for fueling/AFR, ignition timing, cam profile
(VANOS/VVT/VVL etc.).

The tunes themselves don't result in a failed inspection (I own a tuned BMW
N54 motor myself, that passes inspection without any hacks) but if you're
generating enough boost, it may be necessary to remove the catalytic
converters in the downpipes after turbos for a smoother flow which results in
a failed inspection. Most modern inspections rely on the ECU to report a
failed/missing catalytic converter so getting around the inspection is an easy
task for someone inclined to remove downpipe cats.

~~~
tomatotomato37
90% of modern cars have encrypted ECUs now, which means most data modification
involves either fooling the stock system with a piggyback or waiting until the
type breed of people who crack to videogame DRM get around to your specific
car model. That being said I do think they did a shit job at tuning since it
seems the only engine tuning they did was a turbo and piping package with no
mention of the engine electronics or fuel system at all.

~~~
ollie87
The vehicle had an huge fuel cell installed, it's likely they had much larger
fuel pumps added to account for increased consumption caused by having a
higher intake pressure.

As for electronics, what sort of upgrades are you imagining? A handbuilt AMG
engine already has all the trick things you'd want for engine management any
way.

------
chasd00
the authorities should set a bounty of $1,000 for information leading to the
arrest of a "Cannonballer"(?) en route. Each year the person who has let to
the most captures would get a $3,000 bonus. That would make things
interesting.

~~~
slowhand09
... after that escalation we can have more "red flag" laws too. Perhaps arrest
people who are thinking about doing such things. Take me for example. My 700HP
daily driver can do 200mph, honestly. I've thought about driving that fast.
Best so far is 81mph. 81mph over the posted speed limit. No other cars in
sight. Straight road. Uphill. Another couple of seconds would have given me a
bigger thrill, a higher number. Turn me in.

------
hans_castorp
Isn't that article enough proof so they could be convicted for speeding? After
all they publicly admit of having broken the law.

~~~
frob
The radar-jammers and tail-light kill-switches are very obviously illegal,
even if you cannot prove they were used.

Don't commit massive crimes then brag about it on the internet.

~~~
driverdan
LIDAR jamming is not illegal, which is likely what they have. Light switches
are also not illegal but could be used in an illegal way.

