The white stretch limo with the hot tub in the trunk slithered slowly through the spectators and strollers who dotted the Detroit riverfront Saturday morning, May 3. All 37 1/2 feet of the hulking behemoth came to a halt in front of a riverboat restaurant called the Lansdowne. First to emerge was ageless Benihana of Tokyo restaurant mogul Rocky Aoki who gleefully waved to the crowd. Next out was portly limo designer James Bardia, who darted about, preoccupied with last-minute details. Last was skinny automotive PR consultant Steve ”Yogi” Behr, whose laid-back manner and goofy nickname belied his skill behind the wheel.
The trio had only a few steps to walk to their rallye vehicle, parked near the Lansdowne and already attracting the curious. ”I never had his food,” one man said as he gazed at Aoki, of Tenafly, N.J., ”but I go for his car.” And why not? The steel-gray 24-foot 1986 Cadillac Fleetwood d`Bardia Brougham Limo, as it was listed on the official entry sheet, lacked no amenity. It carried a built-in bed, refrigerator, freezer stocked with Benihana frozen dinners, microwave oven to heat them up, cappuccino maker, sink with hot and cold running water (and sprayer for shampoos) and hand towels embossed with each driver`s initials. The team had driven their entry from Bardia`s factory in Pontiac, Mich., to the riverfront, then switched to the white limo for a grand entrance. Yet all those oh-so-loverly luxuries of their rallye car could not insure a smooth ride over 8,282 miles. ”Had a blowout coming in,” Rocky revealed. Trouble already. And the third annual One Lap of America–the civilized version of the Cannonball Run–had not even begun.
The infamous Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash
–the Cannonball Run, in short–was the brainchild of automotive journalist Brock Yates and later was immortalized in the 1980 movie ”The Cannonball Run” starring Burt Reynolds for which Yates wrote the screenplay. Christened in 1971 and held for the next seven years amid great secrecy, the dash was actually a 3,000-mile race against the clock from the East Coast to the West. It was blatantly illegal. Take the 1971 version. Yates and race car driver Dan Gurney covered the distance in under 36 hours. Legend has it their Ferrari smoked through Arizona doing 170 miles per.
Yates abandoned the Cannonball in 1978 and three years ago inaugurated a socially acceptable successor called One Lap of America. One Lap is not a race but a rallye, and it`s the longest in North America. Webster`s dictionary defines a rallye as ”a competitive long-distance automobile run, over public roads and under ordinary traffic rules, with the object of maintaining a specified exact average speed between checkpoints over a route unknown to the participants until the start of the run.”
Those in the 1986 One Lap would drive more than 8,000 miles in eight days. They`d drive more miles in a week than many Americans drive in a year. They`d cover 32 states, driving half the route on interstates, the other half on back roads. And they`d drive night and day, stopping only once for sleep midway. Blazing speed would not be the issue here. Rather the event would test the driving skill, concentration and endurance of the two- or three-person teams, who must maintain speeds at or below legal limits, according to instructions they`d be given only the night before the start of the rallye.
Along the way they`d compete in three ”autocrosses,” in which one car at a time would go against a stopwatch over a twisting pylon course. The fastest car would set the standard for the field; each second slower than that stan-
dard would cost a team one penalty point. Interspersed with the autocrosses would come the most crucial parts of the rallye: eight sections spread over the route called ”TSD`s”–short for time, speed, distance–in which the drivers would attempt to reach a total of 46 checkpoints exactly on time. The object would be to travel at a predetermined speed. Every second that a car arrived early or late meant a penalty point. The One Lap winner would be the team to finish with the fewest points.
The reward for all this punishment? A purse of $50,000 that would be divided among the top 10 finishers, $25,000 of it in cash, the rest in product awards. Even the 1st place award of $12,000 cash would barely be enough to cover expenses. But money was not the object. One Lap is a screwball happening. A wacky adventure. A wild challenge. For every car accepted in the 1986 edition, two had been turned down. (Previous participation in driving events, knowledge of automobiles and–less objectively–a background that would fit Yates` desired mix are among the qualifications.)
The Cadillac limo sponsored by Aoki was the biggest vehicle in the One Lap, but smaller ones in the field of 116 commanded similar attention. Of particular interest was a 1968 green Triumph TR250, whose two occupants labeled their entry ”Triumph Over Conformity.” It was the second-oldest car in the rallye and undoubtedly the most cramped. Before the two-seater pulled away from the start, the rallye announcer observed: ”No way they`re going to sleep in that one.”
And then there were the identical twins. The other drivers looked at them politely and fought back the urge to laugh. These were the 1986 Zastava Yugos, imported from Yugoslavia. The tinny-looking creatures were the littlest, lightest, lowest-priced cars in One Lap. Two men rode in one, three women in the other. It was the latter team that proved more intriguing: Drivers Kerry Voll of Connecticut and Diane Howseal of Pennsylvania had never laid eyes on their third driver, Claudia Kelly of Kentucky, before arriving in Detroit. Nor had any of the three ever been in a Yugo.
No matter. Another driver who knew each of them and thought them very competent rallyists had suggested to officials at Yugo America Inc. of Upper Sadde River, N.J., that the company donate a car, link the women and give them, in racing parlance, a ”factory ride.” Yugo was only too happy to comply. What better way to introduce the car to America? One Lap meant exposure in 32 states, not to mention a one-hour TV special on NBC. And what better way to appeal to women (or men)? Kerry, Diane and Claudia were a good- looking crew, and they came equipped with a weapon most of the male entrants probably never even considered: dry shampoo. Comes in handy when you may not shower for days. Almost immediately, the women dubbed their little white Yugo the ”White Box.” They`d be calling it a lot of other things at the finish. But let`s not jump ahead of the story.
For pure glitz, there was the Dodge Caravan driven by actor Kent McCord
–remember police officer Jim Reed in the series ”Adam-12”?–who shared the space with with former Indy 500 racer Bruce Walkup and attorney Cary Agajanian, owner of Ascot Speedway in Gardena, Calif. For pure zaniness, there was the pretty-in-pink pickup with turquoise stripes captained by Ken Lloyds, owner of Nickleby`s restaurant in Greenwich, Ct. The roof held a veritable sea of antennae, three for CB`s, one for a scanner, two for a cellular phone and two for radar detectors. If you looked hard, a PA speaker could be discerned in the tangle. Lloyds and his very tan, very blond girlfriend, Janet Cronin, were never seen publicly without bubble-gum-colored leather jackets that matched the balloons they released at the start.
And for pure class, a round of applause for Harry Ferran`s 1979 Checker Marathon cab. Ferran`s Orlando engineering company poured $20,000 into the Kermit green-and-beige box with license plate ”Chequer.” He explained,
”Every year we build a car for this race, and this year we wanted something with heritage.” Ferran positively reeked of it when he drove the car to the starting line wearing a very proper black-and-white-checked cap and shirt.
Of course, the field featured the requisite ambulance (you know, ”The cops will think we`re on an emergency and let us speed”). There also were the guys posing as doctors in surgical garb (ditto the reason above). There was a van from Ontario, Canada, with ”The `Eh` Team” splashed on its side. There was a lone Mercedes that had been shipped to Detroit from a sponsoring car dealer in Seattle. There was a Pontiac sponsored by Heluva Good Cheese Inc. of Sodus, N.Y., whose drivers tossed packs of the stuff out the car windows at the start. There was a Jeep Cherokee, in camouflage colors, whose occupants shot spectators with water guns.
All of the hullabaloo and the schtick contrasted sharply with the aura of a car bearing the number ”1.” The Audi Quattro Wagon was worlds apart. It had no special adornments or fancy lights. It carried only an air mattress in the back seat and a rallye computer (a specially designed model that is built into the dash next to the odometer) in front. It had no phone. It would have been overlooked if not for the two men in the front seat. Driver John Buffum of Colchester, Vt., and navigator Tom Grimshaw of Overland Park, Kan., rallye partners for 14 years, had finished first in the 1985 One Lap.
Buffum, like Aoki, was a curiosity–in his way. As accessible as was Aoki to the rallyists and crowds, so was Buffum aloof. A pleasant but unremarkable- looking man of average height and weight, Buffum–like his understated Audi
–almost blended into the background. ”I don`t really understand the appeal of the One Lap,” he says. ”It`s boring.” His comment is hardly surprising considering that Buffum is the best professional rallye driver in the United States and nine-time national rallye champ. His speciality is
”performance” rallyes in which speed is the aim and the terrain is terrifying. He faces similar challenges as a test driver for Audi. The spectre of maintaining a speed below the legal limit through 8,282 miles did not exactly make his adrenalin gush. But Buffum was under contract for Audi to drive in this and last year`s One Lap, and so here he was.
Nevertheless, there was a lot about the One Lap that bothered him. Like why did competitors think they needed to use such big headlights? You could see fine on the interstates with regulation lights, he said. And why were the organizers permitting computers for the first time this year? ”It takes the human element away,” Buffum muses, ”and what is this event if not a human endeavor?”
As Buffum spoke, John Jacob of Chicago and codrivers Charlie Bates of Berwyn and Steve Rouland of Peoria made sure their car looked spiffy for the start. It still had been dark when the trio left Illinois the previous morning, armed with bags of chocolate chip cookies and double fudge brownies contributed by their mothers and other loved ones. Now they were making sure the magnetized labels bearing the names of their sponsors were properly secured to the new red Dodge Omni GLH (”Goes Like Hell”) Turbo they`d be driving that day and for seven days and nights thereafter. In last year`s One Lap of America, the team had used Jacob`s 1983 Dodge Shelby Charger and placed 7th in a field of 80. That exalted finish convinced Dodge to give them a car for the 1986 rallye–a factory ride. Not only that, but Walker Communications of Hauppauge, N.Y., agreed to lend the team a cellular phone. The Hewlett-Packard Midwest Sales Region office chipped in with two computers for the crucial TSD sections of the rallye, and Jacob`s brother, Paul, a numbers whiz, programmed the devices for them. Mobay Chemical of Rosemont, where Jacob worked as a marketing representative in the plastics division, agreed to pay the entry fee of $1,000 and underwrite the cost of gas, food and hotels. The firm also sent along white sweaters with blue Mobay insignia on the chest, which the trio wore as they posed at the start, sporting Dodge caps and smiling for the automaker`s photographer.
It is nitty-gritty time, three hours before the noon start, and One Lap founder Brock Yates is addressing more than 300 drivers packed into a conference room in the Westin Hotel. The jowly Yates is a folk hero in the flesh. ”Everybody ready for a little drive in the country?” he bellows, and the participants roar back, undoubtedly flashing to other little drives that Yates had orchestrated over the years and chronicled in ”Cannonball Run.”
Yates, who by trade works for Car and Driver magazine, is savoring his role as organizer of the rallye–he corrects anyone who slips and calls it a
”race”–which he hopes to develop into one of the most prominent runs in the world. Yet the growing success of One Lap has its bittersweet side: Yates also feels the tug of history. What had made the original Cannonball so alluring was that anyone could get in a car and do it; what made the original Cannonball the stuff of lore was its profusion of characters and their never- ending stream of nutty adventures; what had made the original Cannonball a part of Americana was that Joe the mechanic and Harold the lawyer and Susie the showgirl all belonged. Now that was changing.
As the new version had become bigger and more sophisticated, as the prize money had mounted and more sponsors had hopped aboard, the everyday guy and gal who liked cars and a good time could no longer pick up and head for Detroit. These days–unless, like Aoki, you had independent means–you needed a backer to be competitive. After all, who could afford a computer (and backup) and a rallye odometer and a radar detector (and backup) and a scanner and a cellular phone and the entry fee–not to mention a finely tuned car? The ever-increasing technical demands make Yates uneasy. ”I like the concept that this is for `Everyman,` ” he says. ”The doctor from Hartford knows he can`t run at Indy, but he can do this.” The way things are going, even Yates knows his original concept is slowly going down the drain. Before the rallye is over, he would have some ideas on how to give the doctor from Hartford his due.
But we`re jumping ahead again. Now Yates is talking to his minions. There has never been a serious accident in One Lap history, he says, and that`s 1.3 million miles without mishap. He tells his troops, ”The eyes of the world are upon us. If we go out and make fools of ourselves, we`ll set the movement back. Fifty-five miles per hour is the law. We don`t like it, but we`ll have to live with it. Some states forbid riding in an endurance event at all. For God`s sake, if you`re stopped, don`t say that you`re part of a TSD. And three states forbid radar detectors: Connecticut, D.C., and Virginia. The police there have radar-detector detectors. That`s why running at a prudent speed makes the most sense. Plus, this ain`t 1957 as far as liability laws are concerned. We start off with a bang because we`re going into Ohio (where the police gave the rallyists a bad time in 1985). Stick right at 55 until we get out. I`ll disqualify you if you`re arrested. So don`t come crying to me if I dump you. I`m not going to let one or two teams screw it up for everybody.”
Amen. Meeting adjourned. And we`re off.
The paternal warnings fail to sink in. Three One Lappers are welcomed to Ohio by the state police, who pull them over while a helicopter hovers like a vulture over its prey. One of the lawbreakers is the futuristic BMW sponsored by mapmaker Rand McNally & Co. of Skokie. Dubbed the Road Atlas Warrior and looking the part, the star-wars car contains $102,000 worth of navigational equipment and is described in a promotional brochure as ”the most
sophisticated navigation/mapping/communications vehicle ever to hit the road.” Its eight microcomputers and two satellite tracking devices allow navigator Duane Lane to determine the car`s latitude and longitude to within 15 feet, with help from Rand McNally`s mainframe computer in Skokie.
All the high falutin` technology doesn`t mean a hoot to the Ohio state police. Driver Ivan Pato is ticketed for going 57 m.p.h.–that`s according to a Rand McNally spokesman–and the team loses about 25 minutes as the police officers–well aware that a point is deducted for every second a rallyist gets to a checkpoint late or early–take their everlovin` time writing the ticket. The delay costs the Warrior a whopping 1,070 penalty seconds in only the first 150 miles and undoubtedly causes a good deal of hand-wringing in Skokie.
The first day on the road is no drive in the country for Jacob, Bates and Rouland. Like the other competitors, they had received their route instructions only the night before, and they end up struggling through the two TSD legs in Ohio, battling such directions as:
”Begin in Amish Buggy Country at 18:50:00. Start at 38 m.p.h., go right on 282 North; make a left at stop sign onto 422 and change speeds to 45 m.p.h.; make right at signal on Hwy. 88 and change to 40 m.p.h.; bear right following 88; make left on Byndysburg, change to 38 m.p.h.; acute left on Swine Creek Road . . . .”
In the first leg, Jacob is so nervous he fails to start the Hewlett-Packard computer on time. That puts the car off pace and accounts for some serious penalty points. The timing error is compounded when they make a wrong turn and lose still more precious time. The second leg is hardly an improvement. The computer suffers a power failure. Fortunately, the backup works flawlessly–and keeps on working for the rest of the event. Jacob says, ”There is nothing more terrifying than depending 100 percent on a machine to keep you on time and then watching the screen go blank.”
By Sunday, Day 2 of the rallye, One Lap has its first dropout. The only motorcycle entry calls it quits shortly after the autocross at Watkins Glen race track in Upstate New York, where each team snaked through a series of rubber pylons as fast as it could in the dead of night. The four-person cycling team–one rode a Yamaha FJ 1000, while the others directed from a support vehicle in back–blame mechanical difficulties, freezing temperatures and hazardous driving conditions. But by the time the rumor mill has ground out the dirt, this is the scoop: The teammates have had a terrible fight. Not true, insists team spokesman Kip Hubbard, who shows up at the finish line in Detroit a week later to set the record straight. ”A problem with our backer really did us in,” he says. ”No one on the team could really afford to lay out $2,000 (to finish the trip). We`re already $6,000 in debt.”
No doubt other teams were feeling the pinch: It costs about $5,000 to do the One Lap on a competitive basis. Never mind Aoki`s palace on wheels or Lloyds` fancy paint job or Ferran`s spotless cab. A run-of-the-mill car attempting to make a good showing contained: two radar detectors ($500), a CB unit ($100), special driving lights ($100), a phone ($1,000), a computer
($3,000), disk drive for the computer ($800) and extra parts ($100). Not to mention the entry fee ($1,000), gasoline ($500), food ($300) and hotel bills
($300). Dozens of teams exceeded this meager budget. The two guys in the green `68 Triumph had restored the car, pouring thousands into the project. Lloyds spent about $40,000 outfitting his pink pickup–and that didn`t include the cost of the truck–and as for Aoki, one could only guess. He wasn`t telling.
