DailyDirt: Making A Road Trip Across The US...
The Cannonball Run plot of racing across the US has inspired some drivers to set illegal records -- though the concept was started in 1933 by Edwin "Cannonball" Baker who drove from NYC to LA in 53 hours (and popularized in the 70s as a protest against highway speed limits). We've previously mentioned Alex Roy making the trip in about 32 hours, but more recently, Ed Bolian and a couple other drivers/passengers did it in just 28 hours and 50 minutes. If you've always wanted to drive across country in some insane way, check out some of the records that other people have set.
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- Carl Reese rode a motorcycle across the US from LA to NYC in just under 39 hours straight. Sure, people in cars have done it faster, but not without a backup driver. Reese didn't do it totally alone, though. He had help from safety teams and people looking out for cops (because breaking the speed limit is a requirement for any "real" Cannonball Run record). [url]
- Delphi sent an autonomous car across the US, making the nearly 3,400 mile journey from SF to NYC in 9 days. The car did 99% of the driving, actually -- with human drivers needed to get on/off the highways and transition to city driving. Robots could obviously make the drive in less time, but no one trusts autonomous cars to break the legal speed limits on public roads just yet. [url]
- Carl Reese likes long trips across the country, apparently. He also drove a Tesla from LA to NYC in under 59 hours. That includes charging time, and maybe next time Reese will take it easy and let Autopilot do all of the driving. This probably won't be the last time an electric vehicle sets a record for a cross country trip since batteries and charging stations are improving all the time, and the next EV might not be a Tesla, either. [url]
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