Modern day Cannonball Run

Record broken: 28 hrs 50 min. [Link]

Before we get into Ed's run, let's take a brief run through some transcontinental record history and the interesting characters who attempt to race the sun from the Atlantic to the Pacific.P

All of this started in 1933 when a crazy man from Indiana named Edwin "Cannonball" Baker drove from New York to Los Angeles in 53 hours and 30 minutes in some car called the Blue Streak. No one knows Baker's motivation for the run, but his 50 mph average was highly impressive, considering the interstate system was not yet built. The record went unbeaten for 40 years.2P

In the 1970s, noted auto racer and Car and Driver contributor Brock Yates conceived the "Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash" – also called the Cannonball Run – to protest highway speed limits. I won't bore you with the details, but the record was slowly whittled down over the next decade until Dave Heinz and Dave Yarborough teamed up in 1979 to make the trek in 32 hours and 51 minutes behind the wheel of a Jaguar XJS.3P

Though Cannonball disbanded after that, a similar event, dubbed the US Express, quickly took its place. In the final US Express, Doug Turner and David Diem drove a Ferrari 308 across the country in 32 hours and 7 minutes. That record, set in 1983, went unbroken for more than 20 years – until Alex Roy's crossing in 2006. And now…

JJ McClure was unavailable for comment.