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Dan Gurney and Brock Yates meet with
their chief rivals at the finish line in Redondo Beach.
Yates and Gurney, in a Ferrari Daytona, were only 53 minutes faster
than the famous founders of the
Polish Racing Drivers of America (left to right) Brad Niemcek, Tony
Adamowicz and Oscar Koveleski,
who made the run in a specially fitted Chevrolet van.
Gurney/Yates Cop First Cannonball
Polish Racing Hierarchy Finish Close
Second
by Brad
Niemcek – Reprinted from December 11, 1971
Competition Press & Autoweek
Redondo Beach, Calif., Nov. 17, 1971
– Dan Gurney and Brock Yates co-drove a Kirk F. White Ferrari Daytona
coupe to a new unofficial record for cross-country vehicular travel here
today.
In the process, the team outran a field of seven others to win the first
official Cannonball Baker Sea To Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash.
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At the starting line in mid-town
Manhattan, Gurney watches
pre-race activities as Yates mounts up.
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Gurney, the
"retired" veteran of international racing, and Yates, a
senior editor of Car & Driver magazine, covered the distance
between New York City and the Portofino Inn on the Pacific Ocean
here in 35 hours and 54 minutes.
They were only 53 minutes faster than the second-place finisher, a
Chevrolet Sportsvan entered by Briggs Chevrolet-Ferrari, South
Ambory, New Jersey for the three co-founders of the Polish Racing
Drivers of American, Tony Adamowicz, Oscar Koveleski and Brad
Niemcek. The PRDA team covered the distance in 36 hours and 47
minutes. |
In fact, less than two hours
separated the five fastest finishers, even through the event was run
through rain, snow, sleet and got at various points long the routes the
teams traveled.
The Cannonball Baker event conceived by Yates as a whimsical gesture of
defiance of the regimen of contemporary traffic laws was run without
accident or injury, but the law did takes its toll.
Four of the eight teams received a total of 12 speeding tickets along the
route. The most remarkable among them was a citation given to Gurney in
Arizona for allegedly doing 135mph in a 70mph zone.
POLICE FAVORITES
But the leading ticket-takers were
the third-place finishers. Larry Opert, Ron Herisko and Nate Pritzker of
Cambridge, Massachusetts, received six tickets, talked themselves out of a
seventh and narrowly escaped jail for allegedly stealing gasoline at one
point in their journey to California in a 1971 Cadillac - in a time of 36
hours and 56 minutes.
The Cadillac, by the way, was a "drive to deliver" type picked
up in New York for delivery to an unsuspecting owner on the West Coast.
Herisko explained later that the stealing incident was the result of their
haste and a "misunderstanding" between them and a sleepy gas
station attendant.
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Koveleski, a director of the
Motor Racing Safety Society, pointed out that the RPDA went
ticket-free "because we endeavored to remain within the speed
limit at all times."
The PRDA van was equipped to run the distance without a fuel stop,
having started from Manhattan at 12:11am on November 15th with 298
gallons of Gulf No-Nox on board. But the team was forced to stop
in Albuquerque, New Mexico to take on 78 additional gallons of
fuel. |
Not as fast as a Ferrari, but at least
more room was the
27-foot Travico motor home that carried Bill Broderick,
Joe Frasson, Pal Parker, Bob Carey and Phil Pash.
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The fourth place finishers were
runners-up in ticket-taking. Tom Marebut, Randy Waters and Becky Poston of
Little Rock, Arkansas received four speeding tickets during the course of
their 37-hour 45-minute trip. One of the stops took an hour and 45
minutes. Marebut explained the delay was caused by a young Pennsylvania
State Trooper "trying to talk Becky into staying behind with
him."
TICKET-FREE
Only three minutes slower was the
1969 AMX driven by two brothers, Tom and Ed Bruerton of San Pablo,
California. The team went ticket-free. The brothers said later they
"stroked it, because they already had 90,000 miles on the enigne."
The AMX finished fifth in a time of 37 hours and 48 minutes, only 3
minutes slower than the Little Rock van.
Sixth place was won by the infamous "Moon Trash II," a Dodge van
that Yates originally intended to enter. Driving instead was Kim Chapin,
the writer, and Steve Behr, an SCCA club racer from Wellsley,
Massachusetts. Behr’s girlfriend, Holly Morin went along as an
"observer."
The team finished the event in 39 hours and 3 minutes, even though an
estimated two hours was lost when the drivers sought a way to replace a
badly chunked tire in northern Texas. Only a conventional wheel-tire
combination was available as a spare for the faulty Cragar mag
wheel-mounted wide tread. The team did not have conventional lug nuts or
wrench for the replacement.
The last of the teams to finish was also the largest. Bill Broderick,
public relations director for Union 76 Oil Co., organized a 27-foot
Travico motor home for the event and entered it with Pal Parker, the
racing photographer; Bob Carey, editor of Circle Track and Highway
magazine; Phil Pash, motorsports writer for Chicago Today and Joe Frasson
the independent NASCAR Grand National driver from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The Travico van arrived after 57 hours and 25 minutes on the road with a
police escort at the Portofino Inn. Broderick explained the only incident
his team encountered was a highway detour, which caused a sudden maneuver
by Fresson and resultant spilling of a large pan of hot lasagne on the van’s
shag rug.
Failing to finish was an MGB-GT co-driven by Bob Perlow of Baldwin, New
York and Wes Dawn of Venice, California. The MGB suffered transmission
failure near Columbus, Ohio.
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Exhausted after their long ordeal-and
bloated on
Polish kishkies – Niemcek, Kovaleski and Adamowicz
take their ease at the finish.
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Under the rules set by
Yates, the teams were allowed to pick their own vehicles, their
own routes and their own staring times within a 24-hour period
(12:01am, Nov. 15th through midnight, Nov. 16th). The PRDA team,
asserting its right to the "pole position" left first.
The Briggs’ van was equipped with five 55-gallon drums of fuel
to be fed to the standard fuel tank through a specially fabricated
system, a wide variety of spares and tools, a bunk for sleeping, a
portable toilet, a portable telephone and an ample supply of
Polish kishkies, a snack food provided by Mrs. T’s, one of the
team’s sponsors. |
Most of the other teams elected to
outfit their vehicles somewhat more simply, except the Marebut-Waters-Poston
Dodge van. It carried 190 gallons of fuel in three 55-gallon drums.
Most of the competitors had left the parking garage on East 31st Street by
2:00am. Two teams, those in the AMX and the Travico van, elected to start
later after final preparations were made.
Yates, who refused to acknowledge the impropriety of winning an event he
organized himself, and Gurney, who reportedly viewed this victory as among
the more important in his illustrious driving career, won the S-K Tools
"Nutmaster" trophy as Cannonball Baker champions of 1971.
The only cash awards were those paid to the respective motor vehicle
departments in whose states laws were allegedly broken.
Gurney and the super-quick Ferrari
Daytona prepare
to part company after the 36-hour drive.
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