Gumball.
One word. Spoken by phone, or in person with the passing off of a chewy treat. The opening scene of the classic car flick burned itself into the psyche of this budding car phreak. That and the book Sunday Driver. Penned by Brock Yates, Sunday Driver told the tale of the first two Cannonball Baker Sea To Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash events. Of course Gumball was a blatant rip off of Cannonball and it sounds like Brock is still bitter. That is another topic for another day. Today’s topic is the evolution of the concept and it’s impact on legitimate, organized competition.
In his history of the Cannonball a few years ago, Yates discussed the fact that the Cannonball could not be recreated in today’s world. With the added traffic and our litigious society, a modern race could not exist. It would be irresponsible to run this type of event today. He commented on the race that had more or less stolen his name and continued to operate a media driven rally. He was less than flattering in his descriptions. Want the details? Buy the book, it’s wonderful.
The modern outlaw rally has gone mainstream with events like the Bullrun, Gumball 3000, Carbon Black, Gumball Europe. In these events, the rich and famous pilot heavily stickered race cars while being followed by TV crews there to catch their antic. It’s all in good fun, until someone gets hurt, or worse dies.
Several weeks ago, the unthinkable happened. A rally competitor lost control of his heavily modified Porsche and slammed into a VW Golf. Both occupants of the Golf perished. Worse perhaps was the behaviour of the team involved following the incident. Various reports have them attempting to flee the country in a private jet to escape prosecution. These are not the actions of a legit rallyist, rather they are the actions of a spoiled rich guy with a self important feeling of entitlement.
Today, European police organizations are calling for a ban on all rallies, as reported by none other than one of today’s most infamous rallyists Alex Roy. Roy’s reputation would show him to be the bad boy of the rally scene, but in fact he showed his integrity by being the first team to pull out of the above mentioned event following the crash.
So where does this leave legitimate road rallies? As Roy comments, The word “rally” has been defined so broadly in the press as to be irrelevant to the discussion of the safety of any automotive event on public roads. So where does this leave the local or regional event organizer and competitor? You know the ones, they are the local clubs who run timed navigational rallies. Events where teams must cover a set distance within a set time, while not exceeding legal speed limits. Thousands of enthusiasts enter these contests legally and behave in a socially responsible manner almost all the time. That isn’t to say that there isn’t the odd mishap, but they are few and far between and rarely involve so called civilians.
As this ban on rallies progresses in Europe, it would be wise for North American rallyists to keep an eye on the news. It might be even more wise for clubs to start making themselves visible to local police and communities. Maybe the odd safe driving campaign here or there might help. Otherwise, we may find our roads closed to legitimate, organized road rallies as we know them.