A cult movie of the yesteryears this one had a galaxy of stars who all try to race each other from one end of the east coast to the other side in the west coast. This movie was actually inspired by outlaw races in the seventies from New York City (or Darien, CT) to Redondo Beach in Los Angeles. A record set in 1933 that took 53 hour and 30 minutes to complete the race at an average of fifty miles per hour stood for nearly 40 years. By seventies, the average speed had climbed significantly to 80 m.p.h. with one of the racers famously quipping - “At no time did we exceed 175 mph.”
Two rival teams last year were trying to break the seventies record. And according to the New York Times, Alexander Roy spent 31 hours and 4 minutes in 2006 to claim the honours. Roy’s car, a BMW M5, was equipped with one laser jammer to scramble police speed-enforcement equipment, one ground-to-air radio, two night-vision monitors, four global positioning system units and one CB radio. The idea was to not get a traffic ticket as it would easily take up fifteen minutes of time. And their average speed was an incredible 90 m.p.h.
Such speeds require reliable cars. I had written about my preference for the American ones over the Japanese made cars. Now Consumer Reports magazine, the most ‘reliable’ one in this space, has downgraded severly Toyota in terms of reliability. You can read more about it here.
While Chennai-’ites’ would have to wait a few more years to do a Cannonball to Pondichery as the four-laning of the ECR is still in propsal stages while the four-laning of Old Mahabalipuram Road is far from complete.
Maybe a NFS Underground can satiate our desires for speed, for now.
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