The record for a coast to coast journey (Los Angelis to New York) was shattered on 19-20 October. Ed Bolian – Atlanta Lamborghini dealer – went through the transcontinental trip in 28 hours 50 minutes. The previous record, made by Alex Roy in 2006; he completed the run in 31 hours 4 minutes. Bolian said: “Honestly, I was so shocked at how much we had beat our target and previous record… It was just unbelievable. It was cathartic and amazing. But mostly, I was just shocked.” The origins of the Cannonball Run aren’t entirely clear, but the death defying and hugely illegal race from New York City to Los Angeles is named after Edwin ‘Cannonball’ Baker. In 1933 he went from coast to coast in 53 hours 30 minutes. In the 1970s the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash was created by the Car and Driver editor Brock Yates. Later called the Cannonball Run, the race challenged daring drivers from all over the country to test their limits. A 1981 comedy starring Burt Reynolds and Farrah Fawcett immortalized the name. The run was last completed by Dave Heinz and Dave Yarborough in 32 hours 51 minutes behind the wheel of a Jaguar and his time wasn’t bested untill 2006.
The next hero on the list is Ed Bolian. He is a 28 years old Lamborghini dealership sales director. He put a lot of work and money in his Mercedes CL55 AMG to make it ready for the journey. The preparations took him 18 month, but Bolian dreamed of breaking this record since he was in highschool. When he was 18, he had to interview Brock Yates, who organized and won the first Cannonball Run. “I told him, ‘One day I’d like to beat your record,’ ” Bolian recalled. He also says he doesn’t know exactly how much money he invested in his dream. The car was equipped with two additional 22-gallon gas tanks, which add hundreds of pounds of fuel but allow the car to travel 800 miles between stops. To ensure a clear run, free from traffic jams and, perhaps more importantly, traffic cops Bolian, also invested in a police scanner, two GPS units that relay traffic information and iPhone apps such as Trapster. The car was also fitted with two laser jammers and had a truck mounted antenna. Friends were enlisted to travel along the route, about 150 miles ahead of the Mercedes, and check for any potential obstacles. Great organization and technologies did their job and the record was not just broken by a few minutes, but shattered – the time was more than two hours better then Toy’s time. “We were unfathomably fortunate… We had no accidents, no traffic, no weather, no major construction. We wanted this to be a benign use of highway. We didn’t want to hurt anyone, we didn’t want to get hurt and we didn’t want to get arrested.”