jls (11/23/82)
The complete name for the cross country race was "Cannon Ball Baker Sea-to- Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash". It started at the Red Ball Garage in Manhattan and finished at the Portofino Inn somewhere in S. Cal.. This is from the March 1972 issue of Car and Driver and is about the race that was run the previous November. Seven teams finished including: Ferrari PRDA Van Cadillac Little Rock Tankers AMX Moontrash 2 Union 76 Travco Motorhome The Ferrari won with 35hrs 54 min ET at an AVERAGE speed of 80 MPH. This is including 9 fuel stops and one stop by police. Drivers of the Ferrari were Dan Gurney and Brock Yates. The PRDA (Polish Racing Drivers of America) van was a Chevy driven by Oscar Koveleski, Tony Adamowicz and Brad Niemcek. It started with 298 gallons of gasoline and made one fuel stop. The Caddy was being driven to Cal. for a NY businessman, made 15 fuel stops, 5 police stops and averaged 77.2MPH. Little Rock Tankers had a Dodge van also full of gasoline. They averaged 75.4MPH with 1 fuel stop and 3 police stops. The AMX was driven to NY from Cal and then back again by the same two people. Moontrash 2 was another Dodge van (no mention of fuel capacity) but its listed as making 19 fuel stops, one police stop and an average 74MPH. The motorhomes ET was 57hrs 25min for an average 50.8MPH. The PRDA van, the AMX and the motorhome were not stopped once by police. The only DNF was an MGB/GT that broke down in Columbus, Ohio with a bad clutch. This was not the first CBBSSSMTD as there is a reference to a May 1971 run in the article and I recall a subsequent run were Yates (I believe) won in a Dodge Challenger and beat previous times because of CB radio and improved radar detectors. There were no accidents on any of the CCBBSSSMTDs as far as I know.