Getting it into the 26 hour range is important for take off and landing. I haven't seen details, but you'd likely want to leave New York at 3:00 AM and thereby arrive in LA at 2:00 AM, avoiding the heaviest city street traffic. I know from personal experience that roadways are the lightest overnight Sunday-Monday. Maybe depart on Sunday 3:00 AM and arrive Monday 2:00 AM.
The Cannonball Run record has been broken seven times in five weeks
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Re: The Cannonball Run record has been broken seven times in five weeks
#32What are these guys trying to prove? Who the biggest and irresponsible asshole is? If you want to go fast, go to a race track and race against real drivers. If you don’t like tracks, do rallye.
It's strange how in other areas such behavior is encouraged. Where is the anger when people try to set speed records on boats? Every time some rich idiot gets into trouble on the high seas, other people have to risk their lives to save them. Setting aside rescue personnel, many innocent bystanders have also been killed by racing yachts.
2018: "One Fisherman Killed, 9 Saved After Boat Collides With Ocean Race Yacht" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjrq0NDL8r4
"On the night of 19 March 2007, while around 22 kilometres (14 mi) offshore from Guatemala, Earthrace collided with a local fishing boat. No Earthrace crew were hurt, but one of the three crew members from the fishing boat was never found." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MY_Ady_Gil#2007
2012 "A yacht involved in a race off the coast of California and Mexico apparently collided at night with a much larger vessel, leaving three crew members dead and one missing, a sailing organization said early Sunday." https://www.guelphmercury.com/news-story/2698368-collision-s...
And if you want to compare statistics, how many people died on Titanic as it was racing across the Atlantic? Including that tragedy would probably make ocean racing more dangerous than the cannonball run even on an hourly basis.
Re: The Cannonball Run record has been broken seven times in five weeks
#33What are these guys trying to prove? Who the biggest and irresponsible asshole is? If you want to go fast, go to a race track and race against real drivers. If you don’t like tracks, do rallye.
It's strange how in other areas such behavior is encouraged. Where is the anger when people try to set speed records on boats? Every time some rich idiot gets into trouble on the high seas, other people have to risk their lives to save them. Setting aside rescue personnel, many innocent bystanders have also been killed by racing yachts. 2018: "One Fisherman Killed, 9 Saved After Boat Collides With Ocean Race Yacht" h…
I think it's probably a function of how big the risks are to themselves vs. others (both relatively and absolutely). I don't think ocean yacht races are as dangerous to bystanders as pirate road races are to even an order of magnitude, probably several.
Re: The Cannonball Run record has been broken seven times in five weeks
#34So it's sort of like a contest to see who can be the biggest asshole then?
Re: The Cannonball Run record has been broken seven times in five weeks
#35What are these guys trying to prove? Who the biggest and irresponsible asshole is? If you want to go fast, go to a race track and race against real drivers. If you don’t like tracks, do rallye.
It's strange how in other areas such behavior is encouraged. Where is the anger when people try to set speed records on boats? Every time some rich idiot gets into trouble on the high seas, other people have to risk their lives to save them. Setting aside rescue personnel, many innocent bystanders have also been killed by racing yachts. 2018: "One Fisherman Killed, 9 Saved After Boat Collides With Ocean Race Yacht" h…
"Every time some rich idiot gets into trouble on the high seas, other people have to risk their lives to save them. Setting aside rescue personnel, many innocent bystanders have also been killed by racing yachts.
"
This shouldn't happen either.
Re: The Cannonball Run record has been broken seven times in five weeks
#36It still amazes me that the US, with all its red light cameras, doesn't adopt the European speed cameras that create a lot of tickets (at significant fines) for relatively minor speeding infractions. Top Gear did a test years ago to see just how fast you would need to go to defeat a speed camera, and it was well beyond what the Cannonballers would be running. You just can't fool a high speed camera easily. Of course,…
It's because speed cameras are a scam, don't hold up in court. You have to prove who was driving and speed cameras typically can't do that.
You could flag the most egregious violators in real time and send a police interceptor. That would enable us to shift more highway patrol into other roles.
Re: The Cannonball Run record has been broken seven times in five weeks
#37It still amazes me that the US, with all its red light cameras, doesn't adopt the European speed cameras that create a lot of tickets (at significant fines) for relatively minor speeding infractions. Top Gear did a test years ago to see just how fast you would need to go to defeat a speed camera, and it was well beyond what the Cannonballers would be running. You just can't fool a high speed camera easily. Of course,…
>> You just can't fool a high speed camera easily. There are some tricks. If you have staff, people prepping the road ahead of you, then you just slow down for the cameras. I suspect that these recent records are being supported by the same people, the same camera/cop location data. I'm interested in what tech might be used by this team. I've been waiting for SDR dongles to transform into radar detectors/jammers. Cop…
If you're doing a cannonball run you don't slow down for cameras. That's wasted time and the tickets come later anyway. You only slow down for actual cops, because they could end your run.
Re: The Cannonball Run record has been broken seven times in five weeks
#38What are these guys trying to prove? Who the biggest and irresponsible asshole is? If you want to go fast, go to a race track and race against real drivers. If you don’t like tracks, do rallye.
It's strange how in other areas such behavior is encouraged. Where is the anger when people try to set speed records on boats? Every time some rich idiot gets into trouble on the high seas, other people have to risk their lives to save them. Setting aside rescue personnel, many innocent bystanders have also been killed by racing yachts. 2018: "One Fisherman Killed, 9 Saved After Boat Collides With Ocean Race Yacht" h…
I dunno, if my government created an ocean with my tax money to move people and freights, and some rich idiot with a yacht is racing down the artificial ocean endangering other ships, I guess I would be also pretty angry at that.
Re: The Cannonball Run record has been broken seven times in five weeks
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's strange how in other areas such behavior is encouraged. Where is the anger when people try to set speed records on boats? Every time some rich idiot gets into trouble on the high seas, other people have to risk their lives to save them. Setting aside rescue personnel, many innocent bystanders have also been killed by racing yachts. 2018: "One Fisherman Killed, 9 Saved After Boat Collides With Ocean Race Yacht" h…
I think it's probably a function of how big the risks are to themselves vs. others (both relatively and absolutely). I don't think ocean yacht races are as dangerous to bystanders as pirate road races are to even an order of magnitude, probably several.
That speaks to the danger factor, but the OP wanted to know why they do take these risks. I'd say that those on the cannonball run have exactly the same motivation as Ellen MacArthur. She was knighted for setting an around-the-world yachting record, making her an official hero, but in terms of motivation she is no different than these people trying to break the across-the-us driving record. Different vehicles, different legal regime, but same drive to be the fastest.
Re: The Cannonball Run record has been broken seven times in five weeks
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's because speed cameras are a scam, don't hold up in court. You have to prove who was driving and speed cameras typically can't do that.
You could flag the most egregious violators in real time and send a police interceptor. That would enable us to shift more highway patrol into other roles.
>> and send a police interceptor.
Lol. No police car could 'catch' anything at these speeds. Even if they could match the raw speed, catching up would take hours. You could organize a roadblock ahead but US cops, the local boys doing highway patrol in the dead of night, aren't going to deploy all those resources to maybe catch a speeder.
This happened to a friend of mine on a motorcyle. He was doing over 250KM/hour at 3am on a tuesday, flying back towards Vancouver for an emergency work thing. The first cop attempted to catch him, so did the second a few exits later. By the time they accelerated to highway speeds he was over the horizon. When he eventually hit a "roadblock" (one cop car he could easily have outrun) he had covered almost 60km. He honestly never saw the first two cops. At those speeds you don't bother with mirror checks. Judge found no streetracing or evading police. Simple (big) speeding ticket.