The Cannonball Run

We were down at the Perth Motorplex drags for a street meet in 2000 driving our 1991 Galant VR-4 trying to get the best times out of her when a discussion broke out with the bonnet up with two young guys (early 20's) when one said, "This thing goes like a cannonball down the straight, what is it" Obviously the word cannonball made us smile, and one of us said "if only we were in that 1994 Cannonball Run"  One of the young guys said "That's a myth mate, it never happened, I looked it up on the internet and there is nothing about it" We tried to explain that we were there, and then the guys looked at us like we were crapping on. As the young guys were leaving, one says "Sure mate, and I suppose you lost the pictures you took as well."   

Well, as a matter of fact we did have quite a few photos. I took heaps of rolls of film. (If you don't know what "rolls of film" means, you grew up in the digital age where taking one photo didn't cost you $1.00 a photo to take, or worse still, you didn't know if the photos you were taking would even turn out )

This played on me for some months. "Myth" & "Urban Legend" This wasn't a myth, I was there, something had to be done to preserve that this race had occurred, and that people had lost their lives.

We recalled how a mate of ours phoned to tell us there was going to be a "legal" Cannonball Run in the Northern Territory. People would be coming from all over the world to participate. They were coming to race their exotic sports cars down the track to Alice and back.

Translated from local slang, that meant, "there was going to be a car race from Darwin, down the Stuart Highway all the way to Alice Springs (better known as the place that has the rock.... Ayers Rock); and then, they would have to turn around and come back up the Stuart Highway to Darwin again." All this in the tradition of the movie, The Cannonball Run.

These cars would have to do a total of around 4,000 kilometres (approx 2,485 miles) flat out.