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- GTPr01 (GT); TheGTAFather (GTA)
Drive.com.au
Cannonball up and running again
The Cannonball is heading back Down Under, and police are concerned, writes BARRY PARK.
Organisers of next year's Cannonball Run are quick to distance the event from the carnage of 1994.
It started as a cross-country race three decades ago in the US as a protest against speed limits, became a series of B-grade Hollywood movies, and now a Cannonball Run is set to return to Australia next year.
Victoria Police is less than impressed, given the four deaths in a separately organised but similarly named event in the Northern Territory 12 years ago. It said it will keep a watching brief on the event, which will be held mainly on public roads.
The company organising next year's event has held similar affairs in Europe, the US and Russia. The man behind the Cannonball franchise, Tim Porter, told Drive that next year's run, which would cross into Victoria as part of a three-state tour, would be nothing like the 1994 event.
That Cannonball Run, organised by motor-racing identity Allan Moffat, ended in calamity after an inexperienced Japanese driver's Ferrari ran off an NT road, slamming into an official's car parked on the roadside. Four people were killed, including two event volunteers.
Mr Porter said the 2007 Cannonball Run was about fun, not speed. "It's not the Cannonball you had in 1994," he said. "The whole objective of this event is for the drivers to try to achieve 100 km/h over the 3000 kilometres I set out. My job is to ensure that they don't.
"The event in 1994, I believe, was a race, which is socially unacceptable anywhere in the world now. We are not a race, we are a . . . timed event.
"If we have any lunatics driving too quickly, they're given a warning. If they don't listen to the warning, they don't get a route map, end of story."
Mr Porter said drivers would have to follow all Australian road rules while on public roads, making up the average speed differences on a closed race track.
On the road, entrants will need to match preset times based on speed limits between checkpoints without breaking the limits.
Organisers had not yet contacted governments in each of the states that the rally would pass through, because there was no need to do so, Mr Porter said. "These cars are legal road cars, and we're not speeding," he said. "Do we need to contact them? No. Out of courtesy, I think we will."
Victoria Police's state traffic adviser, Superintendent Harry Hayes, said this week that any event with a title that could encourage people to drive in a way that "might violate our traffic laws" would come under close scrutiny from police.
Drivers in the event will pay $10,000 each in entry fees. They will stop "in various cities to party along the way", promotional material for the event says. However, Mr Porter said planners would enforce a strict anti-drink-driving policy, including breath-testing participants. The event will leave Brisbane on May 20, finishing at the Gold Coast on May 25.
Events overseas have attracted budding playboy types with expensive vehicles. So far, 10 European and two US drivers had shown interest in taking part in the Australian Cannonball Run, Mr Porter said. - Drive
Can't wait, I and my father actually intended to purchase a Lotus Exige S for this event but we are a little too busy.
Pity about the speed limits though, it just wrecks it.
Nevertheless, who have you out there have participated in the Cannonball run before and what did you think of it?
RB26DETT wagon? Yeah, I think that'd be pretty unsuspectable. 
