The Driver (15 page)

“Ooooh”—he hesitated—“you mean like the
real
Cannonball, like back in the old days?”

“Precisely.”

“Polizei, man, now
that
shit sounds dangerous.”

“You've,” I said slowly, “never done it?”

“Sure would! But somebody's gotta get some boys together who know what the hell they're doing!”

“Yeah,” I said. “It's too bad no one's organizing
that
.”

“Alex, you hear about another
real
Cannonball going down, we gotta go. I
know
Dennis'll be in. You gotta run against guys you trust, right?”

He didn't know The Driver. Of all the 2003 Gumballers, Rawlings and Collins were the logical picks for recruitment. The Driver would already know Kenworthy from the 2002 Gumball.

Wherever they went, I'd go.

 

Handsome Dave's exact words used when Rawlings received his bust were
“—first to nearly every checkpoint—”

The exact words used when Kenworthy received the Fastest Wheels Trophy were
“the hardest driver by a mile.”

Maher and I won the Spirit Trophy—apparently Gumball's greatest honor—for “
doing it in the craziest way,”
just like Max had said at orientation only five days earlier,
“because it goes to whoever best embodies the enthusiasm, creativity, and spirit of Gumball.”

That was probably true. This time.

Gumball really was a rally, a fantastical, amorphous community that coalesced, dispersed, and teleported itself each day, five days a year, between points distant, a surreal universe of which I was a small part, and of which I'd seen a larger but
still
very small sliver of its mythical totality.
The sliver containing those who came to race.
First. Hardest.

Rawlings, Kenworthy, and I had each come for a different race of our own creation, each with different rules, and each of us had won. If only two or more of us played by the same rules, that would be a real race.

This had only been the first battle. I'd earned Rawlings's respect. Kenworthy knew who I was. But if I wanted to find The Driver, I had to push. Harder. Unless, by some miracle, The Driver called before the 2004 Gumball registration deadline eight months away, I'd be back.

 

“Richard, you know, you gave me a real shock when we saw you coming out of White Sands going the other way.”

“Wasn't that funny?”

“How come you weren't stopped by those cops at the White Sands exit?”

Rawlings shook his head. “Man, I was talking to all the same truckers as you! Didn't you hear me warn y'all?”

“Wait…that was
you
? You warned us on the CB when you were going the other way?”

“Hells yeah!” He picked up another beer. “Ain't I a nice guy?” Interesting. “So,” said Rawlings, “you doing Gumball in Europe next year?”

Kenworthy would be there, as would legends who'd missed 2003—the notorious Kim Schmitz and secretive Peter Malmstrom, names I'd heard spoken in hushed tones but about whom I knew little.

“Dunno, Rawlings. You?”

“Dunno, man, Africa and shit? Sounds dangerous…never driven down there, but if you're going, let's talk after this is over.”

“Done.”

I hoped he would be. Rawlings was a fierce competitor, but if disaster struck and I needed help, I'd trust him.

Eight hours earlier, after another
Reifenpanne,
after he and Collins left the Ocala Hooters checkpoint ten minutes ahead of us, after Maher caught up with them for the second time, after I encouraged Maher to pass and push to the finish line ahead of them, after I told Maher to disregard the fuel gauge…we ran out of gas.

Rawlings and Collins passed. I called out on the CB for help.

Rawlings answered, imploring us to get the M5 rolling just one more mile to the overpass, where, sitting on the shoulder by the mile marker, exactly like one of two I'd seen strapped to the back of a black Chevy Avalanche parked in front of the Fairmont in San Francisco—we found a bright red jerry can full of gas.

AUGUST
2003

I reached for the second most important box in my life—an unassuming little brown cardboard cube sitting on a shelf in my lobby's mail room—and ripped it open before the elevator doors closed behind me.

It was Brock Yates's
Cannonball!
memoir.

Of course
Gumball was nothing like Cannonball.

The majority of Cannonballers drove coast-to-coast, nonstop, in 35 to 40 hours,
during which the lead drivers sustained average speeds of over 80 mph
—a Herculean feat even today. The 2003 Gumball took five days to cover 3,350 miles—the longest stage a 12-to 15-hour run over 924 miles.

But those few serious Gumballers who
raced
—forced to use every tool and tactic possible to avoid being stopped merely for being stickered—suffered a trial by fire
far
harsher than any Cannonballer. The fraction of Gumballers who finished virtually unmolested by police—among them Rawlings, Collins, and myself—possessed skills and instincts untaught anywhere, at any price, and utterly useless anywhere
but on the secret race the Gumball wasn't.

Were Gumball all there was or had ever been, I'd return ever year until I died, but that Rawlings and Collins existed at all—yearning and hoping for something beyond even the surreal madness of Gumball, that on the final night I felt closer to them than anyone outside my oldest friends, that there were others seemingly like us yet unknown to me—meant I was right.

I wasn't alone.

Hillary
had
to climb Everest, Bannister
had
to run the four-minute mile, and we felt the inexorable pull of a distant, mythological journey across America, a
race
that—whenever people like Rawlings and I met—became inevitable.

Nonstop. No parties. No checkpoints. No bullshit.

If only someone would invite us.

I completed the first page of the book before the elevator door opened on my floor. Within hours I'd learned that racing legend Dan Gurney (whose control of a Ferrari Daytona was described by copilot Yates as that of “a virtuoso playing…a fine instrument,”) set the inaugural 1971 Cannonball record of 35:54, and that this was later shattered when David Heinz and David Yarborough, civilians nowhere as skilled as the F1 legend, set the final 32:51 Cannonball record in 1979.

“Laser and radar jammers remain unproven,” Yates wrote, calling the CB network “raggedly unpredictable.”

But Maher and I had had a 99 percent success rate in mapping, spotting, and avoiding police, and our two traffic stops occurred
only
because we'd failed to heed our V1.

“The time for Cannonball-style races is over,” Yates wrote, citing increased law enforcement, liability, traffic, and urban sprawl. But I was among several Gumballers, all in stickered cars far more conspicuous than the stealthy Cannonballers', who finished with but two tickets—
par with several top-five Cannonball finishers
.

As for traffic and sprawl, in 1999 Yates drove cross-country—
through a snowstorm,
with his son, in a stock Chrysler 300M—in 38 hours, then said 36 hours remained “within the realm of possibility.”

There
had
to be a secret race out there.

Had to be.

I waited for the call for months, but it was always Gumballers wanting to go clubbing in New York, or party at Eyhab's London mansion, or invite me to dinner in Paris. I befriended Frankl and Michael Ross—the watermelon-helmeted owner of the 28 whom I'd seen arrested just after the 2003 start—at the L.A. premiere of the Gumball movie that November, and Maher began dating Emma, a six-foot three-inch English model who worked for Ross's girlfriend. My superficial star turn in the movie led fans and Gumballers to call for technical and legal advice, as if my schizophrenic months of preparation only one year earlier made me an authority. Even Morgan called, improbably asking if I would officiate and witness his wedding to Kira that afternoon in New York before they flew home to England. Virtually everyone I asked expressed interest in a Cannonball revival, but none admitted being aware of—let alone invited to—one.

The Driver wasn't going to call. I had to hone my skills on the 2004 Gumball. That's where I'd find Kenworthy, Kidd, Macari, Schmitz, and a new driver whose real name no one knew. A driver known only from online rumors and fan gossip. A driver who—whether or not he understood the true nature of the Gumball Spirit Trophy—had declared the 2003 winner his prime target, the man he intended to defeat at all costs.

A driver who had declared
me
Public Enemy number one.

A driver named Torquenstein.

MAY
3, 2004
PARIS, FRANCE
GUMBALL
-2
2300
HOURS (APPROX)

“So…er…Alex…what do you think of him
now
?”

I stood beside George Gurley, the
Vanity Fair
writer assigned to my Royal Canadian Mounted Police Pursuit M5 for Gumball '04.

A candy-apple-red Dodge Viper spun in circles not 20 feet away, its engine revving wildly, its wide tires scrabbling on Paris's famously uneven pavement, chirping and spitting out increasingly large clouds of acrid smoke. The fans whooped, hollered, clapped, cheered, laughed, and shouted.

The driver was approximately five nine, yet looked smaller at the helm of the North Dakota–plated 700-horsepower Hennessy Venom 650R Viper currently spinning in place; he wore a suit of black leather armor, belts and cross straps, matching shoulder pads, and driving gloves lined with spikes that made him appear to be the result of a strange mating between a medieval knight and an S&M club habitué. He completed the look with black-lensed goggles over a face-concealing helmet topped with small red horns.

“So?” George huffed, as we watched the spectacle from behind a large tree.

I looked at the fantastic structure looming above us—built for the 1889 World's Fair, one of the great symbols of Parisian architecture and French culture, one of the most recognized symbols in human history, atop which countless couples had met, fallen in love, and proposed—from which a thousand grand lights shone carelessly upon the sideshow unfolding at its feet.

“They built
that
.” I gestured at the Eiffel Tower. “
They
gave us the Statue of Liberty. “We gave them…Torquenstein.”

FIVE MONTHS EARLIER
DECEMBER
2003
NEW YORK

“You're really screwed,” said The Weis, standing before a laptop on my kitchen counter.

“Let
me
see that.” I jumped out of the office chair from where I'd been perusing the Gumball forums—hunting for hints of equipment I might have overlooked—and from where, having just discovered a thread about a new and apparently
very
well-prepared entrant, I'd found his website address, www.torquenstein.net, and had read it out loud to The Weis.

“Holy shit!” I exclaimed.

“This looks bad,” said The Weis.

“This
is
bad.”

“This guy looks really serious. Who is he?”

“I don't know.”

The Weis clicked on Torquenstein's car-page link, nodding with grudging admiration at the $200,000 Dodge Viper. He raised his eyebrows—and my heart sank—when he scrolled down to a picture of a lemon-yellow Hummer H2 support truck.

“This
is
bad.” The Weis placed a hand on my shoulder. “For
you
.”

Torquenstein's equipment list duplicated mine,
and
he was adding my dream support vehicle, replete with tools, spare tires, parts, and emergency jerry cans. His budget for emergency gear, the support car, and entry fees for both it
and
its personnel
had
to exceed $200,000. Of the hundred and fifty or so entrants in the upcoming 2004 Gumball, Torquenstein was the only one I knew of better prepared than I.

Despite my experience—and probably
because
of it—the 2004 Gumball seemed far more daunting than the 2003. The route was Paris to somewhere in Spain, then Morocco (almost certainly in and out via the port city of Tangier), Barcelona (to coincide with the Formula 1 race there on May 9), and ending Cannes, for the first day of its film festival.

Half my gear would be useless. European police-radio frequencies and ten-code vernacular weren't public, my near-fluent French probably wouldn't be sufficient to understand them anyway, and I didn't speak Spanish. European truckers didn't use CB radios. I wasn't sure my V1—despite its instruction manual—would pick up 100 percent of the French and Spanish police radar. In 2003 my Lidatek laser jammer alarm had rung
every
time a late-model LED-brake-light-equipped vehicle hit the brakes, so I'd replaced them with an as-yet-untested Escort ZR3 system. I'd decided to ignore the M5's GPS and install a Garmin 2650, the best mobile unit available. I'd spent $1,000 on European and African DVD map sets, and an external backup windshield antenna.

Contrary to popular belief, European highways—however more suitable for speeding than those in the United States—
did
have speed limits, and although speed limits were often 90 mph or higher and police cars were rare, radar speed-trap cameras were common. I wasn't worried about their shooting my license plates. I'd replaced the front with a $7.93, eBay-purchased, vintage Canadian Northwest Territories, red-and-white polar-bear-shaped collectible plate, last valid in 1973, and the rear with a New York State plate that read
INPOL
144, valid, suggestive, meaningless, and covered with a Specterguard antiphoto radar reflective shield. In the event we
were
caught by police, my situation would be far worse than back home. European traffic and criminal law were vastly different. I could be detained for days, even weeks, while a magistrate prepared charges. My car could be impounded and auctioned off
before
I was released and could bid on it.

Except for the loss of time and money, speeding tickets would be irrelevant. France and Spain didn't have DMV moving-violation-point reciprocity treaties with
any
American state, and fines could be paid on the spot with a credit card.

If I hurt or killed anyone—life as I knew it would be over.

I hoped the presence of my long-distance, almost-ex-girlfriend/lover-but-who-was-such-a-good-friend-she-was-still-coming copilot, Amanda Kinsley, would cheer up any cops who might stop us. We'd met in L.A. when she'd seen me wearing a Team Polizei jacket with a bright orange Gumball patch, asked how many I'd done, then volunteered her services. Kinsley, the head concierge at a five-star hotel in Los Angeles, quickly procured voluminous research on European and Moroccan law, geography, projected fuel stops and pump octane levels, high-end tire stores, BMW service centers,
and
the most-likely-but-still-secret Gumball checkpoints.

She was clever, meticulous, excellent with maps, and never lost her temper.

She looked fantastic not only in the RCMP's bright red tunic, jodhpurs, tall boots and campaign hat, but also in Team Polizei's new-for-2004 white leather Svenska Motorvag Polis jackets,
and
in our lightweight-for-summer, black Tasmanian Highway Patrol uniforms.

She couldn't drive stick, but she
was
my first line of defense against a speeding ticket or arrest.

Disaster loomed in Morocco, the quality of its road network eliciting only laughter from U.S. State Department offices in Washington and Rabat, and there were but two BMW dealers in the country—in the capital and the centrally located city of Meknes—in the unlikely event we broke down nearby. The Gumball would pass through for less than 48 hours.

If
anything
went wrong, we'd be stranded.

 

The Weis patted me on the back. “Relax, what do your little friends online say?”

“Some guys say Torquenstein's going balls out, first into checkpoints,
and
to get the Spirit Trophy at the same time, but—”

“Aliray, did you really think you're the
only
guy serious about this?”

“Well…the fans say Kenworthy can't be beat.”

“Listen,” said The Weis, “this is all meaningless without real rules and time cards.”

“But there's a code of honor…seriously…even if not everyone knows what it is. Kenworthy probably
could
be first every time, if he felt like it, but he doesn't…and people respect him as the best.”

The Weis walked away, slowly paced around my living room, then took a seat at the bar facing me. “Aliray…why are you doing this again?”

“I
have
to show the flag. Kenworthy will be there, and Schmitz.”

“And this Rawlings guy isn't going?”

“No,” I said. “Hardly any Americans are. Everyone's freaked out about Morocco…breakdowns, carjackings,
and
it's an Arab country, but my Moroccan friends said not to worry…they love Americans.”

“Read BBC.com, tough guy. You
don't
wanna break down outside a major city. The king wasn't elected, and there're some unhappy people in the desert. Have a good time impressing your secret racer buddies.”

“The Weis, there'll never be another one like this. Africa? C'mon, you gotta admit it's nuts. I mean, it's way more ‘once in a lifetime' than San Fran to Miami.”

“Like I said”—The Weis deployed his most disapproving tone—“have a good time.”

“I'll be careful…everyone loves Canadians.”

“You better hope so, because that red jacket and hat make you look like an idiot.”

“But no one's gonna arrest me
in Europe
for impersonating a Mountie!”

The Weis, bored with my rationalizations, glanced once again at Torquenstein's website. “So…if there's no
winning
per se, and you're just showing the flag, what's the point? What if this
Vanity Fair
guy makes you look like a complete idiot? I mean, you're pretty easy to make fun of, smart guy.”

“If I can speak for the intelligent, rational, normal people who do Gumball, and especially if I have a safe, professional drive and get better, I can pitch sponsors for the next one.”

“For 2005?” He stared, as if my doing a third rally had never occurred to him. “Aliray, I've said it before, but you really
are
crazy.”

Only a very unusual person could or would commit utterly—as I had—to Gumballing as if it were a professional motor-sport event. One had to have time, money, and, most of all, serious motivation bordering on a deeper psychological problem.

Torquenstein appeared to exceed me in all three. And The Driver would be watching.

HOTEL GEORGE V PARKING GARAGE
GUMBALL START DAY
1530
HOURS (APPROX)

The RCMP M5 wouldn't turn over.

Kenworthy rolled past.

If all had gone as planned, we, having parked in approximately twentieth position, would already have pulled out and entered the line of cars slowly spiraling up the ramp, out of the garage, and into the prestart parade, and I, having lived in Paris, could have used my superior knowledge of the eighth arrondissement's streets to cut ahead, advancing up the grid before the flag drop beneath the Trocadero.

Who did I know with jumper cables?

“Kinsley?” I said nervously, sweat rolling off my brow onto the wool RCMP tunic. We both suffered in the heat of a dozen cars idling two unventilated levels belowground. Kinsley was also afflicted by a mild but intensifying flu, and with futile sympathy I saw as she approached—with eager eyes and a forced smile—the unbalanced steps of one trying to delay necessary bed rest.

“Any better?”

“I'll make it,” she said quietly. “What's…wrong? You look—”

“The battery's dead.”

“Alex,”
she said, my shame reflected in her glare, “with all the stuff we packed,
tell
me you brought jumper cables. Didn't this happen last year?”

I glanced at the police lights on the roof. “Yes,” I said with self-directed anger, “and it happened for the same reason. Kinsley…I think you have a better chance at getting cables than me, and keep an eye out for Ross or his copilot, Emma; they might only be one level up.”

She headed off without a word.

The last car of the main pack passed us by. Except for the occasional straggler and those disabled by more serious problems, we were alone.