The Cannonball Run, the historic, unsanctioned race across the country from New York to Los Angeles, brings out the best or worst in people, depending on how you see driving at high speeds on public roads. It began in the 1970s, with the last “official” Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash set in 1979 with Dave Heinz and Dave Yarborough at the wheel and a time of 32 hours, 51 minutes. But the cross-country record runs didn’t stop there.

A successor to the race was organized, called the U.S. Express, with slightly different start and end points, in the 1980s where the record was broken again, paring the time down to 32 hours, 7 minutes. That record stood for several decades until Alex Roy and Dave Maher made the run in 2007 in a specially prepped BMW M5 in 31 hours, 4 minutes, beating the last best time by more than an hour. That record stood for another six years, until 2013, when it was smashed into bits by Ed Bolian and Dave Black in a ’04 Mercedes-Benz CL55 AMG making the three-day journey in 28 hours, 50 minutes. That record looked impossible to beat.

But nothing is impossible. Three guys (Arne Toman, Doug Tabbutt and spotter Berkeley Chadwick—we wouldn’t have used their names except they’ve been floating around the web for a few days now) got it done in a 2015 Mercedes E63 AMG sedan—as good a car as any, we surmise. The E63 was tweaked up to 700 hp by way of an Alpha 9 tuning package and featured an extra fuel cell in addition to radios, radar detectors, infrared goggles and a bunch of other stuff meant to help them avoid police. It was also equipped with brake and taillight kill switches, as well as two GPS units to prove the time. With an average speed of 103 mph, Toman, Tabbutt and Chadwick laid down an amazing time of 27 hours, 25 minutes on the original route, from the Red Ball Garage in New York City to the Portofino Hotel in Redondo Beach, California.

The advantage this team had was the network of friends and colleagues in the fast-car business that provided them with help on the fly and with general knowledge of the areas covered. Speaking of routes, the team took the northern one: I-80 through Nebraska, I-76 down to Denver, I-70 to the middle of Utah and I-15 into California.

It’s an amazing run. And what’s also amazing is that there has been only one serious accident with minor injuries and no fatalities in all the years the illegal race has been run. Roy, one of the previous record-setters, also noted to Road & Track that "in America, we have allowed ourselves to believe that we cannot be good drivers. But in Germany, people hit speeds faster than Arne's average Cannonball speed just driving home from work on the Autobahn."

Check out the deep dive over at Road & Track and watch the video above for more details on the race. Will Toman, Tabbutt and Chadwick’s record ever be beaten? It doesn’t seem like it, but it didn’t seem like it when the Daves did it, or when Roy did it, or when Bolian and Black did it. Crazier things have happened.

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