TWINSBURG, Ohio - A Northeast Ohio exotic car dealer, who along with two other daredevils set a cross-continent driving record in November only to have it broken five months later, told cleveland.com last week that they have reclaimed the “Cannonball Run” crown.
Doug Tabbutt, 35, who owns Switchcars in Twinsburg, said he and Arne Toman, 45, of Chicago drove a high-performance Audi 2,816 miles from the Red Ball Garage in Manhattan, the customary starting point of the Cannonball Run, to its endpoint at the Portofino Hotel and Marina in Los Angeles in 25 hours in 39 minutes.
That time shaves 59 minutes off the previous record and means the two drivers, along with navigator and police spotter Dunadel Daryoush, averaged nearly 110 mph.
Setting a Cannonball Run record requires drivers not only to well exceed speed limits, but also to violate other traffic laws. So, Tabbutt and Toman made their run last May in relative secrecy, giving advance notice only to a handful of close friends and to assistants strategically stationed along their route.
But to document their feat, Tabbutt and Toman sent video shot along the way to Daniel Berman, a senior contributor to DriveTribe, a London-based website that bills itself as an “automotive online community platform.”
Berman, who plans to write about their run, said in an interview with cleveland.com that the video and an interview with the pair served “to convince me that this happened.”
Berman said Ed Bolian, a previous Cannonball record holder who helped Tabbutt and Toman plan their latest attempt, also vouched for the new record.
The previous record was set in April by a team of drivers whose identities are a closely guarded secret. That attempt drew criticism from some who claimed the record wasn’t legitimate because it was made at a time when traffic was greatly reduced by the coronavirus crisis. Some also felt it unwise because an accident could have drawn resources away from the pandemic.
“Pretty much everybody in my circles thinks this was a terrible idea,” Road & Track Deputy Editor Bob Sorokanich said at the time of the previous record holders.
Tabbutt was not among the critics and congratulated the record breakers at the time. He quoted Cannonball Run founder Brock Yates, who said, “The only rule is there are no rules.”
The unsanctioned and illegal Cannonball Run was immortalized by Hollywood in the 1980s by the movie of the same name. It was originally a multi-vehicle race but has since morphed into more of a time trial where individual teams race against the clock.
Tabbutt and Toman were accompanied in their first record run by Berkeley Chadwick, who served as a navigator and spotter, but he was replaced in May by Daryoush, a Cannoball enthusiast Tabbutt met at a Cleveland car show and who now lives in Washington, D.C.
The Audi, disguised as to look like a Ford Taurus unmarked police car, also was a new addition. The souped up Mercedes used in November was totaled in the spring after being struck by a truck while parked on the side of a highway, Tabbutt said.
The men left New York City at 6 p.m., a time of day that would have been congested with traffic prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Tabbutt said, instead of leaving well before dawn as is customary.
Tabbutt said they sailed out of Manhattan, where the biggest challenge was avoiding cyclists who were blowing through red lights, and that the early evening departure meant they could drive all the way across the Midwest in darkness, maximizing their speed along the way.
“We saw the sunrise in Colorado as we approached Denver,” Tabbutt said.
Tabbutt and Toman took the same route as last year and encountered few problems along the way. In Iowa, the car started vibrating and Tabbutt thought the tires were shot. He woke up Toman, who suggested that the car’s automatic “lane departure assist” was taking over the steering. Ten minutes later, they figured out how to turn it off.
In Colorado, with Toman behind the wheel, they heard on a radio tuned to police channels that somebody had notified police of the speeding Audi. With 13 miles to go until the Utah border, Tabbutt frantically checked his maps for a place to get off the highway before realizing they had already passed the state trooper involved in the conversation.
“I told Arne just to hammer down and get to Utah,” Tabbutt said.
The Audi was outfitted with the usual assortment of radar detectors, police scanners, stabilized binoculars and other gadgets to spot trouble and avoid detection. The only hiccup came at a fuel stop when one of the dozens of people assisting along the way forgot to fill the main tank and only did the auxiliary tank, resulting in a delay of seven or eight minutes.
Tabbutt said he never intended to make another Cannonball Run after setting the record in November, making a deal with his wife that he was through. But then she had a change of heart.
While some harsh feedback from the previous record run bothered Tabbutt, he defended his actions then and now by insisting that he and Toman took great care in their planning and driving and that his conscience was clear.
People who don’t understand Cannonball are never going to accept it, he said.
“What’s the old saying,” he said with a chuckle. ‘Haters going to hate.”
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August 20, 2020 at 09:00PM
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Team including Twinsburg car dealer retakes “Cannonball Run” cross-country speed record - cleveland.com
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