One morning, in the summer of 2010, I received a text message from my college friend Alex telling me I should come over for a visit. He refused to specify why, and insisted I come that same day. I grabbed the single small key to Belle (my 1963 Chevrolet Bel-Air Sedan) and went for a leisurely cruise to the outlying suburb of Spencerport, about 15 miles West of Rochester, New York. About 25 minutes later, I turned into the narrow driveway of his family’s large Victorian-era home. The house was situated on a quiet street lined with large century-old trees and well-kept historic homes dating mostly to the early 1900’s. The friendly old lady next door waved hello each time I visited, even though we never formally met - she knew that when there was a big old car in the driveway, it was me, the car-friend from college.
Rather than enter through the garage as usual, I was greeted in the driveway. It had not occurred to me that my quiet friend would plan a dramatic reveal for my benefit. While we said hello in the driveway, Alex’s father (automotive photographer Steve Rossini of Highland Design Studio [01]) went into the garage to open the door, revealing one of the most exciting American muscle cars in existence: the Eggshell White 1972 Dodge Challenger owned by celebrated racing driver, journalist, and casual outlaw Brock Yates.
The menacing face of Brock Yates' 1972 Dodge Challenger 340 "Cannonball Baker Special"
(Photo by Bailey DeLelys)
This unassuming Dodge coupe was one of the early vehicles entered in the unsanctioned and illegal cross-country road race known as the Cannonball Run. At the time of my introduction to the machine, the Challenger was still owned by Mr. Yates himself, who spearheaded the original outlaw race. Alex’s father had once been tasked with documenting the car in excruciating detail (following its restoration) as a safeguard to maintain its provenance against others that might attempt to ‘clone’ it. Yates was a friend of the Rossini family and lived in a nearby town, so he had casually let Steve borrow one of the coolest cars in the world for the weekend. The sentiment of envy doesn’t quite do justice to my emotions once the start of the engine tore through the picturesque neighborhood, disturbing the peace with a respectable force.
The "340 Four-Barrel" badge on either side of the hood announcing the intended engine
(Photo by Michael Lempert)
Alex’s father started the car with a thunderous explosion and drove it out of the garage. The sheer violent rumble of the small block 340 cubic-inch (5.5L) V8 was intense. The Challenger had a heartbeat that overpowered my own; I could feel it reverberating off of the hard floors and walls in the tiny enclosed space of the 100-year-old garage. Some of that might have just been the excitement of seeing it in person, because when compared to many racing cars (or even your average full size sedan) of the era, it’s not a large engine - most of the top performance cars and luxury coupes of the 1960s and 1970s had engine displacements that were 25%-50% larger!
Note the "Mopar Performance" valve cover design on the Challenger 340, which is painted the traditional Dodge blue that eventually was replaced with the more popular orange [09] (Photo by Bailey DeLelys)
When I first encountered the Challenger in the Rossini’s driveway I was about 20 years old, and I mostly knew of the Cannonball Run from the comedic 1981 movie of the same name starring Burt Reynolds and a slew of other celebrities (and with a screenplay by Cannonball race founder Brock Yates himself) [02]. In the film, Reynolds' character (J.J. McClure) and his adversaries tear across the United States in an absurd no-rules sprint from New York to California, each team in their own outrageous vehicle. McClure pilots a 1979 Dodge Tradesman ambulance with made up livery, with other racers in a Lamborghini Countach, Aston Martin DB5 (naturally driven by Bond actor Roger Moore), 1976 Chevrolet Laguna stock car, and Rolls-Royce rally car, among others.
The Cannonball Run movie poster from the 1981 film
The Lamborghini Countach is probably the most well known car of the film, and is most closely associated with pop-culture Cannonball lore [10]. There’s no question as to the influence of the film on the millions of young car enthusiasts who ended up with a poster of a Countach on the bedroom wall, myself among them. But the Lamborghini is really just a visual placeholder - a symbol for the freedom of the unchecked open road. The Lamborghini is also, ironically, almost the opposite of the idealized real-world Cannonball car; where the Lamborghini is outrageously styled, (usually) brightly-colored (the poster car is red, but the film opening sequence car is black), loud, and screams power, wealth and speed, the 1972 Dodge Challenger is barely distinguishable from a plain white coupe just off the showroom floor.
Driver side front corner with Cibie auxiliary driving lights and Challenger grille badge
(Photo by Michael Lempert)
Absurd as it may sound, many of the ridiculous antics portrayed in 1981 film reflect the actuality of the multiple years worth of real-life events it was based upon; The Cannonball Run was (and remains) a real unsanctioned motorsports event, and since there are no rules, it’s difficult to separate the winners from the losers and fakers. Among the silly mishaps and altercations in the movie that mirror the events of the actual race: a Chevy Laguna racing car did end up in a pool, and there was indeed a real car full of men dressed in priest costumes which they had rented in hopes that the police could be fooled into thinking that they were speeding to deliver their Mercedes to a high ranking church member (redefining the well-wishing phrase “godspeed”).
The 1979 Dodge ambulance driven by Burt Reynolds’ character in the Cannonball Run film is actually the very same vehicle Brock Yates used for his real-life 1979 run. The ambulance was selected half-jokingly, on the premise that nobody would dare to stop a speeding ambulance with its lights and sirens on. This proved false when police in fact did stop the speeding ambulance before it even left New York City, but the officers later acknowledged that they let them go despite knowing full well that they were up to hijinks - the police just didn’t want to fill out the associated paperwork!
The logic of the ambulance was straightforward: in an event where reducing travel time was the singular objective, an ambulance was a vehicle that normally might not get a second look speeding through traffic. The disguise of an emergency vehicle provided a possible solution to the time lost by run-ins with various highway patrol precincts, a fate suffered by multiple participants in the 1971 and 1972 events, in vehicles ranging from high performance cars to a massive Cadillac Sedan Deville traveling over 100mph (the Cadillac almost won!). The inclusion of vehicles exploiting subterfuge to avoid capture came about later, but the early events were more thoroughly rooted in the historical drive to beat records simply by virtue of driver skill and brute power.
A small token riveted onto the hood clarifies that this Challenger stands apart from the rest as the Cannonball Baker Special (Photo by Michael Lempert)
The formal name for the real-life outlaw race started as the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, in honor of Yates’ primary inspiration for the event, Erwin George “Cannon Ball” Baker (1882-1960). Baker was a motorcycle and automobile racer known for his many record-setting long-distance driving escapades. In the beginning of Brock Yates’ book “Cannonball! World's Greatest Outlaw Road Race” [03] the author included a brief tribute to Baker before the table of contents, in which he declared Baker’s greatest single triumph (among his 143 record-setting adventures) to be his 1933 New York-to-Los Angeles solo run in a Graham-Paige Blue Streak 8 in just 53 hours and 30 minutes with only one-half hour of sleep [04]. That record reportedly remains unbeaten as of this writing, 91 years later. The Baker name was dropped from the official event name later to avoid liability or ire from any surviving Baker family members [03].
The 1970s re-birth of the Cannonball sprint was the first multi-vehicle contest harkening back to the individual cross-country records set in the early century by the likes of Erwin Baker [05]. The organized Cannonball, which encouraged participation from racing drivers and celebrities and regular folks alike, was also a tremendous middle finger to “the establishment.” Yates was looking for a way to protest the rise of vehicle emissions regulations, 55mph speed limits, and an increased focus on safety features that (in the eyes of purist motorsports enthusiasts) interfered with vehicle design. These three factors drastically reduced engine power output, capped the driving opportunities for enthusiasts on open highways (some of which were originally constructed in the U.S. for motorsports [06], [07]), and introduced terribly ugly low-impact bumper designs in the United States. “Safety” regulations (often developed by people in congress with minimal actual car design knowledge or experience) also limited other advanced technologies available in Europe from debuting in the U.S., like the glass turning headlamp unit on the Citroen DS/SM Euro models (a much uglier fixed headlight was the U.S. alternative).
Brock Yates himself described his initial idea of the race as “A balls-out, shoot-the-moon, fuck-the-establishment rumble from New York to Los Angeles to prove what we had been harping for years…that good drivers in good automobiles could employ the American Interstate system the [way] Germans were using their Autobahns [sic] [03].” In short: Bureaucracy was killing the spirit of the automobile, and Yates feared it might also kill popular interest in automobiles as well.
Rear passenger corner featuring the square exhaust exits, trunk pins and flat black rear spoiler
(Photo by Bailey DeLelys)
The Cannonball race is the dream event of almost every driving enthusiast: to drive a made-up course of the driver’s choosing, in any type of vehicle, as fast and hard as possible until crossing the finish line. The only set points of the ‘official’ Cannonball were the start and finish lines. Yates established the start as the Red Ball Garage at 142 East 31st Street in New York City, which served as a parking structure for various corporate enterprises including, not coincidentally, Car & Driver magazine (the fleet of press vehicles was stored in this garage, among other things). The Portofino Hotel & Marina at 260 Portofino Way in Redondo Beach, California was selected as the finish; the Portofino was a well known hangout for folks in the racing community. There was only one official rule of the Cannonball: the shortest elapsed time between start and finish would indicate the winner, confirmed using the ticket punched by the electronic garage check-out clock at the Red Ball Garage, and then by the concierge recording the arrival using the clock perched on the registration desk of the Portofino Inn. Every moment counted between the start and finish, so time spent at gas pumps, using the restroom, or being dragged into the shoulder by highway patrol for traffic infractions counted against the times of the various contestants.
Challenger dashboard badge, surrounded by One Lap and Cannonball participation tags from various events (Photo by Michael Lempert)
Following a test run in a modified Dodge passenger van named “Moon Trash II” in the spring of 1971, the first organized race with multiple vehicles took place in November of 1971. Yates wrote fondly of his time with Dan Gurney, sprinting across the country to victory in a (borrowed) dark blue Ferrari 365 Daytona (they reportedly did crest 170mph at one point). The Ferrari was a purpose-built grand-touring car, and there were few machines in the world built specifically to such a high standard of comfort and speed over extended distances. Sadly, Yates discovered in early 1972 that Kirk White, who had owned and lent them the Ferrari for the 1971 event, had since sold the stunning V12 supercar. A replacement machine of the same caliber and quality was not available when they began to plan the 1972 race.
Close-up photo of the rear window sticker from Cotton Owens Garage, where the Challenger was specially modified to participate in the Cannonball race (Photo by Michael Lempert)
Instead, thanks to a friend in the automotive journalism community, a no-frills Dodge from the press fleet was selected and delivered to Cotton Owens Garage in Spartansburg, South Carolina to be modified for the race [03]. Owens was also an associate of Yates, and had a decorated career as a racing driver himself. The car Owens received was a plain white 1972 Dodge Challenger 340-4bbl.
The green interior (which was originally accented by a green vinyl top). Note the bank of toggle switches, phone, auxiliary gauges, map light (top right), and racing harness, all equipment added for the race.
(Photo by Bailey Delelys)
The Cannonball Challenger was so exciting to me partially because of how plain it looked, even with the modifications by Owen’s garage; it was the ultimate sleeper, and began its life as an unassuming fleet car. Unlike Trans-Am and NASCAR counterparts plastered in 1970s metallic paint schemes and sponsor logos, Yates’ Challenger was a simple gloss white with subtle flat black accents and a green vinyl roof (accenting the green interior), reminiscent of the Vanishing Point car from the 1971 film of the same name (which featured a similar lawless sprint about the countryside). The point of the Cannonball car was to sustain reasonably high speeds for extended periods of time, but also not to draw too much attention. Today the Challenger appears largely the same as it did in 1972, except that the slotted mag wheels have been replaced with more modern wheels, and the vinyl top has been stripped off.
The original look of the Cannonball Challenger, captured some time in the 1970s following one of the Cannonball Runs in front of RF Communications in Rochester, New York (photo by JIm Lill).
RF Communications provided parts for the on-board telephone/radio equipment.
The Cannonball Challenger as it appears as of this writing (Spring 2024)
(Photo by Bailey DeLelys)
The Challenger was modified by Cotton-Owens Garage specifically for the event, although it still was not a far cry from a factory spec car. Perhaps the most obvious difference to the casual observer is the massive 44 gallon auxiliary fuel cell that occupies nearly the entire trunk (the factory gas tank was an 18 gallon unit, and a 35-gallon unit was originally installed according to records, but probably revised when the car was later updated). A roll cage, map light, and phone were installed, and the suspension was modified presumably in much the same way as most police cars to sustain a heavier-than-usual beating and higher speeds. Ultimately, the engine was replaced in the 1990s with a beefed-up 391ci V8 that boasted 388 horsepower, but the engine which ran the race was reportedly lost, and today the car is thought to retain the original numbers-matching engine that served it during its time in the press fleet. It still sounds incredible.
The entire trunk of the car is occupied by the secondary fuel tank (a 44 gallon unit), and a single period-style travel bag (Photo by Bailey DeLelys)
In November of 1972 (the 13th-15th), at a time when the United States highway system still was not fully complete, Brock Yates, Bob Brown and H. K. Stanner drove the white Challenger from the Red Ball Garage to the Portofino Inn in a staggering 37 hours and 26 minutes at an average speed of 77.8mph, through all manner of driving conditions. The trio secured a second-place ranking behind three gentleman in a 1972 Cadillac Coupe DeVille, proving two things; first, that the Challenger had been a great candidate, and second (much to the chagrin of the Yates team) that Cadillac built excellent long-distance cars with the comfort, power, and reliability suitable for the Cannonball!
Interior detail photos of the Cannonball steering wheel logo, additional tachometer, main and secondary fuel tank toggle switches, vintage radar scanner, portable telephone and secondary speed and timeclock gauges. (Photos by Bailey DeLelys)
Yates drove the Challenger again for the 1975 event (April 23rd-25th), and came in third place, with a total elapsed time of 38 hours and 3 minutes. The 1975 event was the last Cannonball the car was involved with, and it wasn’t widely recognized as a significant machine until more recently. In fact, for years, it reportedly sat under a carport at the Yates private residence under a cover, unused, with several flat tires: just another derelict retired racing machine. Once the more organized One Lap of America event (a legal motorsports event series, with rules and registered participants on designated tracks) gained popularity, the participation of the aging Cannonball car started to gain more traction with enthusiasts - it was sometimes driven by Brock Yates Jr. for the One-Lap. The Challenger is now a more widely known and appreciated car, especially having been featured on the cover of Yates’ book about the race.
Front driver side corner, with the Cibie driving lights and marker lights turned on (Photo by Bailey DeLelys)
I encountered the Challenger several times over the years after that first visit in the Rossini’s driveway. On one occasion at Syracuse Nationals in the early 2010s, Brock Yates himself signed a copy of his book for me (which features the Challenger on the cover) a few feet away from the car. I am grateful for this brief meeting, as he passed away not long after in 2016 at the age of 82, ironically on October 5th, my birthday [08]. The Challenger always seemed to me like the ultimate racing machine that would always be like it was upon our first encounter: just out of my reach.
Signed copy of Brock Yates' book from our introduction at the Syracuse Nationals (Photo by Michael Lempert)
And then, late one Sunday evening in early November of 2023, only days after my brother Sam and I opened the doors to our lifelong-dream classic car storage and display space, my phone buzzed. I picked it up and found the most unexpected message: a request from a friend of the Yates family that we temporarily store a car for them. The car needing temporary shelter was the Cannonball Challenger. When they asked me what it would cost, I responded it was on the house; I’d been granted the honor and trust of being handed the keys to the Challenger of Cannonball legend, and even if it was only for a few weeks; that was compensation enough. In truth, I had already written most of this article based on my love for the car and my previous interactions with it; it had never occurred to me that I might one day be its caretaker.
The Challenger loaded into our enclosed trailer in February 2024 (Photo by Michael Lempert)
My brother Sam and I had only recently become accustomed to transporting high-value vehicles, and in order to ensure the security of the machine, we had to be discreet. We arranged to pick it up in our new enclosed trailer and deliver it to our space, where we would unload it inside the building. In theory, nobody would know we had it until it was gone, and aside from a core group of people involved in the business and close friends who were helping us load and unload our high-value cargo, nobody would see it arrive or depart either. I notified my friend and photographer Bailey DeLelys that we would be back late morning on Saturday, 25 November 2023. Bailey met us at the building for an almost 7-hour long photoshoot, the results of which populate this article.
The Cannonball Challenger takes center-stage in our under-construction garage. Note at right Jeanette (https://mlempert0.wixsite.com/anachronist/post/phantom-55-inheriting-a-history), at top right Topaz (https://mlempert0.wixsite.com/anachronist/post/art-deco-mposition-the-incomplete-history-of-topaz) and top center behind the Challenger is the personal 1960 Imperial Crown of the late CEO of Folgers Coffee (a local car, which will have its own feature soon!). (Photo by Bailey Delelys)
The brief initial timeline of us storing the car expanded from a “couple weeks” into several months while we set up our space around the growing collection of vehicles. We essentially operated on a handshake NDA for folks who were visiting our under-construction facility - since we hadn’t formally opened to the public, we quietly filled the building with customer cars and closed the doors for the season in December. The only people with access to the building were my brother and I, the trusted building owners Bob and Brian, and our mechanic and various limited building tradesman installing security cameras and updating the plumbing. For the most part, the car went unnoticed. It remains, after all, just a plain white Dodge Challenger, parked under a cover in a building surrounded on three sides by my personal cars, and on the fourth side by late coffee-magnate Mr. Folgers’ personal 1960 Imperial Crown sedan. The biggest giveaway that this Challenger is special is a small sticker at the back of the front fender: the logo for the race that Yates designed before the 1972 event. The logo is a black highway disappearing into a red sun setting in a distant horizon, representative of the great scramble westward from New York City to Los Angeles. I have a small pin of the logo now, a thank you gesture for watching over the car.
A tiny pin commemorating the Cannonball race featuring the logo Brock Yates designed to signify the great rush westward towards the setting sun on an open highway (Photo by Michael Lempert)
The traditional Dodge steering wheel center badge has been replaced with a custom Cannonball logo
(Photo by Michael Lempert)
During the several months we looked after the car, only one visitor came through and saw it peering out from behind my rusty Cadillac, and immediately went over to it. Motorsports enthusiast and One-Lap participant Anthony Magagnoli experienced an emotional moment standing beside the silent white racing legend, which was gently covered by a plastic sheet to keep off the construction dust. Thought Anthony was not previously intimately familiar with the Challenger, I only had to remove the plastic from the front fender before he asked me “Is this what I think it is?” With the cover pulled off and gently set on the roof, he realized that this was, in fact, Brock Yates’ Cannonball car.
The Cannonball sticker on the back of the front fender, one of the only hints as to what makes this car so special (Photo by Bailey DeLelys)
Anthony, now working at Ford (as an Off-Road & Trailer Tow Attribute Development Engineer), grew up outside of Rochester, New York, not far from the Yates’ nearby hometown. He was influenced by Brock and the stories of the Cannonball, and had visited the Yates’ Cannonball Run Pub in his early years. Anthony recalled his first time running the One Lap of America race in 2010, and meeting Brock Yates in what turned out to be the aging founder’s last year participating. Anthony described his initial reaction to the car as being overcome with the gravity of the machine - the history, the owner, the outrageous feats this car has performed, as well as its ties to Anthony’s personal experiences with the One Lap of America and Cannonball events (Anthony has run the One-Lap four times as a pro driver). Brock Yates’ escapades had founded some of Anthony’s dreams and ambitions. To be in the presence of the legend’s creation left him in awe. Additional thanks to Anthony for keeping quiet about the encounter until this article debuted.
Detail of the front driver side corner (Photo by Bailey Delelys)
The influence of the Yates family on motoring, and on motorsports history, cannot be overstated. The recently debuted Ferrari biopic featuring Adam Driver was based on Brock’s detailed biography of Enzo Ferrari. Brock’s wife Pamela rode with him in the Dodge ambulance during the 1979 Cannonball race, despite the risks involved to both her reputation and physical safety. Brock’s children remain involved in perpetuating his legacy. The Challenger left our care on Wednesday, 28 February 2024, and my understanding from the new owners (who shall remain anonymous until further notice) is that they do have exciting plans for the car, and that it will absolutely remain in the public eye. I hope this plan is realized.
The vintage One Lap of America keychain on the cover of my copy of Brocks book, with the Challenger prominently on the cover (Photo by Michael Lempert)
Although our custody of the Cannonball Challenger was short-lived, and we only had a few months to stand around and admire its gaping black-trimmed grille, auxiliary driving lights, and muscular stance, I can say with confidence that being able to have this time with the car up close is an experience that will remain one of the most meaningful of my time in the hobby. It is not often that we get to meet our heroes, and it is even less often that our heroes end up being so genuinely cool. I’d like to think that, should we meet again, the machine will remember the staccato crackle of exhaust as I revved the engine waiting to drive it onto the flatbed that took it away to its next owner. Hopefully the Challenger’s future owners do right by this car (and its late former owner) and do the thing that so many owners of special vehicles are afraid of: drive the hell out of it.
Michael Lempert | The AnachronIst
Rochester, NY
2024.06.30
P.S.: The "new owners" of the Cannonball Challenger wished to remain unnamed at the time of this initial writing; please respect their privacy until they have chosen to reveal themselves publicly.
Many thanks to my friend and talented photographer Bailey Delelys (IG: @Baileythecoolguy) for his stunning photos of this extraordinary machine.
A parting note from The Man (Brock Yates) himself:
"The other guys in the automotive press can sit around and recommend letter writing to your congressman, but I’ve had it. From here on in I am going to use the road according to my own skills and capabilities and not in conformity with a 49-year-old, cradle-to-grave, squarehead bureaucrat who wouldn't know a good automobile if it ran him over.”
-Brock Yates, [03, p23]
Resources and additional information:
All photographs are property of the credited photographers. Please ask permission before using any images, either directly from the author, or by others where applicable.
[03]: Yates, Brock. Cannonball! World's Greatest Outlaw Road Race. St. Paul, MN, MBI Publishing Company, 2003.
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