Coast to coast in 27 hours – trio sets new record for the Cannonball run

the legendary, highly illegal but persistently popular coast-to-coast dash known as the Cannonball Run.

Tabbutt, 34, a used car dealer from Ohio, is still elated by their achievement last month. ‘‘Our phones are blowing up, our social media is blowing up,’’ he said. ‘‘It will be a little odd going back to real life.’’

The challenge is named for Erwin ‘‘Cannonball’’ Baker, who first made the 4546km run in 1915, driving a Stutz Bearcat across the country in 11 days and seven hours. In 1933, in a faster car, he posted a time of 53 hours and 30 minutes.

In 1971 a journalist named Brock Yates revived the challenge as a protest against 55mph speed limits, naming it the ‘‘Cannonball Baker Sea-to-shining-sea Memorial Trophy Dash’’, and completing the journey in under 36 hours. He became a patron saint for young men in tricked-out cars who hoped to write their names into this secret history.

In 2005 one of them, Alex Roy, managed it in 31 hours and 4 minutes, but with the help of night-vision goggles and a Cessna spotter plane that scanned the road ahead for accidents, road works and police.

In the years that followed, a Lamborghini salesman and Sunday school teacher named Ed Bolian, 34, plotted his own attempt. He had met Brock Yates in his teens. ‘‘I told him I was going to break the record,’’ he said. Bolian did it in October of 2013, in 28 hours and 50 minutes,with two companions in a Mercedes CL55. His achievement, in breaking 30 hours, was compared in Cannonball circles to Roger Bannister’s four-minute mile.

Toman acquired a silver 2015 Mercedes-benz, souping up the engine, installing an additional fuel tank and disguising the car’s lights and trim so that it resembled a family car. They fitted it with a radar to detect highway patrol aircraft, GPS units to track their progress and a thermal imaging camera to helped them to spot deer on the road at night and any parked police cars.

They also recruited Mr Chadwick, 22, as a police ‘‘spotter’’. – The Times