BEVERLY HILLS — As far as raw hedonism goes, this finish line wasn’t
all that much.
Sure, there was a cigarette, a couple of bottles of Korbel champagne
sprayed about and a couple dozen or so open cans of light beer.
And, yeah, there were two guys in matching yellow emu, or maybe it
was ostrich, costumes, flitting about — members of the rally team
Los Hermanos Cubanos. And, indeed, there was a beautiful woman
wearing a short plaid skirt, fluttering the fabric with her hands,
trying to stay cool.
But mostly, with the exception of screeching, smoking, post-rally
donuts done by the arriving exotic supercars, the mood last Friday
afternoon at the finish line of Bullrun 2006 — the coast-to-coast
rally that began on July 22 in Times Square in Manhattan and motored
for seven days through checkpoints in Toronto, Chicago, Kansas City,
Vail and Las Vegas — was a subdued and fraternal one. Perhaps this
was the calm before the storm of parties due to occur later that
weekend.
Check out more Bullrun coverage:
Rallying Cars and Racing Stars — Bullrun Introduction
Mario Andretti Joins Automotive Rally
On Friday at 4:27 p.m., five cars arrived at a hastily arranged end-
point — the second uncovered level of a parking structure adjacent
to a Robinsons-May department store and the Beverly Hilton Hotel in
Beverly Hills, Calif. Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Porsches and the like
soon rolled in, one after the next.
This was but one single, albeit the final, Bullrun rally stage. Later
that evening, the overall award winners were announced. Tove
Christensen and Peter Michels, who co-piloted a 2002 Porsche 996
Turbo, won first place in the “Always First” category. This is
egalitarian Bullrun’s closest equivalent to declaring a 2006 champion.
Christensen and Michels were among the initial group of racers to
arrive in Beverly Hills. Christensen said he received a speeding
ticket 14.5 miles from the finish line from a police officer on a
motorcycle.
More Autos Stories
Other auto articles from ForbesAutos.com:
Porsche 911 Review
BMW Z4 Review
Porsche Boxster Review
Car Credit Cards
“He was like a ninja cop or something,” Christensen said. “Like David
Copperfield, he magically appeared there.”
Christensen said his brother, Hayden, of Team Star Wars, who drove a
Ferrari 360 Modena, received five tickets in one day. Other
participants told their own stories of three-digit mile-per-hour
motoring, along with subsequent friendly, and occasionally less so,
run-ins with law enforcement officials.
Tickets and even arrests were an anticipated nuisance for the rally
participants, some of whom employed for the event radar detectors,
laser jammers, CB radios, helicopter spotters, sweet talking and, if
all else failed, bail money.
Racers said that serious calamities were few and far between. A sole
one-vehicle accident was reported involving a Cadillac Escalade -
hardly a high-performance, active-safety vehicle.
“Nothing dramatic happened,” said Bullrun director David Green. “Some
people had to hide under blankets as we came back into America from
Canada because they’d lost their passports after a bit of a night out
in Toronto. Some people-smuggling — but apart from that, I think
we’re good.”
Richard Rawlings, a Bullrun and Gumball 3000 rally veteran revered by
fellow participants, said he spent much of the week relaxing, running
blocker for his friends. “I took my [BMW 745i] touring car,” Rawlings
said. “I wanted to kind of kick back a little more and take it easy.”
“You gotta party, you gotta haul ass,” he said. “I mean it’s kick-
ass. The most fun anyone can have, period, far as I’m concerned.”
Bullrun entries are by invitation only and cost $14,000. The rally is
scheduled to air as an unscripted series next spring on Spike TV.
Olympic track-and-field legend Carl Lewis was another first-time
Bullrun participant. Lewis joined Spyker executive Carsten Preisz in
a silver C8 Spyder.
“There is no one thing that this whole thing is about,” Lewis said of
the rally. “It’s about the lifestyle. And to me, like I’ve been
saying all the time, it’s amazing because there are people from all
walks of life; all ethnicities; different countries. And one thing
brought them together: their love of cars.”