Mother of God.

We are back and intact. Barely.

The Gumball was a bit more hard-core than I expected. The entire rally moved on at a rapid pace, often making you drive for more than 12 hours straight to an abandoned checkpoint, forcing you to continue on even further.

We were driving a rental car with 4 people + luggage + video equipment; it was slow and rough. We also had to navigate our way through lands we were not familiar with, and maintain a caravan with the Torquenstein Viper and sometimes the Hummer H2. We drove slowly through the rain-filled countries of France and Spain, then all-out in Morocco, only to drive at the speedlimit towards Cannes leading the over-packed Hummer after the hell that was the Viper crash in the Moroccan Desert.

We flew to London/Gatwick. Problems begin. Our rental car is located in Heathrow, so we take an expensive 1-hour bus ride there to get our reserved Mercedes. Thanks to our cunning genius, we find out only then that there is no “underwater” tunnel insurance available for luxury vehicles to cross the channel onto another continent. Crap. So we reluctantly choose from a fantastic line of premium right-hand drive vehicles such as the Rover 75 (Auto; tiny turbo/engine/poor reliability), Volvo wagon (POS), or Toyota Avensis (5-spd, 2.4x liter VVTi Toyota engineering.) We procured the Avensis. Well it was ball-less. 124 mph top speed. The shifter was sloppy and had trouble going into gear. None of us could get used to this right hand drive penut butta. Sure it sounds cool to have a right hand drive car, but its highly overrated in my opinion.

We drive to the white-wall hills of Dover, England and enter the giant Chunnel-train station. Parking the cars end to end, we are off to France in the transport “subway” ‘sous-mer’. During the ride, we begin to put decals over the car with the bewildered passengers looking at us like stupid American foreigners. Shortly after we drive out of the train onto the European continent and seek out some lunch around Calais, France in the form of a French McDonalds. We then headed off to Paris after a few dirt “dougheys” in the parking lot with the manager wildly waving his hands to stop.

Somehow we made it into Paris through the most GHETTO and dirty section of North Paris I have ever seen. I did not know that slums like these existed in Paris. Browntown never looked so disgustingly French. We somehow get to our hotel in the late afternoon of Sunday May 2. Well, let me clarify: We never actually stayed in the same hotels that the Gumballers did. Invariably we had to drive around and get lost for about an hour at all of the destinations before we could find our rooms for a little sleep.

Paris was… well Paris. It was French. Driving was a royal pain in the butt. We got lost everywhere. The streets are laid out in one-way star-patterns from one roundabout intersection to the next. And you can’t read the street names because they are all hidden away in small print on these tiny blue, white and green boards on the sides of buildings. By the time you could see them, it was too late and you had to drive in circles to get back. Traffic sucked and cops were everywhere. In any case, we met up with the Torquenstein crew: Jerry, Kimberly (his wife), Janelle, Troy, and Brad. We had some café food and sorted out details. We decided that we needed a new rental car. Of course, it would be too simple to just return ours and get a new one here in Paris. We spent most of the 3rd at the Gumball Hotel’s concierge’s desk trying to call the UK rental agency and sort out our plans. There was a 2000 GBP fine for returning a UK car in France!!! The Multilingual hotel desk clerks went out of their way to help us get a new rental…and ditch our Toyota. Although the thought of approaching Lonman with the words, “last year we had a Toyota, and this year we do as well…except with 300 LESS hp” seemed a little ballsy and stupid, we were much happier to state that we had a “real car… a European car.” A high line Parisian rental company sent it’s local manager to the hotel WITH the new rental. We could have had a large S-Class beast, or the 2 door 6cyl CLK-320. We swallowed our sense of space and chose the CLK… for 4 people!!!! Of course there were more problems. The manager and his wife arrive at the front entrance to the Gumball Hotel with MANY Gumball cars lining the street. We then negotiated a deal that allowed us passage all over Europe, and Morocco. Problems: We had LIMITED distance (4500 KM- 1 Euro/KM over!) and NO damage insurance was available… there was a nice 6500 Euro deductible!!! Fudge. So intentional beating was out of the question. We agree to the deal realizing afterwards that we could be screwed if we were not careful. Oh, well Fudge it. This is the Gumball. I am sure the Manager had some idea that we were about to take his nice Silver CLK on a road rallye. I don’t know what he thought. So off to the Gumball underground parking garage went the Benz for special Jimmy-spec (driver) stripes, decal treatment and 2 custom license plate decals which covered up the first letter of the tag with a special IMVFilms country lettering which hid our car’s identity from the traffic cameras. Later that night, we concocted a plan for the OTHER rental we had in our possession: SABOTAGE! We called in to European rental breakdown services to report the car had a stalling problem, and that we felt very unsafe driving such an unreliable car which had (supposedly) left us stranded at the Arc-de-Triomphe roundabout. We bitched and moaned like good fraudulent Yanks and said that we are done with the original rental agency and we are leaving the vehicle in the hotel garage. After hours and hours on the phone speaking “Franglinsh” with the help of Jean-Christophe the badass concierge, we got them to agree to pick up the Toyota the morning of the 5th (Gumball started later that day). The only issue was that there was no problem with the Avensis. Having told the breakdown service that the car had a very strange electrical issue that would cause the vehicle to randomly shut-off, we needed to duplicate the problem. We brainstormed for ideas with the Gumballers at the hotel. Water in the gas tank and cutting wiring harness wires were ideas thrown around. In the end we decided to hack the MAS. Permanently. We bent a few of the MAS plug pins carefully and re-plugged it in. Perfect. The car went into limp mode and would not drive above 3K. It would occasionally shut off at idle too. Worked out well… err… at least until they do a CLOSE inspection. The whole time I am singing Beastie Boys in my head, “…listen all y’all it’s a SAB-O-TAAAGE…”


The nights in Paris were fun. We all gathered a group of Lunatics and went out to the Eiffel Tower for some drifting, burnouts and V.ehicular L.unacy in the tower roundabout. Jimmy puts on the Torquenstein Mask and does some laps around the circuit in the Viper. There was still some traffic circulating, and a group of spectators gathered with the Gumball onlookers. Eventually an undercover penut butta-can police car pulls up with 100% unidentifiable French cops. They have radios and a small blue light in the dash, and some of us talk to them in French. They just stare in wonder, and eventually say the French equivalent of, “…ok have fun!” More V.L. commences. I get into the CLK and drive like a retard on an 8-ball. The roundabout was one-way only, with Nascar style left turns. I can’t stand this, so I decide to do a tire smoking u-turn and head back right—the wrong way in the roundabout. I do lap after lap, totally disregarding the traffic and signs, until another undercover cop car drives up and stops in the middle of the circle. I just drift right by him 2 times with tires screeching. I finally pull off to the side behind the Viper and Hummer and on comes the blue light, with 4 pissed off French cops getting out behind me. Oh penut butta, now I’ve done it. I was fairly certain I was going to go to the Commisaire de Gendarmerie. I looked over at the Torquenstein crew, the French spectators, the IMV crew and the Gumballers and gave them a look like, “ok, I’ll see you guys when you bail me out 24 hrs from now?” Amazingly, between the cheering French who had not seen V.L. of this magnitude, and my fake “Intro to French for Dummies” language I was speaking, the cops checked my driving permit, my passport, the car papers and asked if I had permission to shut down this section of a French roadway to make a car film. I somehow talked my way out of it. The onlookers were talking back to the cops in French slang when asked to leave the area. We learned that “nic la police” means “Fudge the police.” How cool! Well I was released after the captain became less of a hard ass after I apologized for almost drifting into their vehicle going the wrong way in a turnabout while filming without any permits and having illegal tag-altering decals stuck over the ID number. I guess he realized that I was just a foreign idiot.

May 5. We get up at 12PM and drive from our Martinique-run hotel back to the Gumball Hotel. We disregard the towing notice & fine on the windshield from illegally parking the CLK next to the hotel. The parking cop also pulled off our tag decals and stuck them on our hood! We drive up to the valet front way of the Gumball hotel just in time to see our beloved Avensis being towed away. We laugh and dip out of sight. The day passes and we eat, get ready and get interviewed by a Vanity Fair columnist assigned to the Gumball. The start was approaching. Down in the garage, several vehicles were being prepped for the race.

One Red Enzo, SEVERAL 996 TT AWDs, GT-2s, a Citroen 2CV, some open cockpit cars (for 3000 miles?!) Lambos, Ferraris, Bentleys, BMWs, Hummers, Vipers, Nobles, etc… and one Ford Cosworth Rallye Car in full race trim. The crew were crazy English / Scottish bald-headed rugby-looking whiteys. They had broken the transmission on the way to the Gumball Hotel and had been towing the car around Paris with a tow strap. Now they were knee-deep in grease changing the gearbox right in the middle of the Garage. Hard-core punks. Jimmy and I commented that this team was either going to crash or breakdown rather quickly. Finally-- rather late, no one else but LONMAN drives into the garage with the sound of his open muffler’d twin turbos echoing across the walls. He parks and the 6+ foot Englishman steps out of his right hand drive GT-2 and leaves it for decal-ing as he walks up the stairs to the hotel.

The start drew near. A mini-Gumball around the streets of Paris to the Sacre-Coeur Church led 180+ cars to a confusing state of being lost. Eventually we rendez-vous’d at the Eiffel Tower at some huge scenic building. Maximillion set up the start and with a flag-waving ceremony we were given our first rallye card to our first checkpoint. One by one the cars were let off onto the autoroutes of Paris and the rest of France. It was a big cluster.

So begins the first 2 days of the Gumball, May 5 and 6. We drove to a small race circuit by nightfall after being pulled over in a large group of cars somewhere south of Orleans, France. They cite some Gumballers 700 Euro fines and tell one guy he can’t drive because he is obviously intoxicated. They bust our nuts for 30 minutes and let the Viper and the IMV car go. We get there late in the darkness. We get to do a lap on a poorly lit racetrack… but it was AWESOME. Blind elevation changes, lots of turns, one straight… probably over a mile of track. Running it during the daytime and having more than one lap would be great. We eat some leftover scraps (as our IMV Film crew was not actually an “official” entry in the Gumball) and drive off through the night into Spain.

From this point on to our hotel in Spain at the southern tip of the continent we are in a state of delirium. I can’t remember any details, except LOTS of rain, slow driving, getting lost, and eventually leading to sunshine near the south. We got to the Real Madrid Football Stadium late, only to see the old doughnut marks on the pavement where Lonman had been several hours earlier. We are pissed and tired, and realize we have to continue on to Marbella, Spain… another 300 miles. Jimmy gives Torquenstein a break and drives the Viper and I take the wheel of the CLK. We drive on some serious Spanish mountain roads—only to realize we are being PASSED by the locals!!! Spanish drivers are nuts. A wannabe Spanish racecar driver in a goddamn MINIVAN was driving at W.O.T. for 100 miles in front of us keeping his top speed up around 110 mph through the sweeping twisties!!! This mothergrabber took THE LINE with his minivan and forced the suspension into full load around the treacherous mountain highways. We knew he was on it when we had to DRIVE 8/10 ths in the Viper and Benz to keep up with this Van that NEVER hit the brake lights for a turn!!! Freaking hell! We FINALLY get to the Arab-ish city of Marbella around 11PM. Amazingly we are not dead last.

Friday Morning May 7- the fun begins. Insane fun. We get up early and corral the Viper, Hummer, and another guy named Robb w/ a Saleen Mustang who lives in Gainesville! (Small freeking world) We want to be the first out of the hotel and follow the lead cars as they boost their way down the Spanish coastal roads to the Port for a good position on the ferry. We arrive at the Boat and park all the cars on board. We relax, eat, and fill out Moroccan Government paperwork during the 2-hour boat ride. We shoot the penut butta with Maximillion and Lonman, and the GT2 driver jokes about how he wants royalties paid for all the “its not a race, it’s a rally” merchandise. Lonman states that during the Cannonball run, there were armed guards with roadblocks in some areas of Morocco. Max assures us that this stage will be “FUN.” Evidently, the Moroccan King and his Government were very well aware of the Gumball, and all the king’s men were told to give us the utmost respect, kindness, and help. This not only transcended the ranks of the police, but the businesses, Gov’t officials, civilians and the general populous of Morocco. They ALL loved the RALLYE and were not hesitant to cheer us on. We arrived at the boat docks, and the Gumballers hit the streets leading away from the port into the Moroccan landscape. The police stopped traffic for us. They waved us on. The people cheered on the sidelines, and the children of Morocco flocked to see the nice cars. It was lawless and free. There were simply NO speed limits to this stage. And no end to the insanity. Our first stop was Rick’s café in the great town of Casablanca. The drive there was super FAST. We were over 120 most of the way in and out of traffic, in the shoulder and across many lanes. We laughed hysterically as a group of Gumball cars, including a yellow Enzo and our Torquenstein crew got caught up in some local traffic, only to drive by 2 police officers that signaled for the civilians to pull over and allow the Gumball cars to proceed. Lonman told us a story of how he raced down a shoulder near 180 mph, forcing a cop to jump out of the way who then waved him on! We saw our first accident on the way, a Yellow Gallardo traveling very fast had rear-ended a local vehicle and sent it flying off the road. The Gallardo suffered only minor damage compared to the small vehicle. Later we saw a Porsche 996 that had swerved to avoid a broken down truck sitting right at the apex of a blind left-hand corner. The car had lost it and gone off the left side of the road into a ditch at over 100 and come to a safe stop after slowing down on some rocks and brush, ripping out the motor and parts of the car for several hundred feet. After some Moroccan lunch, some GT-2 dougheys right in front of an officer, and some CLK-320 dirt storm drifting, we headed off to Marrakech to our hotel.

Saturday May 8 was another day of insane driving. Jimmy was routinely splitting cars and trucks down the center of the roadway, with the Viper sticking right behind us. Apparently there had been another accident elsewhere. The Cosworth Rally car. The driver and co-driver went to pass at over 120 in the on-coming lane’s shoulder… AROUND another car which was passing in the on-coming lane… They slid out of control, and rolled several times. The passenger was out the window filming, was not wearing his seatbelt and was thrown out of the car, then rolled over by the flipping vehicle. He suffered some facial cuts and other broken limbs. Two Ferrari’s had some trouble also. One hit a curb and shattered its wheel at all spokes, and another had been trimmed by a farming tractor that ripped off 40% of the front left of the vehicle right down to the frame. And then we had our major incident. Normally the “Tork” Viper carried Jerry and his wife Kim. On this day, Kim decided to ride in the Hummer and Brad Allison took up shotgun with Jerry. We raced from Marrakech to a town called Fez behind several Porsches and a Maserati driven by Model Jodie Kidd. Lonman was leading their pack and we tried in vain to keep up. We played cat and mouse the whole way, as Jerry was pushing quite hard behind our filming Benz. We passed a couple of 996’s, a Ferrari and the Maserati at a gas station. Later they came up from behind and passed us a few miles from the small town of Taorit, about 100KM from the return port city of Nador. In order to get to the F1 race in Barcelona by 1pm Sunday, we had to make it onto the ferry by 10pm Sat. night. It was mid-afternoon around 4 pm when the accident happened. After being passed by the other elite crew of fast driving Gumballers, Torquenstein decided to pass us and pursue. This was one of the first times he led during a very fast stage in the middle of the Moroccan desert upon treacherous 3rd world roadways. We made a left just outside of Taorit and drove up to 122 mph on a straight. The Porsches and Maserati must have been doing 150+ and the Viper was getting near 140. All of a sudden the Viper hit a dip in the road and got a little air. When it came down I saw tire smoke and what seemed like locked brakes. Then it hit a second bump and the back end of the 650R just stepped out hard right, and the nose pointed left, resulting in the Viper going off the road into a rocky and sandy ditch. The car must have rallied for 200 feet or so, and we all were shouting “Holy penut butta, no!” thinking that the car would end up damaged… but it hit a huge rock and sent the vehicle cartwheeling into the air with pieces of red fiberglass breaking off and flying all over the place. At this point we were freaking out. The car flipped at least 3 times and slid 400-500 feet off the road, throwing rocks and sand into our path. We hit the same bumps slowing down from 100 and came to a stop as the Viper’s carcass landed thankfully on its (3) wheels. Jimmy ran out to the wreck and saw that both occupants were unconscious. Brad came to about 30 seconds later, and amazingly only suffered a cut on his hand, a sore back, and lost his watch and glasses. Torquenstein was not as lucky. He had 3 major cuts to his head, a fractured shoulder lots of bruises and some minor blood loss. He was breathing, but still took about 2-4 minutes to wake up. We thought they were both dead. The wreck looked awful. The Viper had no rear or front, and one wheel was ripped off completely. After a minute a crowd gathered and I ran around trying to get someone to call an ambulance. Some other Gumballers arrived in an Audi and Mercedes convertible. They helped notify the proper people. In about 10-20 minutes an ambulance arrived and walked Tork to a stretcher. I rode in the ambulance to the hospital in Taorit, and Jimmy stayed behind while the parts and luggage was collected and the police investigated the scene. That night was straight out of a bad movie. 3 Moroccan Hospitals, x-rays, slings, 18 big nasty stitches, Gov’t officials, doctors, police, civilians and the Hummer crew with a crying Mrs. Torquenstein made for a tough night of stressful French translation. They sewed him up while I was standing there in the E.R., wearing scrubs and trying my best to translate. Amazingly, the local governor of the region came to the hospital to offer to pay for any and all medical costs, and help us get on our way. I could not believe the offerings they made. The entire police force from Taorit to Port Nador was notified of the patient and his American friends; local cooks made us food to take with us; they hired a private ambulance to take us to a Trauma Specialist in Nador, and they gave us a police escort from the Hospital to the port for the 6AM late Gumballer ferry. Torquenstein was doing better and he wanted to make it to the finish party in Cannes. The Viper (what was left of it) was hauled off and left at the police station in Taorit. At one point during my frenetic French conversations that night, I had to talk a persistent officer out of trying to get a “confession of speeding” out of Tork. I suggested that it was the poor quality of the road that caused the accident, and the policeman accepted it and apologized for asking.

6AM Sunday morning. Obviously we missed the F1 race. Completely. Apparently only 10 Gumballers made it to the 1PM race. We also learned that a guy named Carter who was doing the Rally on a BMW motorcycle had been hit head on and was in in serious condition. They were bringing him into the same hospital that we had just left. Last I heard he had broken both legs and had to have a blood transfusion. I heard the bottom of the ambulance was covered with a substantial amount of blood. Some of this may be rumor, as I know some people thought Tork had died even a day after the accident. Anyway, the 6AM ferry was canceled and we ended up waiting for the boat to leave at 2 PM. They also pulled some crap about having to pay 4000 euros more for this ferry just to take 10-20 Gumballers back to Spain. Some high rollers laid down the $$$ for this to happen. Some people got a cargo jet and flew their penut butta straight to Cannes for the finish party. We had to repack everything in the Hummer and Mercedes, and drive 9 people back in the two vehicles straight through the night back to Cannes after the 5 hour return ferry dropped us off in Almeria, Spain. We just drove right through Barcelona and got in to our nice hotel in Cannes mid-day Monday the 10th. We showered, rested and then went to the finish party at 9 PM Monday night. Everyone was happy to see Torquenstein back in action, and Jerry stayed “in character” for the rest of the Gumball party holding the rear 5 foot section of wrecked Viper that had the “Gumball” North Dakota plate, and one of our Vehicular Lunacy at its Finest decals on it. Jerry won the Helmet “Safety” Gumball award…Two guys in a Citroen 2CV won the Spirit award. Jodie Kidd got the hardest driver award. Lonman did not make the party. He and some other Gumballers were caught speeding up to 300 KM/hr in Spain. Apparently, from some stories we heard, he blew through 1 toll, broke the speedlimits, was waved in to a second toll, but blew through that, finally getting apprehended at gunpoint at the 3rd toll and taken in. They spent 36 hrs in Jail, got a 21day suspension from driving in Spain, and substantial fines. They were laughing about it. At the Hotel on May 11, someone was passing out a copy of a Spanish Newspaper with Lonman and 2 others being arrested on the front. The night before, after pulling off the decals and doing some final burnouts in front of the hotel w/ the CLK, we took a taxi on the morning of the 11 to the airport in Nice, and met up with a GT3 RS driver (one of Lonman’s buddies) We showed him the article and he called Lonman direct to tell him he made the papers. His Co-driver picked up and said he was sleeping on their way back to London. The GT3 driver commented that Lonman generally just did not give a Fudge about anything, and that the Gumball was freaking crazy this year. We would have to agree.

This story is from the forums.