ON A MAY DAY IN 2020, a nondescript sedan set out from the Red Ball Garage in Manhattan, its driver determined to take back a piece of history.
Departing shortly before 6 p.m., the silver Audi S6 should have encountered rush hour—but the world had closed down due to COVID-19. The sedan hit one stoplight on East 31st Street and was through the Lincoln Tunnel into New Jersey in six minutes, the start of a daylong, cross-country odyssey.
Drivers Arne Toman and Doug Tabbutt were out to reclaim the Cannonball Run record which they’d set the previous November, racing from New York to Southern California in 27 hours, 35 minutes. It had been broken just a few months later. Now, on the expansive flat, straight—and empty, thanks to the pandemic—highways of the Midwest, the Audi was able to reach 175 miles per hour in spots. Toman and Tabbutt pulled into the Portofino Inn in Redondo Beach, California, 25 hours and 39 minutes after their departure from New York City.
