'Star Wars' Star Hitches Ride After Car Breaks Down in Syracuse [Fox23 News]

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More Bullrun [internal]

As of right now, the Bullrunners are on their way to Chicago after leaving Toronto and heading toward Windsor and Detroit. According to Haller, the Stude is most likely toast after two more cylinders went out. The car is currently on Richard Rawlings' trailer. Speaking of Rawlings, the Texan has picked up another co-driver in the form of William Woo, whose yellow Murcielago took a dirt nap on the first stage, much as it did on the Bonneville Salt Flats during last year's rally.

Also out with fuel-pump problems is Hayden Christensen's Ferrari 360, who was not spotted by any of Roy's contacts in Toronto.

The first group of cars left Toronto at the same time, with the SuperSpeeders Ford GT of Ferretti and Lehmann-Haupt arriving in at 11:55, the Collins Brothers' 550 at 12:05, followed shortly by the Reicke RENNTech CL600 at 12:10, and the Team Darkcyde support truck at 12:10. Rawlings showed up 15th.

While the Canadian police did not seize vehicles as had been rumored, they did stop all Bullrun cars and form them into a convoy for the trip across the border. From Ferretti via Alex Roy, American police have an exact car count (57 vehicles), which the only could've obtained by cooperating with Canadian authorities, who had set up gauntlets using radar and laser at the same time. Meanwhile there's apparently a nationwide APB out on the Bullrunners. Yikes. The Collinses have just been nailed for doing 150mph in Michigan.

Here's the latest, fresh from Alex in our IM window: Main Bullrun Convoy suffering major "harvesting session" at hands of Michigan PD whilst taking I-94 West from Detroit toward Chicago. Team Frankl Twins (led by former Champion Team Polizei Bullrun co-pilot Nicholas Frankl) are leading convoy of 5-6 Bullrunners on safer route southwest from Detroit via US-12 in order to take I-80 West into the Chicago House of Blues checkpoint. Team Twins (Nicholas and Annabelle Frankl) currently hold the Bullrun 2006 speed record, set at 3:18 pm, of 196mph in their silver Corvette Z06

More on the Bullrun [Internal]

NEW YORK: So the initial hype is over and the action has begun. We just got off the phone with Alex Roy, who isn't competing in this year's Bullrun, but showed up in the Team Polizei M5 to escort the drivers up to Pocono and document the happenings. And happenings there were. After the jump, a gang of pics and lotsa anecdotes.

According to Alex and his photog pal JF Musial (who shot all of the photos for the story), somewhere on the high side of 60 to 80 cars showed up for the start of the race rally, and Roy reports that this year's start contained more high-end, solidly-prepared cars than in years past, including a trio of Audi RS4s, one of which, of course, was driven by Mario Andretti, as well as a couple of Spykers, one of which was piloted by Olympic hero Carl Lewis. The other Spyker, right off the bat, didn't fare so well. Driven by the company president, it got nailed by the fuzz before it reached the Poconos. In fact, according to the traffic on the Polizei scanner, the po-pos didn't have enough squad cars to respond to all of the reports of Bullrun activity.

On a lighter note, Troy Hanson, affiliated with Hayden Christensen's "Don't Fuck With The Sith, Bitch" team, ran out of gas in the Shelby GT-H Safety Car — replete with roof-mounted lights — short of the Jersey-Penna border. A New Jersey State Trooper pulled over to assist, and upon seeing markings on the Mustang indicating that Hanson was an IRL driver, the Indy Racing League-fan peace officer got Hanson topped up and then gave him a 120mph escort to the Pennsylvania state line. Whoever you are, inverse-of-Buford T. Justice, we salute you.

Meanwhile, the non-participant Polizeis were offering an escort to a peleton that included our boy Skiny in an Audi A6 4.2.

The first car out, a Saleen S7 that Alex predicted would break down, failed fifteen minutes after its departure and showed up last to the jambalaya lunch and lap of the track at Pocono.

Speaking of the lap, the Ward/Haller '54 Studebaker apparently dominated the on-track proceedings, and according to Roy, is the coolest car of the event, hands-down. We'll be blasting along in the Stude soon enough, wearing a cool shirt (and we don't mean fashionable — the thing's essentially a Cup car with a Studebaker body; needless to say, there's no air conditioning compressor hooked up to the 305-inch, 650hp small block.)

As for the favorites? The two most experienced teams on the rally are the Rawlings and Collins teams, with Rawlings in the 750il that he finished last year's rally in after his crazy-ass hot rod took a dirt nap, and Collins in a Ferrari 550. The main contender against the veterans is the Ford GT driven by Rob Ferretti and Noah Lehman-Haupt, who apparently have pretty much duplicated Team Polizei's law-enforcement-avoidance setup. Worryingly, their car — a vehicle that Noah rents out from his Gotham Dream Cars business, already has bald tires, and the GTs are legendary for blowing clutches during such events. But if they can keep it together, Roy thinks they've got a shot. The kids hit Toronto tonight.

As our date with the last few stages draws nearer, we'll keep you posted on the happenings. [Thanks to Alex and JF for the reportage and photos.]

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Bullrun Madness!; Scotto On the Bullrun! [Internal]