This past Wednesday, German police cracked down on participants in this year's Cannonball Run Europe, that is "Cannonball-Rennen," who were running the third leg of the rally, a hop from Sweden to Berlin. Our buddy Mattias provided us with the (superbly translated, we might add) important bits, via an article in Auto Motor und Sport.
It reads kinda:
On wednesday (6th of July) the police in Schleswig-Holstein closed an
illegal road race. The paticipiants of the "Cannonball-Run" speeded
sedans and sportscars with sometimes more than 500hp on public autobahns and highways."There were many emergency calls from other drivers that were massively endangered by the participants," police spokesman Frank Doblinski said.
[Blahblah ... Cannonball once a year ... public roads ... fast ... no
traffic rules]The police confiscated some of the participients cars that bore starting numbers and sponsors' decals after a control on motorway 404. The men [no women?] started in England and came by ferry from Sweden to Puttgarden (Schleswig-Holstein, Germany). The police completely closed autobahn A1 because of the dangerous speeders and redirected the traffic over roadhouse [???] Neust dter Bucht, where they stopped the paticipants.
According to race organizers, several cars were impounded, but were returned yesterday, after drivers paid fines of 500 Euros. [Thanks to Mattias and Dominik for the tip.]
Related:
Official and Unofficial Gumball Rally Results [internal]