We were talking to a rallying pal of ours last night about Top Gear's attempt to cross the country in under 32 hours, 57 minutes. He laughed and said that they were woefully unprepared. Their Michael Harvey agreed in his post-blast wrap-up, commenting, "[We] went in to this horribly unprepared and kinda put all our faith in the Jag getting us here, which it absolutely would have done had we been less shambolic."
The transcontinental record-breakers of the past have often armed their vehicles with all manner of electronic gadgetry and extra fuel capacity. These guys went into it with a case of Red Bull, some apples and a radar detector. The hilarious thing is that the Brits were trying to hide the radar detector from the police, when, as far as we can tell, they didn't pass through one state where using one was illegal.
That said, congrats boys (and girl), on making it safe and sound with only one set of handcuffs slapped on. It's just too bad you weren't able to at least beat Gurney and Yates' time of 35:54. Still, it's no mean feat to get a car across the country in 36 hours and 34 minutes (Yates once told us that even though $40,000 modern cars may make it around a track faster than a Daytona GTB/4, there are still very few vehicles that can match it for this sort of aberrant behavior). Even if you did stop the clock for "photography" breaks. This transcontinental stuff gets in your blood, doesn't it?
TransAm Non-Stop: Final Leg [Top Gear]
Related:
Top Gear Attempts to Break the Wrong Transcontinental Record [Internal]