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■ Words and Pics: Keith Lee

This month, Keith recalls the madcap idea behind Santa Pod’s original take on the Cannonball Run

Bill Sherratt pilots the black Plymouth Arrow against Tony Boden in 1982

Amajor highlight of Dragstalgia is the Cannonball event. Now it features nostalgia funny cars, dragsters and altereds in a special aggregated time format over three initial rounds, with the two quickest performers then taking part in a heads-up final clash to determine the overall winner. This particular competition owes its existence to the classic Cannonball Run movie, which was released back in 1981.

The Cannonball Run is one of those amusingly mad road movies which few car nuts will not have seen – and probably more than once or twice. It starred Burt Reynolds and Roger Moore, plus many other well known faces, taking part in a 3000-mile car chase across America, from coast to coast. For the Santa Pod July 1981 International race, the promoter came up with the wheeze of just slightly restyling this marathon as a one-mile competition!

It needed a real stretch of imagination to link the longest car race on the planet with the shortest one, but it did add a twist to the normal format! Tied in to this event was an offer to competitors and spectators to enjoy free admission to the premiere of the film in Bedford on the Saturday night.

This first version of the Cannonball Run was billed to feature eight fuel funny cars competing over four rounds of competition, with the aggregated times over the first three rounds deciding which two drivers would shoot out for the overall win. Just to make it complicated, there would be bonus time for a round win, the fastest round win and coming in as a substitute. Penalties were applied for a red light, crossing the centre line and, among others, for destroying the finish line mirrors! That made for quite some calculations along the way, which were handled in the tower by my better half, Annie.

That year, 1981, was when the character that is John Price joined myself in the commentary box – and went on to unleash Captain Chaos on an unsuspecting crowd at the event. Quite apt, really, as the final runoff was indeed total chaos on the track!

Even before the first leg took place on Sunday, there was carnage galore in the engine department during Saturday’s practice sessions. As a foretaste of the madcap day to follow, Owen Hayward ended up reversing the Houndog funny car into the surprised doctor sat in his car, when his blown nitro engine would not shut off while reversing!

It could not have been better scripted that a funny car called Cannonball, which was unveiled especially for this event, ran out as the winner. Driven by ‘Wild’ Bill Sherratt, the black Arrow was none other than the car Don Prudhomme raced at Santa Pod the previous year. The manner of his victory was unreal, and funnily enough a piece of video I shot from the tower seems to have been shared around a lot on Facebook recently.

Bill, along with Allan Herridge in Gladiator, were the top two runners, but on the final burnout Allan left a fairly enormous oil slick on the track in his wake – and the motor belched fire as its body was raised! Meanwhile, Owen Hayward had fired up in Houndog, and was planning to come in as substitute.

Gladiator was pushed back and Owen was left with a narrow portion of the left lane to run on, between the oil slick and the edge of the track! Bill stormed off for a mid six second win, as Houndog predictably went up in smoke on a valiant attempt on the dirty part of the lane.

The striking Firebird-bodied Apache was once again unbeatable, but the fi nal win did result in engine damage A true Dragstalgia surprise, as The Cannonball made a welcome reappearance. This is not the original style of paint on the car, which was reworked for this version later in 1981 Bob Hawkins on a storming burnout, as he consolidated his return to top form in the nitro slingshot

The fans enjoyed the spectacle, but the following edition of the race turned out to be pretty chaotic for another reason – because half of the runs got no times, as the timing equipment went into intermittent mode! Not good for an aggregate time competition – but the format would survive.

Fast forward to 2022, and the annual Dragstalgia Cannonball race. I was shocked when chatting to commentators Colin Theobald and Darryl Bradford when they told me that the original Cannonball car was in the staging lanes, in the hands of Ricky Gowen. The ex-Prudhomme Arrow had now been restored to run as a methanol burner and was a very welcome sight after all these years in hiding.

Unlike the first time this car appeared, however, there would not be a repeat performance of its fairytale win, as it was only making familiarisation runs. Appropriately, Bill Sherratt was on hand to watch his old ride performing once again, in between firing up his own stunning slingshot cackle car, Yesterdays Dream.

Not surprisingly, the modern version of the Cannonball race is devoid of all the complicated penalties and bonuses of the original version, thank goodness! The inclusion of dragsters and altereds, instead of funny cars only, has proved to be a popular mix – and a very competitive one.

Tim Garlick shoed the Apache car impressively as always, and he was the man to beat. Tony Betts ran him close in the best elapsed time department, with a 6.18/234 effort in Venom, but Apache showed how consistent these cars can be.

The 1981 July event had traditionally featured an American racer or two in previous years, but not so for that original Cannonball. For 2022 it was nice to see John Hale coming over to pilot Rob Elsom’s Dirty Deeds Camaro, and helping get more out of the car – as a fine 6.47/222 showed.

It was especially pleasing to see Bob Hawkins on fine form again this year, after so much effort put in to the Time Traveller 2 slingshot in order to run the numbers again. A best of 6.66/198 on his way to runner-up spot was well deserved. Looks like the Cannonball has still got the legs for many more editions!

Left: John Hale making a welcome appearance in Rob Elsom’s Dirty Deeds Camaro Below left: Robbie Grabham had his hands full in Freddy’s Revenge, but he was knocking on the door of a six in the methanol-burning Topo. Adam Clayton in the far lane Right: A good sight to see the Gleadows back back in action again with their excellent Motor Psycho entry. Joe Bond was too strong for Adam Gleadow this time

Below right: Far lane is The Cannonball as its original paint during most of 1981 was getting burnt off! Bill is racing Chris Filsell in Satans Sledge