The San Francisco to Los Angeles run was nothing more Gumball then previous years. With a 120 cars on the start, we did a parade lap around the streets of San Fran which included going down the famous Lombard street. With a crowd of at least a hundred thousand people lining the streets, the attention was truly amazing. As we headed out of San Francisco at noon, we collected our first route card which told us to go to Buttonwillow Raceway. Instead of shooting down the I5 freeway, we jumped on the 101 and headed south till we hit an unknown but truly amazing highway, Route 58. This 2 lane highway was full of mountain turns, tight switch backs, rolling straights, and even some up and down parts that literally got the car off the ground. With Bucky behind the wheel, he pushed our Porsche 997 Turbo like it had never been driven before. At one point, as a passenger, my palms were sweaty from clinching on to the door handle. As we went through this amazing landscape, we traversed the turns and hills with the Gumpert Apollo and Audi R8.
We finally got closer to the end where the I5 was visible and we caught up to Maxximillion Cooper in his Jaguar XJ220. We popped on to the I5 and headed over to Buttonwillow Raceway where we grabbed a bite to eat and got the opportunity to run the cars on the track. Team Vivid Racing driver, Jack and his co-pilot Matt, took their Porsche 996TT for some laps before we all jumped back in the car and headed south to the final destination at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood. Gumball had closed off Hollywood Blvd where we parked all 120 cars which we were greeted by 1000’s of spectators.
Another party ahead for the evening, we were up for a short drive with 4 checkpoints to San Diego in the morning. This journey of the US Leg was long but sensational for a driving enthusiast. Check out all the amazing photos from the first leg here – https://www.vividracing.com/forums/gallery/showimage.php?i=7903
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