Book: Cannonball!

Overview
Brock Yates's Cannonball! is a rollicking, first-person chronicle of an outlaw idea turned cultural legend: a coast-to-coast speed run that flouted laws, conventions, and common sense. Written with the energy of a man who both instigated and reveled in the chaos, the book recounts the creation of the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash and the spectacle of machines and motorists that answered the call. The narrative moves between high-velocity reportage and bemused confession, offering a portrait of car culture at its most brazen and unconstrained.
Yates frames the Cannonball as a provocation and a proving ground, a way to expose the absurdities of traffic law, the limits of automotive engineering, and the eccentricities of those who love speed. He alternates scene-setting descriptions of the road and the vehicles with behind-the-scenes anecdotes that reveal how the event hatched from editorial bravado into an unforgettable automotive myth.

The Cannonball and the Race
The heart of the book is the race itself: cars tuned and tricked out for endurance and stealth, crews improvising around mechanical woes, police encounters that range from comic to perilous, and stretches of interstate where rules seemed to breathe. Yates captures the sensory details of driving at high speed, engine roar, tire shriek, the blur of roadside America, while also cataloging the ingenious, sometimes absurd modifications applied to cars to gain an edge. The vehicles become characters in their own right, embodiments of audacity as much as engineering.
More than a blow-by-blow chronicle, Cannonball! explores the tactical and cultural logic behind such a reckless undertaking. Yates lays bare the calculations, the ethics, the dares, and the camaraderie that bind participants. The book illustrates how a stunt born out of magazine copy and a challenge to authority quickly attracted a cast of contenders as colorful as any fiction.

Tone and Voice
The book's voice is irreverent, observant, and frequently self-deprecating. Yates writes like a man who loves both the romance and the ridiculousness of speed, alternating serious critique with giddy celebration. His prose often veers into gonzo territory: when the story demands outrage, he delivers it; when it calls for laughter, he obliges. That blend of fiery opinion and playful storytelling gives the book a distinct character, part investigative dispatch, part tall tale.
Underlying the humor is an argument about freedom, technology, and regulation. Yates uses anecdote and example to question whether the postwar driving experience had been overly tamed by bureaucracy, and whether the mechanical and human appetite for velocity revealed a kind of cultural honesty. The result is neither dry manifesto nor simple glorification, but a textured narrative that sympathizes with the impulse to push limits while acknowledging the chaos it brings.

Legacy and Impact
Cannonball! became an influential piece of automotive lore, shaping public imagination about illicit road racing and inspiring later, more famous cultural artifacts. The legend of the Cannonball Run entered broader awareness through fiction and film, but Yates's account remains a primary source for the origins and ethos of the dash. Within car culture, the book continues to be read as both a historical document and a spirited testament to a particular moment when speed, ingenuity, and mischief intersected.
Beyond cars, Cannonball! touches on broader themes of rebellion, spectacle, and the American appetite for risk. Its scenes of midnight runs across vast highways and the absurd improvisations of competitors cast a light on a subculture that prized autonomy and audacity. Whatever one thinks of the ethics of illegal racing, Yates's chronicle endures as an entertaining, pointed snapshot of automotive life at full throttle.