DRIVERS, start your engines.
Then cover your car with decals and silly string and race through the back roads of America’s Rust Belt. Good thing it’s only a rental.
“Every guy knows the thrill of Burt Reynolds zooming across the nation in ‘Cannonball Run,’ ” says Steve Bryant, co-founder of the Rental Car Rally. “We’ve turned that thrill into Halloween on wheels.”
Being a typical New Yorker without wheels, Bryant decided it was best to call upon the nation’s vast fleet of rental cars. Teams are judged on getting from NYC to the destination (this year it’s Detroit), in the fewest miles. They get points for costumes, and any antics they accomplish on the way.
“There is nothing illegal at all about what we are doing,” explains Bryant. “We never encourage anyone to speed.” For example, when a team called Air France bottomed out on a sand dune during a rally earlier this year in California, it was not speeding, just driving with great vigor.
Last year’s inaugural Rental Car Rally (rentalcarrally.com) saw 300 participants on 73 teams high-tailing it from NYC to Montreal. Like this year’s rally, which runs from Aug. 21 to 23, teams had to pass through a series of checkpoints located well off the Interstate. Planning a route beforehand is impossible, since those checkpoints are only revealed at the start of the rally.
“When you don’t know where you’re going, it gets a little intense,” says Meleina Mayhew, whose team last year had a snack-food theme and was named Hot Chis. “Then there are people jumping on top of their cars and assaulting other teams with silly string.” Mayhew affixed a massive pink team logo decal to her rented Mercury Sable. Snack cakes
littered the inside of the car.
When asked what they thought of the Rental Car Rally, America’s major car rental companies either did not respond or declined to comment.
We can’t imagine why!
The rally costs $199 to enter, and includes a party at a casino in Detroit after the ride. The winning team takes home $2,000 and a golden gas pump.
During last year’s Montreal run, Team Vampire cleverly took advantage of a loophole in the rules — since the lowest odometer reading wins it, the vamps hired a tow-truck to tow them 100 miles without adding to the odometer.
“This year we outlawed tow trucks and flatbed trucks,” says Bryant. “But if you have a vehicle that turns into a helicopter, you are allowed to use that.”
