{"id":7,"date":"2013-01-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-28T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/gabiwell\/the-cannonball-2000-rally-from-london-to-paris\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T05:39:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T05:39:11","slug":"the-cannonball-2000-rally-from-london-to-paris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/gabiwell\/the-cannonball-2000-rally-from-london-to-paris\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cannonball 2000 Rally from London to Paris"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since their arrival on French soil on Thursday, the participants of the 2012 Cannonball 2000 rally have been tracked by the French police, who are cracking down on what they see as illegal rallies, racing on public roads and excesses of alcohol.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Named after the 1981 film The Cannonball Run, staring Burt Reynolds and Roger Moore<\/strong>, which follows a variety of stars playing eccentric competitors who participate in a wild and illegal cross-country car race from coast to coast in the United States, the Cannonball 2000<\/strong> is a five day \u2018dash through Europe\u2019 of luxury cars from London to Paris, via Barcelona, Monte Carlo and Milan <\/strong>\u2013 a total of 2 000 miles.<\/p>\n

Founder and organiser of the event, Gary Redman<\/strong>, describes it as a \u2018pulsating five-day party with like minded people looking to enjoy some of the most amazing cities in the world\u2019.<\/p>\n

Since the death of a Macedonian couple following a crash in the 2007 Gumball 3000<\/strong> rally, which attracts celebrities such as Jodie Kidd, David Hasselhoff<\/strong> and DJ David Guetta<\/strong>, long-distance events such as this have received much criticism.<\/p>\n

Cannonball 2000<\/strong> consists of 50 luxury cars, such as Aston Martin, Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini <\/strong>\u2026 and this year\u2019s participants include actors from the main UK soaps : Kelvin Fletcher<\/strong> (Andy Sugden in Emmerdale<\/em>) driving his McLaren MP4 12C<\/strong>, Ryan Thomas<\/strong> (Jason Grimshaw of Coronation Street<\/em>) and Phil Olivier<\/strong> (Tim O\u2019Leary in Brookside<\/em>).\u00a0 Another driver is former two-division world champion boxer, Ricky Hatton<\/strong>, driving his childhood dream car \u2013 a Bentley GT Speed<\/strong>.\u00a0 It has been rumoured and confirmed today by Sportsmail in the Mail Online that Ricky Hatton is applying to British Boxing Board of Control for a licence to resume his fighting career.<\/p>\n

Amidst a mass of publicity, the Amika London night club in Mayfair held the official launch party in August and celebrated the departure of the 50+ super cars from the Hilton Hotel which brought traffic to a standstill in Park Lane on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

However, not long after they reached France on their way to their first stop in Barcelona, police stopped the drivers north of Rennes after they were clocked driving at speeds of up to 160 km\/h on part of the autoroute with a 110 km\/h speed limit.\u00a0 Two drivers had their licences confiscated, three others were fined and another were recorded as marginally exceeding the speed limit.\u00a0 Police also carried out breathalyser tests for drink driving, as the competitors had crossed the Channel by ferry earlier in the day.<\/p>\n

It is difficult to see how they can cover the distances from one 5-star hotel to the next if they stick to the speed limit of 130 km\/h on the French autoroutes.\u00a0 Add the parties, bars and nightclubs that they are expecting to visit as well, it is not surprising that the police in our region were keeping an eye on them as they made their way to Monte Carlo.<\/p>\n

Peter Novani<\/strong>, a real estate agent from the City of London, who was having a break in his Jaguar at the aire de Br\u00e9gui\u00e8res, was quoted by Nice Matin as saying that he was taking part because he loved beautiful cars, not speed.\u00a0 From Monte Carlo the rally moves on to Milan and then is set to finish on the Champs Elys\u00e9es in Paris late Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n

As well as having many well known sponsors of the event, such as Rockstar Energy Drink<\/strong> and\u00a0 XBox 360<\/strong>, the participants of the 2 000 mile trip have taken part in an event and raised money for the UK charity, Dreams Come True<\/strong>, whose purpose is to fulfill the dreams of terminally and seriously ill children and young people.<\/p>\n

\u00bb Read the original post here \u00ab<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since their arrival on French soil on Thursday, the participants of the 2012 Cannonball 2000 rally have been tracked by the French police, who are cracking down on what they see as illegal rallies, racing on public roads and excesses of alcohol. Named after the 1981 film The Cannonball Run, staring Burt Reynolds and Roger […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guide2cotedazur","tag-cannonball-2000","tag-charity","tag-dreams-come-true","tag-films","tag-gumball-3000","tag-rockstar","tag-super-cars","tag-xbox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/gabiwell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/gabiwell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/gabiwell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/gabiwell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2118"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/gabiwell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/gabiwell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/gabiwell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions\/23"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/gabiwell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/gabiwell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/gabiwell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}