After 3 days of brutal driving and Interstate mayhem, all the Bullrun drivers felt like we had crossed a major hurdle.

Today’s start was to be from the Intercontinental Hotel in Kansas City, Kansas.

As the cars lined the entry driveway, anticipation and anxiety built.

For today’s drive, JP Clinging and I would once again take the helm of the RS4, this time, with an official Bullrun cameraman in the back seat. This was one of the great ironies of the event. We had a relatively benign looking 4 door sedan, and while it didn’t garner the attention of every onlooker, it certainly captivated the hearts and minds of many with the added bonus of a back seat. I can’t imagine doing 3800 miles inside the cramped quarters of a true sports car, but here we were inside a car that performed as well as any of them with tons more room, an attribute much appreciated by passengers.

We set off for the sprint to the freeway having been tipped off that the “cops were waiting for us.”

During the roll out, one of the drivers in an Escalade ( a rap star, whose name I did not catch) was involved in an unfortunate incident wherein he totaled his vehicle. No other vehicles were involved and rumors suggest that a navigation error caused a delay in his reaction time and forced to choose between two routes, the vehicle did not respond well and the car wound up on the sidewalk. No additional property damage, but the Escalade was done.

This sobering news spread like wildfire and when we learned of the incident, we were already some 30 miles west of the city. Once again, the Audi was near the front in a pack of cars including the Team Riecke Benz, some of the Porsches, the lovely ladies (Keri and Jennifer) in the Audi A8 and the speed was a very modest 75.

After driving some 80 miles without seeing a cop, the front runners arrived at the toll plaza east of Topeka. As we handed our money to the cashiers, we all realized that they were not ladies at all…they were State Troopers.  They very urgently demanded that we all “get out of our cars, hand over our licenses and call our wives ‘cause we were all fixin’ to go to jail.”

Some 50 cars were already stopped when the Bullrun chopper buzzed, undoubtedly securing some of the best footage of the event.

After about 15 minutes, the State Troopers became much more cordial and resorted instead to a lecture. As far as I saw, not one law had been broken (granted, it was early yet) but nevertheless motorists were calling in and complaining that they could not overtake the convoy of some 100 loosely spaced cars.

We were further warned that every cop from Barney Fife down had been warned of the convoy’s path.  While this lecture was going on, the MagnaFlow Panoz (with Dan and Nick) slowly cruised through the checkpoint. As annoyed as we were, JP and I rejoiced in the notion that a MagnaFlow car would now take the lead.

Once released, JP and I strategized and considered an alternate route, but for today’s stop (Great Bend Kansas Drag Strip), there was really only one way to get there, with minor detour along the way…which we took.

We set off as fast as we dared and although we weren’t the first car out of the toll plaza, we quickly came upon some drivers who did not heed the warnings and were pulled over.

We saw many cops along the way and each gave us the death stare, but we arrived in the top 10 again at the drag strip. If I recall correctly, the Panoz arrived well ahead of us.

The drag strip was another rushed stop…a quick Quizno’s lunch box and one drag strip run is all we got. I drove the Audi for a ¼ mile pass and scored a great .009 reaction time and a low 14 second timeslip, which wasn’t bad given the heat soak and tons of luggage on board.

The Panoz faired better, with a mid 13 second blast with JP at the helm and despite having never drag raced before, the car posted a respectable number.

JP jumped back in the Audi with me and we blazed off to our night stop which was to be Vail, Colorado…a scant 557 miles away. This was shaping up to be a 702 mile day.

It was on this leg that the Audi really shined. We stayed on back roads, opting to avoid the legal entanglements that would surely await other Bullrunners and for three hours, we had nothing but open roads and never saw a cop. Except once. I was coming down from a speed run and a Sheriff in a pickup truck passed me and immediately flipped on his lights. For a brief moment, I had flashbacks of the movie Cannonball Run and convinced myself that no one could catch this Audi. Obviously, sanity quickly took hold and I pulled over and waited for Officer Fife to catch up.  With a kind smile and a cautionary tone, I signed my autograph and took off.  All of this had been captured by our on board cameraman.

The rest of the drive was uneventful, as JP exercised great restraint as I continued to search for alternate routes.  We took every reasonable alternate route possible and checked our position against others’ through the use of clandestine phone calls.

Up until the last 30 minutes, it appeared as if we’d score a top 5 finish.

Traffic south of Denver was horrific and as the weather deteriorated and road became more technical, the speeds we achieved earlier were simply not possible.  Caution was the word of the day and as we pulled into Vail, we were once again detoured by idiotic Concierges who don’t know how to get their own place of business. We finished 17th and waiting in the parking lot (after scoring a 6th place finish) was Dan and Nick in the Panoz.  As it turns out, they stayed on the interstate, never went above 85 mph and simply watched cars drop like flies for fuel stops and police intervention.

The skies opened up shortly after our arrival, and the stunning Condo we had at Sonnelnap Chateau (2 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, living room, etc.) more than made up for the day’s disappointments.

That night, the party moved to Art’s Bar and we had more opportunity to mix and mingle with Hayden Christiansen, Carl Lewis, Christie and her dad (in the Boxster) and our new compadres, Emil Rensing and Rory Camangian. The liquor and the BS stories flowed at similar rates after getting tanked up (us, not the cars), we retired in anticipation of Day 5.

Where would we go? What lay ahead? 

Stay tuned…Day 5 would turn out to be the best day of the Bullrun.