As we prepared ourselves for Day 5, drivers took a moment to enjoy a beautiful morning in Vail. The sun was shining, the air was clear and soon, speculation began on today’s destination.

Scuttlebutt suggested that we’d be in Vegas, so already, teams began mapping certain routes.

To get a leg up, on a hunch, I began calling ahead to hotels to see which one would be hosting our arrival. Phone call #3 was to Caesar’s Palace and voila, I hit pay dirt.

The question then became “where would the lunch stop be”

As the cars readied for the start, we were informed that once again, the police were waiting for us along route 70, virtually the only route to Vegas.

This morning, we’d have an addition to the team, Tanner Foust ( a professional drift driver) so with Mocha Frappaccino in hand, Tanner, JP and I set out in the Audi RS4.

Dan and Nick set out in the Panoz and with a late start and their typical moderate pace, today’s direct route (devoid of detours) meant that they had little chance of running up front unless there was tons of attrition or unless they moved at a blistering pace. Neither happened, and they finished well back of the leaders. To add insult to injury, it was on this leg of the journey that the air conditioner gave up the ghost…a fact they failed to mention until we were 100 miles into Day 6’s journey. Nice, huh?

The drive along highway 70 was amazing. I captured 15 minutes straight of majestic scenery while traveling in a convoy of about a dozen cars, all moving along at well above posted speed limits. With no traffic and few cops in sight, we relied upon the brake lights of vehicles ahead to signal the presence of radar or police.

For more than 100 miles, this tactic worked well.

At one point, we found ourselves on a plateau when suddenly a helicopter appeared a mere 75 feet above the ground. We realized that it was pacing us to procure video footage...it was the Bullrun chopper.  Speeds increased as we neared the entrance to another glorious canyon and soon, we were pulling away from the chopper (I won’t say how fast we were going, but according to the pilot, the chopper tops out at 120 mph, but with a tailwind, she’ll do maybe 140-150mph).  For about 20 minutes, this continued and the chopper got some amazing footage, no doubt.

What was impressive here was the cars running in this convoy. A couple of Benzes, a Range Rover, a Lotus 340R, a G35, a Lotus Esprit and a Navigator. All of these vehicles easily chewed up 55 mph canyon roads at more than double that number…and the Audi was easily the match of any of them. At about 140, the Range Rover, Navigator and Lotus 340R fell back, but that did little to fuel my enthusiasm for those vehicles’ capabilities, or the driver’s.

This pace continued to our fuel stop when we found ourselves alone. In the twisties, few cars were as nimble as the RS4 and before we noticed it, somehow, we had broken away from the pack.  Tanner pulled off to fuel on a side route while we waited for the Motegi G35, which we left behind long ago.

We couldn’t wait any longer, so we jumped back on the road. Within a short distance, we reentered the main road, then saw the convoy we had been running with pulled over. We stopped a few miles up to get some lunch. At this stop, we ran into Team DarkcydeRacing. Cool cats, the lot of them. They were busy monitoring their scanners when they learned that there was an APB on their lead/chase vehicle, the Navigator.  The Navigator was usually the first vehicle at every stop. This SOB clearly knew what he was doing…with an extended range because of a big fuel tank and previous Bullrun experience, this guy was dialed in.

Our delay waiting for the G35 at the food stop set us back 40 minutes.

When we jumped back on the road, it was clear that police presence had increased, so with 2 tickets already under my belt, I felt caution was in order.

As it turns out, there’d be no lunch stop, so we blazed a direct path to Vegas.

As we neared the city, the Mallet Vette buzzed by us doing something north of 165 mph. A few miles later, he was roadside using a 5 gallon gas jug to fuel up. He caught up, then exited at Lamb Blvd north of the city, clearly in an effort to gain an advantage.

Knowing Vegas as I do (and with some recon work thanks to a resident friend), I continued on to the Spring Mountain exit.

Our strategy worked and we arrived in the top 10 again (we think about 8th).

There was some local news media on hand, but not nearly enough for what I thought was an event that should have mass appeal.

Nevertheless, a top finishing position raised our spirits and since my nephews were on hand to witness the rollout (shout out to the Wedewer family), I was more than pleased.

As we stood in the parking lot sharing stories, Boyd Coddington rolled in with his 59 Impala. As it turns out, Boyd would be joining us for the next leg of the Bullrun on Day 6.

Overall, it was a reasonably successful day and we had learned some valuable lessons, namely that a little bit of intelligence work could pay big dividends.