Brock Yates Writer and Editor Car and Driver Magazine

The best way to become a writer is to first be a reader.
Brock Yates taught me how to write.-Bob

Interview with Meguires Car Crazy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6-Ptduhg2k

RTT news and Yates predictions from 2009 American Auto Industry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBQJ9oLC-P4


Writer, Cannonball run founder Yates dies Thursday, 06 October 2016


RACER Staff / Image courtesy All American Racers, Inc.


Above, from left: Pamela Yates with Dan Gurney, Evi Gurney and Brock Yates.
Motorsports journalist and "The Cannonball Run" screenwriter Brock Yates has died after a long struggle with Alzheimer's disease.
"Today, after suffering with Alzheimer's for the last 12 years, my father finally succumbed," Brock Yates Jr. wrote on Facebook. "He touched many lives, but sadly no more."
Yates, a longtime editor of Car and Driver magazine, created the first Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash in 1971 to protest the imminent 55-mph national speed limit. Five Cannonball runs took place between 1971-79, with Yates and Dan Gurney winning the first official run in a Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona.

Here is the real car:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeqSFSscqjI

"Our good friend, the brilliant writer, my Cannonball teammate Brock Yates passed away yesterday after a long and brave struggle with Alzheimer's disease," Dan and Evi Gurney said in a statement released by All American Racers. "Although Brock has been 'gone' for some time, the finality of his leaving is hitting all of us in the automotive world with shock and sadness. He was brave, kind, funny, unconventional and talented. For decades starting in the 1960s his columns in Car and Driver magazine were jewels in the sea of motor racing literature.


"Brock Yates' creation of the 'Cannonball Sea to Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Run' and the movies resulting from it are cultural landmarks celebrating a freedom loving era which is gone forever. He set a mark in motor racing history and he leaves a hole in our hearts."
Yates and friend Hal Needham, a director and stuntman, co-wrote "Smokey and the Bandit II." Yates also was a prolific author whose books included "Against Death and Time: One Fatal Season in Racing's Glory Years," "Cannonball!: World's Greatest Outlaw Road Race," "The Indianapolis 500: The Story of the Motor Speedway" and "The Decline and Fall of the American Auto Industry."

Interview on Decline and Fall of the American Auto Industry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBQJ9oLC-P4

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Brock Yates tribute
by Robin Miller / Image courtesy All American Racers, Inc.

Above: Dan Gurney and Brock Yates with the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash-winning 1971 Ferrari 365 GTB/4. Here is the actual car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeqSFSscqjI

He loved cars, was addicted to racing, could turn a phrase with the best of 'em, helped Car & Driver prosper, enjoyed rattling the establishment's cage and created the greatest street race of all time.
Brock Yates, who passed away Wednesday at the age of 82 from complications of Alzheimer's, pretty much embodied the spirit, free thinking and America's love of anything with four wheels and an engine.
"He was a great man and a great friend who I thought had a lot of courage," Dan Gurney said on Thursday from his office at All-American Racers. "He thought about things and was a defender of freedom and wasn't afraid to take on Detroit or Ralph Nader or whomever.
"His columns in Car & Driver were jewels and he was funny, irreverent, kind, unconventional and very talented."
When he wasn't covering a major auto race or penning a feature on A.J. or Mario or Petty or critiquing cars, Yates railed on 55mph speed limits to Nader's arrogance about safety to the bureaucrats that meddled with the automobile.
But his finest act of rebellion to catalytic converters and draconian speed limits came in 1971, when he promoted the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash.
In honor of the Erwin G. "Cannonball" Baker, a racing lunatic who competed at the Indianapolis 500 and also rode his motorcycle from coast to coast in 11 days back in 1914, Yates decided there needed to be a race from New York City to Los Angeles.
It would be contested with passenger cars, trucks or vans and offered no purse and had no rules. It would begin in a parking garage in Manhattan and end on the Pacific Ocean at the Portofino Inn in L.A.
And Yates was clever enough to invite Gurney as the co-driver of his Ferrari.
"I turned him down originally because I think I was probably kinda well known at the time and didn't want to land in jail and I thought it could reflect poorly on the whole sport," recalled Gurney.
"But then (wife) Evi's father, who was dying of cancer in Germany, found out about it and told me I should do it. So I hopped on a plane and flew to New York, and I was always glad I did."
One of the greatest and most versatile racers of all time drove the first 18 hours, caught a little nap while Yates spelled him for six hours and then stormed to the finish. They covered 2,876 miles in a jaw-dropping 35 hours, 54 minutes – averaging 82mph – to score the victory.
Gurney swears he kept the speeds acceptable and not threatening to anyone and they were only stopped one time for speeding. "The policeman asked how fast our Ferrari would go and I said a lot faster than what you're driving," chuckled Gurney. "And we did run it 172mph after the race on an abandoned stretch of road to see how fast it would go, but I ran most of the race between 90-100 mph."
A second version of the Cannonball was held in 1972 (and my co-driver Wes Dawn and I finished seventh in a Vega station wagon in 39 hours and 35 minutes despite six tickets and getting lost in Ohio) but the heat was on Yates from politicians and the Bureau of Motor Vehicles in every state, so it then became a tamer, milder rally through 1979.
About 10 years ago I got a call from Brock; he was contemplating one final "Cannonball" with the original mantra of wide open, but his lawyers talked him out of it.
"The Cannonball was a form of freedom that we won't likely see again, nor we will see anyone like Brock," Gurney said. "He was an original and one of my heroes."