Book dossier

The Driver

by Alexander Roy

On his deathbed, Alex Roy's father reveals a secret history of the notorious Cannonball Run of the 1970s, the utterly illegal high-speed non-stop races from New York to LA that featured a field of wealthy international participants. Inspired by his father's dying words, Roy enters the high-octane world of semi-legal road rallies and illegal underground races—trying both to find himself in a mysterious and hazardous world, and to locate "The Driver"—the anonymous organizer of the world's ultimate illegal race, neither of which may exist. Roy must first become a force to be reckoned with. In this riveting story, Roy straps you into his highly modified BMW M5, takes you on a terrifying 120 mph lap of Manhattan, through the exhilaration of a West Coast professional racing school, then tackles the Gumball 3000 and the Bullrun—the two most infamous road rallies in the world. The official line is "It's not a race, it's a rally." But among those who pay $15,000 to enter—millionaire playboys, software moguls, Arab princes, movie stars, leggy Czech supermodels, gearheads, and tech whizzes—a select few, Alex Roy among them, compete as if these are full-on honest-to-god road races. May the best driver win. By day, those secretive few ignore rally rules and the law to race each other city-to-city on public roads, all the while evading police and abiding by an odd code of honor. By night, the drivers and their entourages struggle against fatigue to attend outrageous parties with some of the world's richest and most glamorous people. Though some drivers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on exotic cars and useless cosmetic modifications, Roy utilizes a far greater weapon: his brain. Armed with his BMW M5 painted like a German police car, with the help of America's most creative techs and BMW mechanics, deploying myriad radar detectors, laser jammers, police scanners, and a variety of fake uniforms and accents, Roy evades arrest at almost every turn, wreaking havoc on his fellow competitors and the police forces of the countries around the world. Full of shocking stories from some of the wildest events in existence, Drive offers a never-before-seen account of the fast, furious, unbelievable world that has long been off-limits to all but the international rich and elite. Filled with insane driving and Roy's quixotic quest to win both for his late father and himself, Drive is the tale of one man's insatiable drive beyond life in the fast lane.