The Cannonball Run (1981)

A wide variety of eccentric competitors participate in a wild and illegal cross-country road race. However, the eccentric entrants will do anything to win the road race, including low-down, dirty tricks. - Kenneth Chisholm

This comedy movie brings Burt Reynolds, Sir Roger Moore, Farrah Fawcett, Dom DeLuise, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr. and an all-star cast to the starting line of the ultimate auto race, a madcap cross-country scramble that roars full-speed ahead. This action-comedy was inspired by an actual event: the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, an anything goes, all-stops-out, and very much illegal, competition that has grown to legendary proportions within the last ten years. - Murray Chapman

The plot of a cross-country road race was based on an actual event, the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, organized by Brock Yates to protest the 55 mile per hour speed limit then in effect in the United States The Cannonball was named for Erwin G. "Cannonball" Baker, who in the roaring 1920s, rode his motorcycle across the country. Many of the characters are based on ruses developed by real Cannonball racers over the several years that the event was run. - Michael F. Hollander, official-unofficial Cannonball photographer

In this comedy, Burt Reynolds is an adventurer who decides to participate in an illegal and popular road race all over the country. There's an all-star cast of racers (Jackie Chan, Farrah Fawcett, Peter Fonda, Dean Martin, Sir Roger Moore, Sammy Davis, Jr. and others) that will do anything to outrun all the difficulties (including the police) and win the race. This action-comedy was based on an actual event: the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, a cross-country outlaw road race that has grown to legendary proportions. - Chris Makrozahopoulos