Army Officer and West Point Grad Sean Kealy set a Transcontinental Solo record for the FWD chassis by driving from New York to Santa Monica in a little over 40 hours.
Army officer, West Point Grad, and all around bada** Sean Kealey just set a Transcontinental record for the Front-Wheel drive chassis by driving the original Cannonball route from New York to Santa Monica in just 40 hours and seven minutes, and the best part is he did it just for fun.
News hit the internet in fantastic fashion earlier today (July 12, 2019) thanks to Motor Trend journalist Jonny Lieberman who, according to Sean’s original post, played a crucial role in following, planning, and helping Sean on this once-in-a-lifetime attempt.
In Sean’s original post, he summed up the enormity of what he just accomplished by saying,
“I did it. The US transcontinental Roadtrip. I drove 2,798.3 miles in less than two days. By myself. I drove from The Redball Garage in Manhattan, non stop to the Portofino Inn in Redondo Beach, CA. Originally named The Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, if was made most famous by the Movie “Cannonball Run.” While the race no longer exists, it’s legacy lives on as one of the most notorious road trips, or for some, road races. It was epic. It was fun. It was awful. It was the best worst thing I’ve ever done.”
Anyone familiar with these transcontinental records knows that it takes months of planning, reconnaissance, getting the right car, and having a support team behind the scenes to make it happen. One doesn’t simply attempt this record with no prior planning.
Surprisingly, he earned a grand total of zero tickets and was not caught by the law for speeding.
As per someone who did the maths, to drive that amount of mileage in 40 hours, he averaged about 70 MPH the entire trip. That’s including gas stops and the occasional bathroom break.
And just in case anyone questions the validity of his run, there’s GPS data from multiple sources to back up his drive, presumably all followed online during the duration of his trip.
As far as I can tell, this is a stock Honda Civic Type R in its 305 HP and 295 lb-ft factory fighting form.
The absolute NY to LA record (at the time of this blog post) still stands six years later, set in 2013, by Ed Bolian and his three-man team in a 2004 Mercedes-Benzs CL 55 AMG. Their time, 28 Hours 50 minutes. Doug DeMuro’s done a wonderful writeup on that attempt, you can read linked here.
The solo record for only just a driver, monumentally harder by the way, was set David Simpson in a 1995 Lexus SC400 in a time of 34:33 chronicled by Vinwiki.
I get the feeling Sean won’t be attempting this again anytime soon, but can you imagine if he actually put the pedal to the metal and really went for the record? If there’s one type of person who can do it, surely this West Point Grad can with the level of discipline embedded in his character.
Congrats on the record, Sean. Maybe give the Civic an oil change before driving back?
Have you driven across the United States as fast as you could? How long did it take, what were you driving, and why? Let me know in the comments below.
