Alex Roy, J.F. Musial, and Josh Vietze depart from Mission Control in NYC, piloting the legendary Polizei Interceptor 144A to Homestead Raceway in Miami. After 22 leisurely hours, 14 coffees, 67 law enforcement sightings, countless Black & Mild Wood Tips, 2 Waffle House Aprons, and 4,435 photos, we bring you this video.
Team Polizei is entering professional motorsports.
Yes. Team Polizei is entering professional motorsports.
It’s utterly surreal. Even for me.
…yet on May 17th, Polizei Interceptor 144P will roll past the start line at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in the 2009 Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series.
Making the jump from road rallies to the Grand Am Series – which includes the vaunted 24 Hours of Daytona – is one I deemed less even less likely than a successful attempt to break the Transcontinental Cannonball Record.
I thought both impossible – at least given my skills & experience – and yet, even after the record was broken, I never expected to race a race car on a race track, let alone show my face among proper race drivers, and yet I sought to prove that I knew as much about endurance racing as the 24 hour drivers, and that few of them were capable of breaking 31:04…at least not without a teammate like myself.
Then – in a chance meeting that almost made me believe in a higher power – I met veteran racer & Skip Barber instructor Rene Villeneuve. Not only did he praise my application of endurance racing strategies (which I learned from watching Le Mans) in breaking the NY-LA record, he also pointed out that I sucked at driving manual. Really. Then he began explaining the meaning of teamwork, about which I knew less than I’d thought.
Logically, I asked him to become Team Captain. He agreed, on the condition I become part of the team, which – on my rallies and cross country runs – had usually been some crazy bald man with some very patient friends…whereas with Rene running operations and teaching me to drive…
Geotegic, Team Polizei’s mapping consultancy, is just about to go live for their first client, Piaggio USA and their cross-country adventure, The No Age Limit Ride, which features motorcycle adventurists, Buddy & Bob, riding along the Lincoln Highway, America’s first trans-continental route, on Piaggio MP3-500s.
Geotegic will be providing maps in both Google Earth and Google Maps in addition to daily updates, photos and live video footage through its partner Seero.com.
