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Gumball 3000 Is Back, Do We Love It or Do We Hate It?

If you would've asked me back in the early 2000s what I felt about the Gumball 3000, I would've probably started acting like a little schoolgirl and offer you all my available praise words for the event.
Crowd gathering at the 2015 Gumball 3000 1 photo
Photo: Geoff Searle/Gumball 3000
Asking me the same question in 2008, I would have sat you on my lap and told you that only easily excitable high schoolers still fall for that terrible event that endangers and even kills innocent people. And I would have done that just before telling you to get off my lawn, of course.

We're now in 2016, and the Gumball 300 rally is in its 18th edition, while the motley crowd of DJs, washed-out movie stars and all kind of celebrities is creating mischief on the roads of Europe. This year, the supercar convoy had to make its way from Dublin, Ireland, to Bucharest, Romania.

Consisting of a journey that's roughly 3,000 miles (4,828 km) long each year, the Gumball 3000 had its first edition back in 1999, and its main raison d'être was to “combine cars, music, fashion, and entertainment.”

Mr. Gumball 3000 himself, also known as Maximillion Fife Alexander Cooper, has always stated that the event is a “rally, not a race,” even though whichever team arrives first at every checkpoint usually gets the most glory and probably parties the hardest in the night that follows.

Now, let's get something clear for a second. This is a motor rally that was probably seen as just a fad of the late 1990s and early 2000s, yet it survived to tell the tale of richness, obnoxiousness, scantily clad women and sticker-bombed exotic cars for no less than 18 years. It already has a legacy.

From a more conservative point of view, the Gumball 3000 is like a rolling Las Vegas or a highway accident. You know it'll eventually make you feel bad about doing it, but you just can't look away.

I mean, what's not to like about tuned cars and uber-supercars being revved like crazy and being generally engaged in disobedient action? Sure, not everyone is a fan, and even though I already admitted to both liking and then hating the idea in various moments in time, I have pretty much decided that it very much depends on the people involved in the action.

Back in the early 2000s, when it was just beginning, I was way younger and apparently much more ignorant concerning the actual details of the race. Sorry, I meant rally. That said, a more recent opinion about Gumball 3000 would probably need to incorporate the words “reckless” and/or “illegal,” “stupid,” “unsavory” and most definitely “scary.”

Others will say that over the years, Maximillion has tried to make the event much safer and most of all, tolerable, mostly with the help of the Gumball 3000 Foundation, which was established back in 2013.

Apparently, among the beneficiaries of the foundation, ergo the money raised through Gumball 3000, we can find The Tony Hawk Foundation, When You Wish Upon a Star, the Sir Simon Milton Foundation, the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund UK, the Westway Trust and the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation. All of these benefit disadvantaged youth “through educational, recreational and environmental-focused projects around the world.”

So, it's all good, then, right? Well, not exactly. When you draw the line, Gumball 3000 is still something that should probably be a bit more regulated, since, after all, we are talking about a bunch of rich folks trying to get attention through their antiques with supercars on public roads. It can't always end well, and back in 2007 it certainly didn't.

A Macedonian couple driving in a Volkswagen Golf was utterly obliterated by a Techart-tuned Porsche driven by Gumballers during that year's edition. Both occupants of the Golf died, while the two Gumballers fled the scene and were later arrested. Not to mention that there are plenty of reasons to believe that Maximillion tried to cover up the facts and let the rally continue in the hours following the crash. Not exactly an excellent PR move, that's for sure.

In the end, no matter how cool some of the cars involved in the rally may seem, or how flamboyant their drivers are, or how much money that foundation raises, Gumball 3000 still doesn't make a lot of sense, especially if you're not directly part of it. In short, you could say that it's just an event where a bunch of rich guys run around public roads, from one country to the next, in their ultra-expensive exotics for no apparent reason.

So, does the intrinsic fun take away some of the danger involved? Can the birth of that charity foundation make amends for the two innocent lives taken in 2007 or the countless others that are risked on each edition? Obviously not, albeit real steps have been continuously taken in the last few years to make Gumball 3000 a lot safer and probably a bit less obnoxious for certain bystanders.

Asking me today what I feel about it wouldn't get you a straight answer, mainly because I find it very difficult to make up my mind. Secondly, because it's the people involved that can make or break an event like this. For example, when Chris Harris tweeted his disapproval of Gumball 3000, one of this year's “stars” replied something about the now-Top Gear presenter cleaning London toilets on film for a cool $1 million. Yep, that's how some of the 2016 Gumballers are, so I leave you to be the judge and jury of the event.

PS: To brighten up the spirits a bit, I've also included a Gumball 3000 clip from when I used to think that the rally was nothing but sheer, innocent fun on wheels. It was filmed from a BMW M5 E39 dressed like a German police car, the infamous and now defunct Team Polizei. (some NSFW language)

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About the author: Alex Oagana
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Alex handled his first real steering wheel at the age of five (on a field) and started practicing "Scandinavian Flicks" at 14 (on non-public gravel roads). Following his time at the University of Journalism, he landed his first real job at the local franchise of Top Gear magazine a few years before Mircea (Panait). Not long after, Alex entered the New Media realm with the autoevolution.com project.
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