Brock Yates, 1933-2016

Brock Yates with his Pebble Beach class-winning Eliminator. Photo courtesy Brock Yates, Jr.

Brock Yates was never afraid of a fight. In a journalism career that stretched across six decades (including, most notably, four with Car and Driver magazine), Yates took on everything from an indifferent U.S. automotive industry to the federal government itself, founding the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash in protest of increasingly Draconian highway regulations. On October 5, following a lengthy battle with Alzheimer’s, Brock Yates died at age 82.

As Brock related in Cannonball! World’s Greatest Outlaw Road Race, the cross-country endurance event was founded to demonstrate that competent drivers in modern automobiles could use the U.S. Interstate highway system in much the same manner as Germans used the (mostly) speed-limit-free Autobahn. After a May 1971 proof-of-concept test in a Dodge van dubbed the Moon Trash II, the first running of the Cannonball in November 1971 produced a New York City to Redondo Beach, California, transit time of 35 hours and 54 minutes. The winning car was a Ferrari Daytona, driven by Brock and Dan Gurney.

Later versions of the Cannonball would take place in 1972, 1975 and 1979, with the final two events held in protest of the 1973 National Maximum Speed Law, which capped interstate highway speeds at 55 MPH. Hemmings Motor News had a presence in the 1979 event, when publisher Terry Ehrich, editor Dave Brownell and Jack-of-all-trades Justus Taylor competed in a 1936 Ford panel van (which still resides in our modest museum), completing the trip in 61 hours and 51 minutes, good enough to finish two spots above last place.

Already a best-selling author, Brock turned to screenwriting, producing the script for the 1981 Hollywood blockbuster The Cannonball Run and contributing to the script for Smokey and Bandit II. His first love, however, remained automotive journalism, and his adventures during his years at Car and Driver (such as driving a then-new 1976 Corvette along the Alaskan Highway, or showing the mongrel hot rod Eliminator race car at Pebble Beach) are what prompted many of us to put pen to paper (or, today, pixels to monitor).

Brock’s storied career at Car and Driver came to an end in 2006, when he was fired by editor-in-chief Csaba Csere for being, in Brock’s own words, “too expensive.” Following his departure, Brock initially stayed busy working as a racing commentator, penning editorials and running One Lap of America, the endurance driving event that arose from the ashes of the Cannonball (and is still run annually, now headed by Brock Yates, Jr.).

It was around this time that Brock’s memory lapses became more frequent and more noticeable to family and friends, although an official diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease wouldn’t occur until 2007. As late as 2011, Brock was still active and (occasionally) in the public eye, contributing to a Cannonball panel discussion at the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance with the assistance of his wife, Pam. Just two years later, Brock’s illness had progressed to the point that he required around-the-clock care.

Brock leaves behind his wife Pam; children Stacy, Brock Jr., and Shawn; and numerous grandchildren.

See original article at" https://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2016/10/06/brock-yates-1933-2016/