''Cannonball Run 2001'' is a

reality television Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early ...

series broadcast on the

USA Network USA Network (simply USA) is an American basic cable television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. It was originally launched in 1977 as Madison ...

in 2001. It was inspired by the

Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash The Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, widely known as the Cannonball Baker or Cannonball Run, was an unofficial, unsanctioned automobile race run five times in the 1970s from New York City and Darien, Connecticut, on the E ...

, an outlaw road race of the 1970s which was the source for the famous '' Cannonball Run'' movies. The show featured a series of five location-specific challenges along a New York-to-

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

course, as in the original race. Development of the series started without the participation of

Brock Yates Brock Wendel Yates (October 21, 1933 – October 5, 2016) was an American print and TV journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was longtime executive editor of ''Car and Driver'', an American automotive magazine. In 1971 Yates, his son, and a f ...

, organizer of the original Cannonball and holder of the trademark; indeed, the production company paid Yates for the use of the name just before the show debuted. Yates was not pleased with the series, as he felt it was fake and staged. In 2005, Yates teamed up with a Cannonball driver and film producer J Sanchez to produce a more authentic reality series called ''Cannonball: This Is Reality'' to run alongside the actual

One Lap of America The Brock Yates' One Lap of America is an annual motorsports event in the United States that has been held since 1984. It is the successor to the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, an underground auto race of the 1970s. T ...

race. The project was shelved in 2006 due to lack of interest from networks.

External links

* * USA Network original programming 2000s American reality television series 2001 American television series debuts 2001 American television series endings {{US-reality-tv-stub