Gumball 3000 Pictures

After the first three days of this years Gumball 3000, only 22 teams are still in the ‘race’ to Beijing. The other teams are relaxing in Las Vegas after their participation in the US leg of Gumball 2008. One of our favorite teams in this years rally, team Driver Side, is still among the 22 teams that’s flying to North Korea today to see the mass games, and they supply the world wide web with frequent updates. Meanwhile the Gumball staff is trying to get all 22 cars cleared by the Chinese customs in Hangzhou before the Gumballers arrive in China tomorrow.

Gumball 3000 participants dropping their cars off at the Southern California Logistics airport in Victorville for the cars to be transported to China:

Photos copyright Dan Loveridge

All Asian Gumballers:

Team #007 1993 Jaguar XJ220

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With a 45 minute delay the Gumball 3000 kicked off in downtown San Francisco this afternoon. The first checkpoint of the day is at Buttonwillow Raceway along the I-5 interstate. After a couple laps on the track the rally will continue to the Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles. There the cars will be on display at Hollywood Boulevard from 8pm onwards. For a full list of checkpoints and a timetable go here.

Below you can find a number of videos and photos from the start and the latest news from the road, frequently updated.

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The wait is over, today the Gumball 3000 flag drops in San Francisco and sends the teams and their precious supercars on their way. Last night some of the Gumball cars were on display in front of the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco and our friends from San Francisco took some pictures of the supercars while the Gumballers enjoyed the kick off party at Club Temple.

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Supercars, rain, tricky roads and a rally that should have been cancelled yesterday:

This Ford GT crashed in Montenegro this morning and later today the last Porsche Carrera GT in the rally was also wrecked.

We just received an update from Team 50. They are on their way to Athens right now with all the other Gumballers, and get wait to get their car back. They had a great time during the first leg from London to Amsterdam but then the German police spoiled the party a bit. Here’s their first video from the German highway.

Pictures Day 1:

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This morning the Gumballers arrived at Hahn Airport for their scheduled departure to Istanbul. The German police set up roadblocks along the route towards the airport. The Gumballers driving on the A61/E31 towards Hahn were stopped near Brohl-Lützing, after a couple hours the teams and cars with Gumball stickers (including fans) got a 420 euro fine and were escorted to the airport 100 kilometers away by the police. The Gumballers that entered Germany over the A60/E42 from Belgium and ran into a roadblock near the town of Sankt Vith didn’t get away with a fine and a police escort. They were not allowed to drive any further in Germany and had to find transportation for their cars.

Luckily they were able to find some trucks and around 10 teams that got stopped there also made it to the checkpoint in time. After the Gumballers left on the passenger plane to Istanbul the German authorities however didn’t allow the Antonov planes with all the cars to take off towards Istanbul. The cars are now rerouted to Athens and the Gumballers have another flight from Istanbul to Athens tomorrow.

Team 17 and 103 made it to the checkpoint without any fines or delays by taking some B-roads, respect guys! There are not many who managed to do that. Our reporters PX and Stieben were at the Frankfurt-Hahn airport waiting for the Gumballers to take pictures and find out what was going on.

First set of pictures:

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GTspirit reporters PX and Stieben just uploaded their pictures of the Gumballers arriving at the Channel Tunnel. They took the train from Calais to Dover and waited patiently for the arrival of the first cars. At 17:20 Team Polizei arrived as lead car, shortly followed by xzibit in the Gallardo. The first 30 teams arrived in a pretty short timespan. One of the Porsches already missed a part of his bumper, and Tove Christensen had to run all the way back from the train to the check-in because he left his drivers license. Tove told us that Hayden couldn’t make it to the start of the Gumball 3000 but that he might come over to Istanbul.

Unofficial Arrivals:

1. Team Polizei in the BMW M5
2. Team 1: Xzibit in the Lamborghini Gallardo
3. Team 73: Devil Fish in the Porsche 997 Turbo
4. Team 90: Tiger in the Lamborghini Gallardo Spider
5. Team 42: Team Fire in the Ferrari 360 Modena Spider
6. Team 46: Kill Bill in the Porsche 996 Turbo

Photos from Dover:

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After being stuck at the airport in Istanbul, all gumballers are now leaving to the hotel, Uno Gomes from team 45 reported:

“We are now leaving to the hotel in Istanbul. Tomorrow we will fly straight to Athens where the cars will be there waiting for us”.

We just released the first version of our Gumball 2007 teams portfolio. You are more then welcome to send us more information about the teams and correct mistakes in the list by letting us know in this topic in our Gumball 2007 forum. Please give us some respect for the hours we spend creating this list and sorting all the photos so don’t copy it but rather link to us.

The list is not finished yet but this should get us started!

Team 0: Team Zero

Drivers: Mark Eley Kishimoto, Karta Healy, Jason McLean
Car type: HITCH-HIKING IN GREEN POWERED CARS

Team 1: Team Xzibit

Drivers: Alvin ‘Xzibit’ Joiner, Farid Nassar
Car type: Lamborghini Gallardo

Team 2: The Maserati Team

Drivers: Jason Kay (Jamiroquai), Nigel Cooper
Car type: Maserati Quattroporte

Team 3: Playmates

Drivers: Giuliana Marino, Agnieszka Hendel
Car type: Maserati Grand sport

More Gumball 2007 Teams

Most Gumballers passed the checkpoint in Amsterdam now. As it was queensnight (celebration of the Queens’ mothers birthday, don’t ask!) there were a lot of people out in the streets. For the first pictures visit our Gumball in Amsterdam forum topic (Registration necessary)!

Unofficial results:

1. Team Polizei (BMW M5) 22:55 CET
2. Team 72 (Overfinch Range Rover) 23:15 CET
3. Team 92 (Dollar Ferrari F430)
4. Team 45 (Big Game Porsche Turbo)

Today was absolutely crazy, after picking up our presscard at the Sofitel St James where all the Gumballers were staying we went down to the garage and catched up with a couple drivers and waited patiently for the cars to drive to Pall Mall. Best moment was the Enzo engine firing up and immediatly 4 cars in the neighbourhood felt attacked and alarms went off, it was a breathtaking moment of unbelievable noise.

After most cars made it out of the garage it was time for the start countdown, crowds gathered at the display at Waterloo Place and around the cars at Pall Mall. We already said it before but this year the number of supercars on the grid was amazing. Sadly only 1 of the promised 3 Veyrons made it on it, but the fact it was driven by a woman certainly made up for most of it! After the drivers briefing at noon most Gumballers checked out and moved to their cars. It was a great time for them to have a little chat with eachother and with the crowds. Team Polizei definatly scored very high on the popularity ladder today, walking down the grid with him we constantly heard people calling out to Alex and Herr Ross, pleasing as many people as they could with autographs and pictures they made themselfs even more famous.

And around 3.30 pm the grid was cleared and everybody was in his car ready to rumble. The first mile was so crowded that we decided to head a bit further down the road and it proved to be a great choice. We took over 200 pictures which you can see below.

If you have any pictures from the start feel free to post them up at our Gumball 3000 forum!

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All cars made it down to Pall Mall for the start and are sitting there for another 90 minutes. We took over 400 pictures, below is a small preview !

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