© 2026 All Rights reserved WUSF
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Our daily newsletter, delivered first thing weekdays, keeps you connected to your community with news, culture, national NPR headlines, and more.

New York to Los Angeles in Less Than 32 Hours

In his book The Driver: My Dangerous Pursuit of Speed and Truth in the Outlaw Racing World, writer and race car driver Alexander Roy lays out how he drove from New York to Los Angeles in 31 hours and 4 minutes, stopping only six times.

Driving a BMW M5 and using Google Earth, a CB radio and GPS, Roy claims he beat the cross-country driving record.

"Virtually everyone who had ever done it in the '70s and through 1983, which was the last cross-country race — the U.S. Express — said it could never be done again," Alexander says.

He talks to Michele Norris about preparing and executing his driving adventure.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Thanks to you, WUSF is here — delivering fact-based news and stories that reflect our community.⁠ Your support powers everything we do.