Gummball storms through three continents and parties with Playboy Hugh.

by FLY

Screeching tires and smoke pouring from the back of your car are usually signs of innocent fun for most people. But when it spills from a camouflaged Rolls-Royce Phantom doing 150mph on a motorway in Belgrade, it spells disaster. Yet, it’s everything you’d expect on the Gumball 3000 Rally.

After twisting a $300,000 piece of hand-worked machinery around a guardrail, the boys of Team 15 climb out to inspect the Double R’s crumpled bodywork, get on the horn to their insurance company and sort out a new car to be delivered in time for their arrival in the U.S. so that they can rally on to the end party at the Playboy Mansion. Such is the spirit of the Gumball for these disgustingly rich outlaws, who will stop at nothing including flying some of the world’s hottest cars across three continents (Europe, Asia and North America). “It’s aristocratic delinquency,” says Steve-O of Jackass fame. “You can’t rage harder than Gumball.”

Living the rock-and-roll lifestyle for 192 hours involves little sleep, adrenaline-pumping speeds across often inhospitable terrain (have you seen a Bulgarian motorway?), hard partying into the wee hours of the morning and an $80,000 entrance fee, plus enough wads of cash to get you through the swank parties and police dragnets. So while having a $1500 headlamp blown out by rocks while cruising over 160mph through the sweltering heat of Death Valley might seem too extreme for most super-car owners, know that the Gumballers will be back in 2007 for another installment of madness, mayhem and stomach-churning speed for us to enjoy from the safety of our porcelain thrones.

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