The night I broke up with my rock star ex-husband, I flushed an 8-ball of cocaine down the toilet as a good faith gesture to myself to promise to never live the sex, drugs, and rock and roll lifestyle again. Eleven years of debauchery was enough and I was done. Done with the drugs. Done with the all-nighters. Done with the seediness that came with it all.
So when I was invited to join the 17th annual Gumball 3000, an international road trip notorious for reaching beyond the height of debauchery, I was nervous. Was I just heading back into the heart of darkness?
And then the details came in. Courtesy of Social Discovery Ventures, I’d be staying in 4- and 5-star hotels, dining at the best restaurants in each city, and riding in 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28s on a 3,000-mile road trip through Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Amsterdam before heading to Nevada and California.
Along the way, we stop at castles, tour elite car factories, drive Dodge Vipers on a racetrack, and attend lavish parties with a motley crew of 240 Gumballers including Saudi Prince Sultan Al Saud, deadmau5, Diplo, Tony Hawk, Tyson Beckford, and a bunch of billionaires whose names you wouldn’t know.
Here’s what happens when you throw caution to the wind and take part in the world’s wildest global party on wheels.
The Champagne Flows (a Little Too) Freely
During the drivers’ briefing in Stockholm, one Gumballer yelled out, “It’s time to fuck things up!” I didn’t realize how prophetic he was being.
During the next few days, there’d be two people in jail, dozens of speeding tickets, and a kidnapping. That’s right, a kidnapping!
The madness started at the opening night party in Stockholm. It was a spectacle of decadence where the Saudi Prince held court with his entourage at one table, while another table ordered 83 bottles of champagne.
My memory is fuzzy, but I remember dancing on couches while drinking from magnum-size bottles of champagne with lit sparklers sticking out of them.
Swedish Jails Aren’t So Bad
During the soiree, a videographer was escorted to jail after slapping a security guard and breaking his nose. He sent a text to several Gumballers at our table, including me, which read: “Jail. Help.”
He ended up spending two nights in a Swedish jail.
“It wasn’t so bad,” said another Gumballer, who got pulled over for speeding. “The Swedish jail looked like an IKEA.
German Cops Have No Sense of Humor
As you would expect from a wild global car race, there were speeding tickets. The number of speeding tickets and lost licenses will probably never be tallied up, but the estimate is around 100.
“I don’t get involved in that stuff,” says Gumball 3000 founder Maximillion Cooper. “It happens and everyone expects it. That’s why you have backup drivers to take over if you lose your license.”
Germany was the worst. “It seemed like just about everyone got a ticket in Germany,” said Gumballer Dolph Lundgren. “The Germans, they have no sense of humor.”
Party in the Sky
Gumballers boarded a chartered plane, dubbed Gumball Air, for the 14-hour trip from Amsterdam to the U.S. The games began in the airport when we picked up large bottles of Grey Goose, Olmeca tequila, and Jack Daniels.
Veteran Gumballer Matthew Pritchard, a skateboarder and daredevil, walked through security in his boxer briefs and ran through the aisles waving his penis at cheering passengers.
Gumballers were smoking pot in the open, having sex in the bathrooms, climbing over seats like Spiderman to talk to friends, and singing and dancing to the hip-hop music blaring through the plane.
Who’s Flying This Thing?!
Nothing beat the in-flight pillow fight. I wanted to make it sexier, so I grabbed two of the gorgeous ladies in our posse, from AnastasiaDate and AsianDate, and started spanking them with pillows. Pretty soon, our whole section of the plane joined in.
I had one freak-out on the plane, when the co-pilot spanked me with the pillow. The spanking was fine, but I wondered, wait, did he smoke pot, too? Is he doing shots? Are we going to crash?
(I learned later that all the pilots were completely sober.)
Like Driving a Vibrator
Another bucket list item I never thought of until now: Driving super fast in a sports car and a vintage muscle car. I was never a car person, but Gumball changed that.
I’ve always feared speed, but I overcame that fear too as I signed the “death waiver” to ride in a Dodge Viper a few laps round the Buttonwillow Raceway Park in California.
But it was the Anastasia Date ’69 Camaro on my team that really got me hot and bothered. It was an intense, non-stop vibration under my body, hitting everywhere that counts. When I got out, I wasn’t quite sure if it was my sweat from the 107-desert heat or something else, but my first words were, “Holy shit, I need to have sex now! That was like riding one big vibrator for two and a half hours.”
Cumballers
“I’m going to fuck my way through Gumball!” shouted a female Gumballer during one of the many parties. That was a sentiment shared by most of the participants.
I thought I had cleverly hashtaged the event #Cumball3000, but skateboarding legend Tony Hawk corrected me.
”Yeah, we already have a group text going around that skateboarder Clint Walker started,” he said.
Walker, whose goal was to have a new girl each night, came prepared. “I have about 30 condoms,” he told me. “Trojan Thins are the best!”
Oversharing
The “Cumballers” loved sharing their sexcapades with me during the entire trip. I saw photos of threesomes, videos of blowjobs, and lots of really nasty T&A selfies.
One night, after having drinks with other Gumballers, I spotted a 6’3” scruffy, blond Swedish guy smoking a cigarette outside a club who was just my type.
“That one!” I declared pointing straight at the guy. It was as if I was picking a puppy out of the pound.
Out of Gas in Death Valley
According to Cooper, the most expensive car this year was the $15 million Ferrari 250 Testarossa, followed by a Koenigsegg Agera HH and Pagani Huayra, both pushing $3 million.
Some cars almost didn’t make it to the end. Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton ran out of gas in the middle of the 107 heat of Death Valley, on the way from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
“He was driving his Koenigsag at 220 mph and ran out of gas,” said a Gumballer close to the situation. “He was literally going to abandon this car—which he borrowed—in the middle of Death Valley.” His photography crew pushed him to a gas station, and he managed to finish the rally.
Slow and Steady
Hawk’s strategy was “slow and steady wins the race.”
“I found if you drive the speed limit, you wind up in the middle of the pack, or ahead of everyone, because you’re not getting harassed,” he told me. “I also bring a big Gatorade bottle in case I have to pee and can’t pull over.”
While we didn’t mean to take the “slow and steady” route, the yellow 1969 Camaro Z/28 I rode in through Death Valley got pulled over by a cop for, get this, going too slow.
Most agree that it was a Gumball first.
Lessons Learned
I learned two things about cars because of Gumball:
1. It’s impossible to have sex in a Dodge Viper. It’s just too tight a space.
2. Don’t stand up in a Volvo XC60 going 100mph down the highway to take photos out of the sunroof. You will lose your phone.
Gumball 3000 lived up to everything it promised. It was the experience of a lifetime. Maybe several lifetimes. Now, it’s time to slee
