I released the filler’s handle. The stream
mercifully stopped.
I had made quite the scene. I looked
around warily. The woman in the Jeep
across from me pretended to be hyper-
focused on her headlights. The couple
in the camper van feigned confusion at
a paper map. A bell tinkled behind me.
Short and stocky and sporting face tattoos
and a Chevron polo shirt, a man looked
at me quizzically, unsure why this long-
haired, tattooed dude in a band T-shirt
and jeans was messing with a cop car.
Undercover? Grand theft? Escaped felon?
“The pump just started spraying
everywhere,” I offered lamely as I started
wiping down the cruiser. “Yeah, that
pump’s been actin’ up lately. I’ll go grab
some litter,” he said, sufficiently satisfied
that I wasn’t on the run.
We finished cleaning up, and I paid the
nearly $50 bill before peeling out.
New new plan: If I wasn’t going to win
on the cost of fuel, I was at least going
to get there first, even if it didn’t result
in an outright win. I knew Scott and
Miguel were somewhere ahead of me,
hypermiling away as they attempted to
avoid stopping for gas.
As the Ford burned up miles, I scanned
the highway and roadside gas stations for
signs of the others. Ahead on the right, an
Arizona State Trooper helped a car out of
a snowbank. Was it one of the guys? No—
just a pickup that had gone off the road.
Mid-conversation, the trooper paused,
watching curiously as a black-and-white
piloted by some hippie-haired kid flew by.
Soon after, I found my cohorts. Off to
the right at a gas station, I spotted the gray
Ioniq, Miguel hurriedly running around
the nose. Shortly thereafter, I came upon
a smug blue Insight limping along at 20
under the limit. It was Scott, frantically
scanning the shoulder for a gas station.
I bid Scott adieu over the cruiser’s
squawk box.
Then I floored it. Christian SeabaughA run beyond the finish line
I have made a terrible mistake.
I couldn’t hold it any longer. The pres-
sure in my rectum was intensifying, and
sweat beaded on my forehead. If there was
a muscle in my body, it was clenched. I was
fearing the worst—pulling off the highway
and running into the bushes—but the next
gas station was mercifully close.
The tension in my body was such that
when I parked the Ioniq at the Chevron
station in Seligman, Arizona, I sprinted
inside and blurted, “¿Dónde esta el
baño?” Any English vocabulary was long
forgotten, but my needs were obvious
enough, and the attendant pointed me
toward relief. The open toilet seat was the
most satisfying thing I had seen all day.
I didn’t mind losing the lead. Avoiding
soiled boxers was the new victory. But
with 90 miles of range and 95 miles to go,
my chances of winning the race were slim.
I was doing so much better on the L.A. to
Vegas leg, averaging 59.5 mpg per the car’s
trip computer, and I had a little more than
half a tank left. Based on the projectedrange, I was certain I was going to make it
to the finish line without stopping—320
miles remaining for a 270-mile trip—but I
wasn’t taking into consideration the strong
headwinds and the steep inclines we had
to traverse on Highway 93.
The good thing was that each of us was
facing the same conditions. But the others
were not suffering the distress caused by
the deep-fried appetizers and German
sausages from the night before. I had
passed many gas stations that required no
detour, but I hadn’t stopped because I was
grasping at hope that I could make it on
one tank—and one colon. It was not to be.
Back on the road 10 minutes later, I
couldn’t stop thinking how different
this fuel run was from the original. The
“Mobilgas Grand Canyon Run” story
had more than 300 officials from AAA
collaborating; they disassembled each
participant’s engine and measured each
component to ensure it was stock. Things
were a little more formal in the ’50s, but
our goal remained the same today. As we
wrote in that issue, fuel economy is one of
the features “that determines, to a large
extent, the advisability of buying a partic-
ular model car.”
Hence my choice of the Hyundai
Ioniq Blue as my carriage. My decision
was made easy: Log onto the EPA fuel
economy website and find the Best and
Worst Vehicles section. I knew a plug-in
hybrid or EV would jeopardize my
strategy, as I would need to find a charger
in Vegas. Too time-consuming. So a
regular hybrid was my starting point.
The Ioniq Blue can deliver 58 mpg
combined, per the EPA, and it was theThe aftermath of the fuel spill and the end
of Christian’s shot at winning.
The Mobilgas Economy Run began in 1936.
The final iteration was supposed to be held
in April 1968 but was canceled after the
assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.74 MOTORTREND.COM SEPTEMBER 2019