During the final part of the 2016 Gumball 3000 rally, head honcho Maximillion Cooper let it slip that the
2017 Gumball 3000 will start in Riga and finish in Mykonos. From a topographic point of view, the route printed on the card above is far from being correct.
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Don’t mind the fact that Google Maps insists on a course that spans over 1,963 miles (3,159 km), not 3,000 miles (4,828 kilometers). The bigger problem is that the route printed on the card crosses the Baltic Sea to northern Germany or Denmark, then descends to Lord knows where.
The bottom line is that the starting point and finish line on the card are far, far away from one another, something that doesn’t reflect in reality. In terms of longitude, there’s a difference of 1° between Riga, Latvia, and Mykonos, Greece (24° E versus 25° E). As such, the printed route is erroneous.
What’s more, we don’t know the location of the overnight checkpoints. Other than the thorny Polizei in Germany, the second biggest boo and hiss of the 2016 Gumball 3000 is that the participants haven’t had the chance to drive on the Transfagarasan, a small bit of tarmac described by Jeremy Clarkson as being
“the best road in the world.” Thelesser-knownTransalpina is another great road that's worthy of that title.
As things stand at the present moment, the route of the 2017 Gumball 3000 rally is open to speculation. I will be betting my two cents on the following countries: Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Serbia, FYROM , Greece. As for the most important cities of the proposed route, these would be Riga, Vilnius, Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Belgrade, Skopje,
Thessaloniki, Athens, and Mykonos, the latter being a little Greek island that spans over an area of 33 square miles (85.5 square kilometers).
Watch this space for more information on the 2017 Gumball 3000 rally as we get it.
