Road trips are a big part of summer, but usually the trip is at a leisurely pace. You stop and sight see along the way. A Colleyville man and his two friends will have no time to waste when they leave on a road trip Saturday, July 13.
They'll travel to 48 states, 6,600 miles in record-setting time.
"For 20 years, my friend and I held the Guinness record for driving through the 48 states in the shortest time of 97 hours and 7 minutes. Last year a team beat our record with a time of 94 hours, 45 minutes," said Jay Lowe in an email to NBC 5.
So, on Saturday at 10 p.m., Lowe and two friends will leave Vermont in pursuit of reclaiming their spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.
"It belongs to Texans, darn it, and we want it back. With our new route we believe we can make the trip in 92 hours. This is NOT a "speed" event but one with many strategies, the route being number one," Lowe went on to say.
Lowe and two friends had the record-setting strategy back in 1994 - 48 states in 118 hours, 11 minutes.
He was in the pages of Guinness again in 1998 for taking a Geo Metro on the trip and using the least amount of gas.
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Twice, Lowe and company set new records for driving the 48 states in shorter times at 105 hours and 97 hours.
Then they got beat by a team that did it 94 hours, and 40 minutes - and Lowe just wouldn't have it.
"We always had this route. We always knew we'd use this route if we ever got beat, and we did. We really believe that if we can do it in the 92 hours, it can't ever be touched," smiled Lowe.
So 25 years after Lowe and friends Ted Jacobs and Kerry Maples got their first Guinness record, they'll reunite to secure it once again.
They'll drive a rented van with room to stretch out and sleep.
"There are only two drivers. The navigator cannot drive. So when we stop for gas, Ted and I alternate," Lowe explained. "When he's driving, I do the responsible thing and get some sleep because we always want to be alert. We would never endanger the public."
Lowe is the one driving the mission. Jacobs is a truck-driver by trade and knows maps like the back of his hand, and is a perfect fit.
Maples, the woman on board, is the navigator and calls the shots.
"You need somebody to say, 'hey, come up here and hang a left' because all we want to do is drive and be told what to do," Lowe chuckled.
They'll start in White River Junction, Vermont on Saturday night with the goal of ending up in Oregon, their 48th state, 92 hours later.
"We have to stop and fill this thing 13 times. Well, for every minute at a gas stop, that would be 13 minutes added to your time. So we try to get it at the 2 - 2 1/2 minute time so when that car pulls up, we're scrambling to do what you gotta do to get back on that van and get back on the road again," Lowe said.
If driving for 92 hours sounds crazy, it makes perfect sense to the Lowe of 1963, the boy who found dreams in the Guinness.
"Dad would read this stuff and man, I'd say that's so cool. people doing the weirdest things," Lowe said. "I kept thinking when I sat in his lap, I gotta do something to get back in that book."
Just 92 hours separates him from that goal.
