In 1914, Erwin, Ken and Ball Baker crossed the United States on a motorcycle in 11.5 days.

57 years later, a writer and editor for Car and Driver magazine set out to honor his trip by driving from Manhattan to Los Angeles.

Ever since, people have been trying to replicate their journey in ever shorter times.

Learn more about the Cannonball Run and the highly illegal quest to drive across the United States as fast as you can

on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Book your ticket to happiness with Sun Express Airlines. The United States is a pretty big country. The distance as the crow flies from New York

to Los Angeles is 3,944 kilometers or 2,451 miles. If you traveled by horse, that trip could take you the better part of a year.

If you traveled by early steam locomotives, the trip from coast to coast might have taken you a few weeks.

Once automobiles were developed, the desire for individuals to attempt this crossing in just a few days became irresistible.

The first documented attempt at trying to set a transcontinental land record was set by Erwin George Cannonball Baker.

Baker was a factory worker who went into vaudeville and then into the new field of motor racing.

He used his Indian motorcycle and set out from San Diego, California for New York City.

In 1914, he completed the trip in 11 and a half days on a route that didn't include a single

paved road.

To put this into perspective, just five years later, the US Army set out on a motorized

transcontinental trip on the nation's first true coast-to-coast road, the Lincoln Highway.

The Army Group, which included a young Dwight Eisenhower, took 58 days.

In 1933, Baker made the same trip, this time on much better roads, and with a 1932

Graham-page Blue Streak Automobile. This time he made the trip in 53 hours and 5 minutes.

Baker was later influential in the world of auto racing and was the first commissioner for a racing organization

known as NASCAR.

Records for coast-to-coast trips across the United States were never formally kept, but as

automobiles became more popular and accessible after World War II,

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