Full Speed Ahead

MC: Before starting Gumball 3000, I’d been fortunate to have already had some incredible life experiences, mostly through racing cars and modeling for various fashion brands all over the world – traveling to incredible places and becoming friends with some of the biggest sports, pop, and film stars of the day. Essentially, Gumball was my way of bringing together these eclectic friends I’d met across the fashion, music, art, and automotive worlds… with a vision to create a lifestyle brand that combined these passions.

It all started with that first road trip in 1999… While I couldn’t foresee how things would evolve, I had the constant drive and determination to make it succeed, and thankfully, its popularity continued to grow and grow.

MC: The rally itself has become a “bucket list” event for the rich and famous, as well as being aspirational for people of all ages; but of course, the fairly large entry fee and sheer limited number of places available to participate each year means that a Gumball entrant needs to have the financial means to sign up. (Entry fee is approx $100,000 per car).

Gumball attracts people from all backgrounds, nationalities, and walks of life. Still, usually, the most common denominator is that all participants are pretty successful in whatever field they are in and usually have a passion for cars. Hence, Gumballers are literally from rock stars to royalty, Oscar winners to Olympic champions, Forbes list to fashionistas, heads of industry, and sports stars to social media’s biggest influencers.

Gumball appeals to those with a sense of adventure who thrive on challenges, love to explore the world, have fun, and party with the mindset that life is for living.

MC: While I often refer to the rally as a ‘once in a lifetime’ experience, if you have the means, it can be enjoyed more than once… and especially as the route and experience are completely different each year, it will always have new appeal.

It’s an adrenaline-fuelled roller coaster of a week that bonds people through shared adventure and a personal sense of achievement and can be quite addictive. It’s not a race; therefore, camaraderie develops between participants to help and look out for one another throughout the 3000-mile tour.

Many participants live incredibly busy lives, and so for several regulars, it has also become an annual reunion that, for one week each year, provides a complete escapism from regular life… and a great opportunity to have some fun hanging out with friends!

MC: Most definitely, I’d go so far as to say it’s the most exclusive members club in the world. Since the first rally, we now have over 6,000 individual alumni members who have participated in the rally and are, therefore, part of this unique and powerful Gumball family.

MC: By 2013, the Gumball alumni were already one of the most powerful and influential collectives of people that you could ever bring together, and having built a popular youth culture brand with a global audience, the Gumball 3000 Foundation was established to use its voice and the influence of its network to provide better opportunities for disadvantaged youth.

Over the following decade, the Foundation has raised several million dollars and supported programs worldwide to give young people better opportunities through education, community, and infrastructure-based projects focusing on sports, music, and the creative industries.

Each year, we host two big fundraising events during the rally to allow our participants, alumni network, and commercial partners to get involved. In partnership with Christie’s, we host an auction of pop culture and sporting memorabilia, followed by a celebrity football match.

The Gumball Goodwill football match is a huge spectacle where a Gumball All-Stars team plays against a World XI, with players in both teams coming from sport, music, and entertainment – along with a few actual football legends on each team to show the others how to play: ticket sales and sponsorship revenue from the match support the Foundation’s ongoing projects.

We’ve partnered with several established charities and non-profit organizations, including The Skatepark Project (formerly The Tony Hawk Foundation), Project Wreckless, Usher’s New Look, Laureus Sport For Good, and The Prince’s Trust in the UK, to facilitate many incredible programs.

The Foundation’s sports and creative focus allows us to work with our Gumball ambassadors and celebrities within these fields to help mentor, inspire, and motivate the next generation of kids for their journey through life.

MC: I’m thankful that this entire journey has been filled with some great memories, and of course, the planning that goes into each rally means that I’m constantly lapping the world… meeting great people, seeing and exploring new places all the time. If I were to pick just a couple of truly stand-out memories, I’d have to say that the experiences I had organizing the 2008 rally that started in San Francisco and crossed the finish line at the Beijing Olympic Games, with 24-hours in Pyongyang (North Korea) will never be forgotten – not just for the unique places and people I encountered, but for actually pulling it off!

Another stand-out year was the 2014 rally from Miami to Ibiza, where we flew all 120 cars mid-rally from New York to Glasgow (Scotland). The arrival into Regent Street in Central London on the drive down from Scotland was a truly ‘goosebumps’ moment where over 500,000 fans lined the streets across London and cheered in every car. The scale of the crowd was overwhelming and an especially proud moment in Gumball’s home city.

1997 McLaren F1 GTR “Longtail” (chassis 20R) Le Mans GT1 winner, in Gulf Blue with an orange stripe… currently worth over $20m!

Either the vast open stretches of Death Valley in California or the Scottish Highlands!

Vintage Levi’s

The English countryside, especially the Malvern Hills, where I grew up.

As a sneaker designer, I have to say tennis shoes, but I am a huge of dress shoes too!

Soccer, but please call it football… I’m a huge Chelsea FC fan!

I much prefer an endless summer over months of freezing temperatures, but Autumn (Fall) is my favorite time of the year.

Italy was our annual family vacation as a child. We’d drive there from England in my Mum’s tiny little Morris Minor (1960s British car)… which undoubtedly gave me a love for road trips!

I love driving unless it’s in a city!

Of course, it’s a party! But after so much partying (and a 20-month-old son), I need sleep!