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Video: Driver Claims Record For Fastest Lap Around Manhattan
By
Ben Yakas
Published Aug 30, 2013
Modified Aug 30, 2013
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Aug 30, 2013
Modified Aug 30, 2013
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If you've been anxiously waiting to see Vin Diesel take to the Battery Park Tunnel in The Fast And The Furious XXX: FDR Drive Drift, then this is your lucky day: the driver in the video below claims he has set the record for the fastest loop around Manhattan. Watch below as the 2006 BMW speeds along the FDR Drive around to the Henry Hudson Parkway, all while stopping at six red lights (and running at least one at 2:26 mark).
Altogether, it took the driver 24 minutes to loop from E 116th Street down on August 26th. As anyone who has ever driven on the FDR or Henry Hudson during the week knows, it sometimes takes 24 minutes just to go 20 blocks on either of those stretches! Between the lights and the rubbernecking, getting stuck around midtown on the West Side Highway is a nightmare reality that usually can't be avoided.
And yet, this driver did it, all while driving relatively safely—or at least as safely as anyone speeding around the edges of Manhattan can possibly drive. It still looks horribly dangerous, and we would curse at him relentlessly if we saw this on the road—but hey, at least no one was hurt or smashed in the brain.
For good measure, below you can see the 26 minute Manhattan loop record that was broken. Keep in mind that there is some controversy about the record, since the driver in the video below uses a slightly different route (up the FDR, across at the GW Bridge Interchange, down the Henry Hudson, across again at the Battery Park Tunnel).
For what it's worth, the new record-holder argues that "if you trace out the route on Google Maps, it is a shorter route by distances because of the way he goes through the George Washington Bridge. None the less, I am 2 mins faster."
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fastest loop
loop
manhattan
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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