Burt Reynolds has nothing on Rice University’s Damen Hattori.
Well, that may not be exactly true, but like Reynolds, Hattori is participating in a similar cross-country, no-holds-bar race like the one in the movie Cannonball Run.
Hattori will be featured this coming Friday at 9 p.m. on the finale of the Country Music Channel’s show Born Country, as 100 drivers race across ten states and 4,000 miles of road over eight days. Just like in the movie, drivers throw the rule book out the window and if their car wrecks or someone pulls the ol’ banana-in-the-tailpipe trick, they’re done.
Hattori, 21, is a student at Rice, where he and friends race everything from go-carts to full-sized cars for their team, “The Racing Owls.” On Friday, CMT will show Hattori racing a donated car, which he and his team rebuilt to get ready for the race. With hardly any cash in pocket but armed with a Rice University-priced engineering education, Hattori will see if he has what it takes to win. But even if he loses, at least he gets an IMDb.com TV credit out of it. – Chris Vogel
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Click here to read about the Houston Press’s own "Cannonball Run."