Strange Gumball antics?

Don't be surprised if The Hof isn't in Yorkville tonight. Apparently, according to the local PR firm looking after media for the Gumball party tonight, David Hasselhoff was only taking part in the European leg of the rally and was never scheduled to be in Toronto. But here he is last night in New York City at the A&E Upfront with William Shatner - wasn't he being billed as being in Quebec City last night?

Which raises the question: Who else are they saying will be there, but really won't?

It's probably safe that there'll be some Middle Eastern sheiks and Russian billionaires, though - they have time on their hands to take part in this.

The other question is: How much driving are these people actually doing? Yes, the total mileage is to be 3,000 miles, but that's in one week (true to the original outlaw Gumball across America), but do the math. These "wildest rock stars" from Europe will be partying tonight till late at the Hyatt Regency, having come in from doing the same thing last night in Quebec City and in Boston the night before, but are scheduled to be in New York's Times Square tomorrow evening. Do you really think they'll get four hours of sleep then drive down through Buffalo on the droning interstate? Or might they be tempted to have the cars loaded into trucks so they can be fresh for the next party?

The organizers of the Gumball get their money from sponsorships and the resulting TV and DVD publicity. That means that most of the images need to be just short bites of celebs at the parties, with some driving along the way. This is a road tour - and a good one! - but it's really not a rally. But who cares if there's a chance to meet and greet some great cars and people tonight!

The Star will be there and we'll run the story and pictures here at wheels.ca just as soon as the reporter presses Send. And if you're there and take some good photos, post them as comments to this blog or just send them to me at mrichardson@thestar.ca and I'll run them here. And if you get photos of cars being loaded into trailers, I'll run those, too...

- mark r.