This years Gumball Rally starts on Saturday the 9th of August in San Francisco and for the first time will feature a Nixon watches car which will be used during the North American stages of the event and will be driven by Todd Richards and Mike Escamilla. In addition to the car entered by , there are also expected to be some 150 celebrity entrants including David Hasselhoff and his legendary car from the TV series Knight Rider, K.I.T.T.

Gumball this year is also making history, with all of the races participants being flown out from Las Vegas to Pyongyang in North Korea. The flight itself will be the first even from the US to North Korea, and will come after the drivers complete the US stage of the event which includes stops like Los Angeles, San Diego and lastly Las Vegas. The next morning following their arrival to North Korea, all race competitors will be flown to China where they will meet up with their cars and continue with the Asian leg which finishes, along with the rally, in Tiananmen Square on the 16th of August during the Beijing Olympic games.

The event is scheduled to be televised worldwide by both CNN and MTV, giving participants and advertisers like Nixon watches massive worldwide exposure and publicity from the event. Hopefully the event will go a lot smoother than their last time out in 2007 where the Rally was called off after Nicholas Morley, one of the rallies entrants, crashed his Porsche 911 Turbo into a local driver killing him and his wife. Despite last years incidents, the series is as strong as even and the start line in San Francisco is expected to be as busy as ever with all the locals out in force to see some of the awesome racing machines entered into the rally, including the .