The Bandit Run The Bandit Run The Bandit Run is a reenactment of the journey portrayed in the 1977 film, "Smokey and the Bandit". The reenactment first took place on May 15, 2007 and has become an annual event. The reenactment was the brainchild of David Hershey and Dave Hall who wanted to commemorate the 30-year anniversary of the classic film. Hall, of the website, "Restore a Muscle Car" and Hershey came up with the idea shortly after Hershey purchased his restored 1977 Pontiac Trans Am from him in 2006. Following the same route that the characters Bo "Bandit" Darville (Burt Reynolds) and
Jackie Gleason New York City, filming moved to Miami, Florida, in 1964 after Gleason took up permanent residence there. Among his notable film roles were Minnesota Fats in the 1961 Academy Award-winning drama "The Hustler" (co-starring with Paul Newman), and Buford T. Justice in the "Smokey and the Bandit" series from 1977 into the early 1980s (co-starring Burt Reynolds). Throughout the 1950s and 1960s Gleason enjoyed a prominent secondary music career, producing a series of best-selling "mood music" albums. His first album, "Music for Lovers Only", still holds the record for the longest stay on the Billboard Top Ten Charts (153 weeks),