So this was pretty lackluster. I checked out the photos of the Times Square send-off and that was insanity compared to this. There was a staging area where the cars would come around and then they'd go around the corner into the hotel parking lot.
Nobody did anything exciting other than some gratuitous engine revving and there were hardly any bystanders there. Maybe 100 - 150 people tops. You could walk right up to the barrier and the sidewalk was still clear enough that clueless tourists were walking right through the area. I don't know if this was intentional on the part of the Gumball people or accidental but there wasn't any fan-fare at all. Sorry for the pictures... I'm using a NEX 5 and I still need to figure out how to take night shots with this thing.