One member of the notorious Gumball 3000 rally will be without wheels for a week after being charged with stunt driving.

"The Gumball 3000 Rally, a race originating from London England and concluding in New York City passed through Northumberland County yesterday on Highway 401," the OPP said Friday in a news release.

"One driver was clocked at speeds over 179 kilometres per hour in a posted 100 km/h zone and was subsequently stopped and charged with stunt driving.  His vehicle was impounded and his license was suspended."

The same car, a 2009 Dodge Charger, had been stopped near Marysville for doing more than 140 km/h, which is just under the stunt-driving threshold.

Several other vehicles in the rally had been pulled over for various traffic violations.

Police kept a close eye on them.

One said he had been pulled over four times.  Another said he's never seen so many cops in his life. A third said her British "FBI" personalized licence plate was called in because the police didn't think it was real.

Also on Friday, Niagara Regional Police charged a Swedish man with dangerous driving. Police said the driver of  a Porsche 911 GTRS was performing “unsafe manoeuvres” in a parking lot.

The driver pleaded guilty to the offence, fined and has since continued out of the country with the rally.

CTV's Austin Delaney said the drivers told him the police on the U.S. side of the border are less strict.

Any bad-boy driving doesn't seem to have hurt the rally's popularity.

The pull of their exotic wheels drew throngs of camera-toting people to Yorkville on Thursday night for their arrival and Friday morning departure for Niagara Falls -- with Manhattan being the ultimate destination on Friday evening.

One woman said she took her kids out of school on Friday so they could see the cars, although she wouldn't want them to drive that fast. One son pronounced the cars "so cool!"

Being a gumball rally participant isn't cheap. It costs $46,000.

One grinning driver put it this way: He gets to be a rock star for a week before returning to being totally lame.

With a report from CTV Toronto's Austin Delaney