Has anyone read or watched Steel Ball Run?

If you don't know SBR, it's basically about the story of a paraplegic horse jockey who teams up with an Italian guy who teaches him about the power of rotation. They race across the United States in order to win 50 million dollars. The race is secretly a way for the 18th president of the US to collect the body parts of the saint's corpse in order to make his country a national superpower.