The phrase "a mad dash for" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a hurried or frantic effort to reach or obtain something.
Example: "As the clock ticked down, there was a mad dash for the last few tickets to the concert."
Alternatives: "a frantic rush for" or "a hurried scramble for".
You'd have had a mad dash for assets worldwide".
"Stranger Tides" focuses on a mad dash for the Fountain of Youth.
That summer, at camp, "it was a mad dash for the ball hoppers," Kust said.
Others, especially lobby dealers with access to an apartment upstairs, tend to make a mad dash for freedom.
And across the five boroughs, it's when lunchtime for office workers becomes a mad dash for alfresco real estate.
When Manning left the field, the reporters making a mad dash for Tuck nearly knocked over Chiara.
The Obama team recognized that in a mad-dash for delegates, losses had to be well-contested, and wins had to be inflated.
The FBI is hot on their trail, so Philip and Elizabeth are making a mad-dash for the USSR by way of the Canadian border, and they've made the heart-wrenching choice, as spies who are also parents, to take one kid with them (their eldest, Paige, who they're grooming for espionage herself) and leave one kid in America (their youngest, Henry, who's in boarding school anyway).
The charity also provides the patients' stockings as well as treats for visiting siblings on Christmas Day, which for Sally Anne meant a mad dash last year for baby clothes when a newborn arrived on the ward on Christmas Eve.
And every once in a while, there was a race — a sudden mad dash for a spot at the fence to watch the horses gallop down the track.
That day, most of the action was, in fact, in balmy Florida, where Gingrich and Romney were leading reporters on a mad dash, campaigning for the Florida primary, which was less than a week away.
