News in earlier this week that the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has officially cancelled Speed Weeks for the second successive year. For those of you who are new to this site I need to explain that, in an earlier life, I was a fanatical car racing fan and so matters that concern four wheeled sporting vehicles still feature heavily on my radar.
The news that the iconic event, held each year at the famous Bonneville salt flats in Utah, has been cancelled has been a huge disappointment to LSR fans all over the world but even more of a disappointment to the hundreds of competitors who make the yearly pilgrimage to the flats from all over the USA and, indeed, from all over the world. The late cancellation of Speed Weeks this year has left a particularly bad taste in the mouths of these enthusiasts, many of whom have already set out from overseas or far-flung corners of the USA and who have shipped their vehicles and associated equipment, at huge cost, in the hopes of being able to break records on the salt.
The official word is that the salt flats, having taken much more than the usual rainfall, are simply too wet to allow competition. Many miles of solid, dry salt flats are needed in order for the vehicles competing to be able to reach maximum speed, negotiate the timed mile in the middle of the course and then slow down again and there simply isn’t enough distance of dry salt to allow this to happen. However, it is also being said that the salt is fine but that it is just covered by a layer of mud, washed down from the mountains around the lake. In any event, there is too much to be able to have it removed so the event is off.
So the car drivers and their crews and the motorcyclists and their crews will be packing up if they are already there or cancelling their trip to Bonneville for another year.
Less inconvenienced than some (though no less disappointed) will be Danny Thompson (pictured above). Danny, from Huntington Beach in California (a mere 12 hours drive from Bonneville), will have to shelve his dream of breaking the Land Speed Record for a wheel driven car for another year. Now a little background is necessary.
It’s been said that the first car race began the moment the second car was built. That may not be strictly true but it IS true that, very early in man’s obsession with the motor car, someone wanted to know if their car was faster than their neighbour’s and so began the quest for speed records. Camille Jenatzy set the first LSR before WWI in an electric car called “LE Jamais Content” (the never content). Post war interest in the LSR was huge with drivers from all parts of the world trying to prove that their car was the fastest and that their country could build the fastest car, for nationalistic fervour stoked the fires of record breaking. Sir Malcolm Campbell, Henry Segrave, Parry Thomas and others became household names, the drivers achieving superstar status, not only in the closed world of racing but in the general consciousness.
WWII interrupted the game but, as always happens, hastened technological innovation and the search for the LSR accelerated in the 1940’s with the record appearing to plateau after Britain’s John Cobb, set a new LSR of 394 mph (634 km/h) in 1947. On one of his two compulsory runs, Cobb became the first man to exceed 400 mph in a car. Cobb’s record remained intact for 17 years until the second generation Campbell, Donald, raised it to 403 mph (average of two runs) at Lake Eyre in South Australia in 1964.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch (as the saying goes) those pesky Americans were feeling pretty put out that they hadn’t been getting a look in of late and, working on the KISS principle (a most unusual activity for our technologically obsessed cousins), the devised a wheeze that would put their brethren from Blighty right in their place. Instead of the huge complication of trying to 4WD the driving wheels of an LSR car, they thought, why not build a simple chassis, bolt a jet engine to it, light the touch paper and stand well back?
The first to actually make the formula work was Craig Breedlove. Blessed with movie star looks and with the American flair for self-promotion, Breedlove’s catchily named Spirit of America, a three-wheeled jet powered car, achieved an average speed of 407 mph for his two runs in 1963, thus eclipsing Campbell’s record. SoA was basically a jet plane that was designed not to take off. Breedlove already knew that the FIA rules for the LSR stated that the car needed to have four wheels and that, at least two wheels had to be driven by the engine in order to be eligible to enter the record books, but he went ahead with the attempt and basically defied the FIA to accept his record or be seen to look churlish.
Reluctance to accept Breedlove’s record was immediate. The FIA, while being the self-appointed administrators of motor racing world-wide, was basically a European organisation and was heavily xenophobic about anything that involved non-European endeavours. At first the FIA claimed that, as Breedlove’s car was a three-wheeled device, it was, in fact a sidecar and so duck-shoved the awkward situation into the lap of the FIM (their motorcycle cousins). But the problem didn’t go away as other players, most notably the American Arfons brothers, Walt and Art, quickly built and raced jet powered cars as well, and cars with four wheels.
The FIA’s response was as stupid as it was transparent. Showing that they were firmly stuck in the past, they decreed that there were now TWO classes of Land Speed Records, one for wheel-driven cars and one for non-wheel driven cars. AND, they said, the LSR would still be officially recognised only if it was a wheel driven car that set it. This wheeze bought them some time but not much of it as anyone contemplating an attempt at the LSR was not going to go down the wheel driven route when it would inevitably mean that their “record” would be slower than the ones set by the jet (and later rocket) powered cars.
And it was during this time of some confusion that a California hot rodder and road racing engineer called Mickey Thompson stepped up to the plate (to use the American parlance). Thompson was a gifted engineer with a flair for lateral thinking as shown by his efforts at building Indycars. Working on the “If some if good, more is better” mantra, Thompson built a veritable monster of a car which he called “Challenger 1”. Powered by four supercharged Pontiac engines, each driving one wheel, the car was a marvel and proved to be very fast. In 1960 the car achieved a one-way best time of 406 mph, but was prevented from completing a return run within the required time by a broken drive shaft that could not be repaired in time (or so the story goes – it is more likely that one of the 4 engines suffered terminal failure and was unable to be replaced in time but Thompson, loyal to his sponsor to the end, refused to blame Pontiac and so the drive shaft story has gone into the record books along with his fastest-ever speed at the time)
It didn’t take very long for the wheel driven record to recede into the background and for all the focus to switch to the glamorous jet engined cars. In a flurry of record breaking, first the 500 mph, then the 600 mph record were broken and now the LSR stands at a dizzying 763 mph (1228 km/h) Andy Green’s car having broken the sound barrier at sea level in the process.
But the wheel-driven record was never abandoned and every year since then, enthusiasts have gathered at Bonneville to attempt to break the LSR in a “real” car. The wheel driven record currently stands at 451 mph, set in 2013. The technical limitations of trying to achieve such speeds in a car whose wheels are driven are obvious. In 50 years the speed has increased by less than ONE mph per year on average.
And 2015 would have been another attempt by the “faithful” to try and beat Poteet’s record. Amongst the hopeful would have been a driver with a familiar name. Danny Thompson. The 66 year old son of Mickey, Danny is on a mission to do what his famous father was unable to do. With a car powered by only TWO engines but with immensely more horsepower than the car of the same name, Danny has twice been denied after Speed Weeks was also cancelled in 2014. In a car that was originally designed by his dad, Danny has achieved a one-way top speed of 419 mph with plenty still in hand and he is confident that he can beat Poteet and the other “challengers” if he can just get onto the salt.
As a child I followed Campbell, Breedlove et al with passionate interest. Pandering to our passion, my uncle even gave my brother and I the Revell plastic construction kit of Challenger I which we assiduously assembled.
In a week or so I will be in the USA, providentially only an hour or so down the road from Danny’s HQ. Needless to say I have already arranged a visit and I hope to absorb, first hand, some more LSR passion. Sadly I will not be able to see the car at its record attempt because, as noted, Speed Weeks, which was due to start 8th August, has been canned. Oh, well, some is better than none.
Incidentally, how many of you misread the title of today’s blog?
Finally, a big thank you for the positive feedback and comments on my entry yesterday. I appreciated every one of them.
small e says
Very interesting piece Phil. Agree about the jet/rocket thing, it’s just very low flying. And always remember the sporting American’s mantra..’If You Can’t Win..Cheat’