Today my wonderful daughter drove me about an hour and a half north of here to the world famous Huntington Beach. Home of the surfing culture that began in the 60’s and Bruce Brown’s iconic surfing movie, “The Endless Summer”, Huntington is also the home of Danny Thompson Racing where the gorgeous Challenger 2 Land Speed Record contender is being prepared. A follower of the LSR since 1964 when Britain’s Donald Campbell set the LSR for wheel driven cars at 403mph on South Australia’s Lake Eyre, I have an interest in it that has never waned.. And, with the advent of the internet, it has enabled me to follow the exploits of Danny Thompson and Challenger 2.
Danny, a second generation racer, is the son of the legendary drag racer/road racer/hot rodder/engineer and LSR contender, Mickey Thompson.
Challenger 2 is a 46 year old car which was originally built and driven by Mickey and was set for an LSR attempt when Mickey was tragically murdered in circumstances that have still not resulted in an arrest despite the passage of over 30 years.
Addendum. Thanks to my daughter.
Mickey Thompson case.
The car was mothballed and remained untouched until Danny took it out from under the tarpaulins just 6 years ago and began to rebuild and refresh it with a view to another attempt on the the LSR.
Danny is charming, erudite and totally engaging person and, as you will hear from the interview, he is a keen motorcyclist and raced with the legendary Malcolm Smith. His stocks with me went up even further when he told me that!
I just so enjoyed spending two hours looking, photographing and talking to Danny that the time just flew. And I covered my tail in case I missed anything important and recorded an interview. I was very grateful to Danny, who is still frantically busy with the project, for giving me the time and I believe that it is always get the story from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.
This is a 51 minute file so have some time to listen.
Well, that’s it. I sorta feel that I haven’t treated such a momentous day with the detail that I should have. I can’t tell you just what a privilege it was to see Danny and the car in person and have an opportunity to see first hand what a wonderful project this is.
Let me close by saying, “Go for it, Danny. I’m behind you.”
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