Andrew Frankel: “Will the Land Speed Record ever be broken again? In my lifetime, I doubt it”

Hi,” said the smartly dressed lady in the hospitality unit at the seventh annual Rennsport Reunion held at Laguna Seca at the end of September, “but can you remind me which French film star you look like?” It would have been an interesting approach out of the blue from anyone, but I’d already noticed this particular person – to whom I’d never said one word in my life – because up until this moment she’d been sat with George Follmer.

“Jean Reno,” I replied. “Everyone seems to think I look like Jean Reno.”

“That’s the guy!” she exclaimed before going on to tell me she’d spent her entire life convincing people she wasn’t actually Doris Day which I can quite believe. So she called me Jean, I called her Doris, we never discovered each other’s real names and we got along famously. Without that, I’m not sure I’d have ever plucked up the courage to talk to her famously curmudgeonly other half, sat on his own at the table not six feet away but somehow managing to look bored while simultaneously scowling. I looked at him, and I looked at Doris positively fizzing away in front of me and something did not compute. So I asked her if she thought George would mind if we had a chat. “Mind?” she said. “He’d love it!”

Follmer is 89 now but to me what he did just over half a century ago still ranks among the most underrated achievements in motor sport. He was sitting at home aged 38 – old for a racer – when the telephone rang. It was Roger Penske informing him that Mark Donohue had had an accident at Road Atlanta and broken his leg. Roger needed a driver, fast. George was the man. The problem was he was being asked to drive the 1000bhp Porsche 917/10, a car with several hundred horsepower more than anything he’d driven and with so much lag you sometimes had to press the accelerator to the floor as you turned into the corner.

George answered the call, flew to Atlanta and not only won the race but lapped the entire field. By the end of the year he’d won the title with twice as many points as any other driver. He had single-handed broken the dominance enjoyed by McLaren for six seasons.

“It was a good car,” he told me. “You had to learn to anticipate.” When I asked if it would spin its wheels at any speed on any track he thought a bit and said, “Maybe not every track.”

In short George turned out to be a sweetheart, someone to whom you needed show no more than a little respect and modicum of understanding for what he’d achieved. It was Doris who got spiky. “George’s problem was that he’d turn up, win the race and then go home while everyone else was doing publicity and making out they were wonderful. He never got the credit he deserved.” It is a sentiment with which I agree entirely.

“I am in favour of 20mph limits where they are needed”

If there was any sadness during my three-day visit it was thanks to a chance encounter with Andy Green. Not knowing of any association between him and Porsche I asked him what brought him to Laguna Seca. “Tractor race,” he deadpanned. In short, the head of public affairs at Porsche Cars North America thought it might be funny to have the fastest man on earth in the slowest race. The grid of 1960s one-, two-, three- and four-cylinder Porsche-Diesel tractors was one of the highlights of the weekend.

But I had to ask him about Bloodhound LSR and whether any life remained in the project. His outlook was glum. “If we don’t get backing by the end of the year I’d say it was over.” He considers it a victim of Covid: “We’d hit every mark, run it to over 600mph at the end of 2019, then Covid came and the world was a different place. We can tell everyone that we’re using carbon-neutral fuels but it’s still got flames at the back and it’s not what people want to see.”

It’s still costing money to store components and if there is no chance of the car running again, there seems to be little point continuing. They’ll likely be sold. And the car? “If a buyer can be found, but who do you think would want it?” Meanwhile, and unless my maths is even more off than usual, Andy has now held the Land Speed Record since 1997, longer than anyone in history, beating even John Cobb’s 1939-64 run (’63 if you count Craig Breedlove’s only retrospectively recognised record). It makes you wonder whether the record will ever be broken again. I expect someone will have a go; but in my lifetime? I very much doubt it.

If you live in Wales you will know that the safe havens imagined by Mark Drakeford’s 20mph limit in built-up areas aren’t working out like that. What you get are columns of traffic queued behind someone terrified of breaking the law so doing 18mph. Some will already have a low gear selected, making a mockery of the planned reduction in fuel use and tailpipe emissions, which are made worse when they floor the throttle at the first opportunity.

Meanwhile the cyclists you’ve just overtaken outside the village come sweeping past again, adding further tension to the driver and rider relationship. I am in favour of 20mph limits outside schools, in narrow side streets and everywhere they are genuinely needed. But the blanket approach, imposed without consultation, is already causing the law of unintended consequences to rear its ugly head. The Welsh government blithely says everyone will get used to it and calm down. Having seen what happens first hand, somehow I think not.

A former editor of Motor Sport, Andrew splits his time between testing the latest road cars and racing (mostly) historic machinery
Follow Andrew on Twitter @Andrew_Frankel