In a life dedicated to speed, Craig Breedlove was the first person to hold land speed records at 400mph, 500mph and 600mph, survived a 675mph crash, and never stopped dreaming about the next attempt
Of all the record breakers active in what might be described as the most dangerous of land speed racing’s many eras, Craig Breedlove was the one with the closest nodding acquaintance with death. But it was not until April 4 that the racing world was robbed of one of its most courageous and colourful characters, at the grand age of 86.
Born in Los Angeles on March 23, 1937, he was inspired by John Cobb’s achievements but really really geared up after hearing John Kennedy’s famous speech in which he urged his countrymen “Don’t ask what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.” He would win back the land speed record for America.
Built in Breedlove’s garage, Spirit of America is wheeled out
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His first attempt, in 1962, failed. The Spirit needed more work, and on the way home from Bonneville he admitted that he wept when he learned of rival Glenn Leasher’s death in the Infinity jetcar. But, undaunted, he went back in August 1963 and achieved an average of 407.447 mph. The FIA declined to recognise it since his car was propelled by pure thrust rather than driving through its wheels. But the motorcycle authority, the FIM, was happy to accept the record on the basis that the Spirit could be counted as a motorcycle and sidecar. His subsequent records of 468.719 and 526.277 in October 1964 were won during the perilous game of Russian Roulette that he played with rival Art Arfons. But that third record also brought him into his first close acquaintance with the Grim Reaper, on the 15th.
“For my next trick… I’ll set myself afire!”
The blue and silver missile with the Stars and Stripes painted on its high tail fin looked more like a ground-based airplane as he blasted across Bonneville’s salt. Everything seemed fine, but in the United States Auto Club’s timekeeping shack there was consternation. His speed backed his previous run sufficiently for them to know that he had set another new record. But one observer noted with dismay that as the parachute bag flew from the back of the car when Craig deployed the braking device, it was followed immediately by the ‘chute itself.
In the cramped cockpit Craig knew he had a back-up. But when he deployed that the speed was still too great and it, too, followed the first. And now without means of retardation, he was fast approaching the rough salt at the end of the course. And a line of telegraph poles that ran to nearby Wendover, and a high bank that surrounded a brine lake…
The single-caliper Goodyear disc brakes were only designed for use below 180 mph, and when in desperation he stamped on the pedal at 400 mph the friction literally melted them. He was out of control.
He eased Spirit into the rough, slushy salt, hoping the rolling drag would wipe off more speed, but was headed irresistibly towards the line of telegraph poles. He ducked his head as the aerodynamic shroud of the left rear wheel scythed clear through the base of one them. And still Spirit would not slow down enough. Instead, it was literally launched over the high bank before flying then nosediving into the brine lake. He pitched off the canopy as the stricken vehicle started to sink, then swam 10 feet to the shore.
Breedlove watches submerged Spirit of America
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Breedlove with recovered car
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There he celebrated his miraculous deliverance and an emotional reunion with his terrified crew. Raising his arms, and with an understandably falsetto laugh, he declared: “For my next trick… I’ll set myself afire!”
He broke the record, but also his racer. And 12 days later he lost the accolade of fastest man on earth to arch-rival Arfons who piloted his much more powerful Green Monster to 536.710 mph on October 27.
Over the winter Breedlove acquired a similar General Electric J79 turbojet and secretly set-about creating an all new four-wheeler over the winter. Almost 35 ft long, with a distinctive coke bottle shape for maximum aerodynamic efficiency and the intrepid pilot sat right up front in the nose, Spirit of America – Sonic 1 was intended to have supersonic potential.
Breedlove brought Spirit of America Sonic 1 to high-speed duel with Art Arfons
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On a poor surface, in October 1965, he discovered that Sonic 1 had better stability and manoeuvrability than the old car. But the further he went above 500 mph, the more he began to realise that it had some innate flaws as the motor misbehaved and body panels deformed. And over 550 the nose started to lift. “I began to lose sight of the horizon. At first I thought it was an optical illusion. I quickly realised it wasn’t an illusion. I was starting to fly!”
He was angry. But he was also scared. “If you’re not a little bit scared of this thing, you’re not playing with a full deck,” he declared. Eight days of hard labour were needed to get the car back into shape. And during that period of downtime he and Arfons encountered one another like a pair of gunfighters while strolling separately behind Wendover’s Stateline Casino.
“Now that you’ve got your car straightened out, Craig, I guess you’ll break the record again,” Art began.
“That’s right, Art,” Craig replied. “I’m going to break the record tomorrow. You were right about the J-79. It really is powerful.”
Art nodded. “Well, what I want to know is if you break my record of 536 and go, say, 546, and I come back and go 556, what are you going to do? Do you intend to come back and keep up this game of Russian Roulette, where we go back and forth until one of us gets killed and that’s the end of it?”
Craig looked him in the eye thoughtfully, and said, “Yeah, I guess so, Art.”
Art nodded again. “Okay, that’s all I wanted to know.”
Art Arfons with Green Monster
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In arguably the greatest duel in land speed history, each now knew exactly what they were facing over and above the inherent perils of their calling. And still neither was prepared to back down.
The next morning Craig did break Art’s record, averaging 555.483 mph. But on November 7th Art took it back with 576.553 mph, surviving a rear tyre blow-out and bringing his damaged machine to a safe halt.
“It was as if the other gunfighter had winged me but had run out of shells,” Breedlove told his biographer Bill Neely. “The next shot was mine.”
On the morning of the 15th he reached an average of 594 mph on his first run. On the second he saw 620 briefly as he exited the measured mile, the speed at which he believed his racer would take-off. He’d stretched the envelope as far as it would go. This time he averaged 608 mph, sufficient to make him the first man to average 400, 500 and 600 mph thanks to a two-way average of 600.601. He capped his fifth record success by nonchalantly parking his jetcar in the team’s awning so they didn’t have to get their feet wet venturing on to the damp salt.
Spirit of America Sonic 1: the first car to hold a 600mph+ land speed record
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Later, there came a debilitating battle with Goodyear as plans for a tour with the car were compromised, troublesome floods in Torrance, and further frustration as plans to challenge for the water speed record with a twin-jet-powered boat, or to go after the wheel-driven land speed record with a modified version of his friend Donald Campbell’s Bluebird CN7, both faltered. But he complemented endurance records set with a Shelby Daytona Cobra at Bonneville with similar endeavours for American Motors in 1968.
When the AMC programme also came apart, he converted a single-seater projectile with which he had aspired to break the wheeldriven record with AMC power into a rocket car to aim at acceleration records. Initially the English Leather Special, it became The Screaming Yellow Zonker and brought him once again into close contact with death when it crashed at Bonneville. “All I recall was seeing this repetitive cycle of sky, mountain, ground,” he joked many years later having once again stepping unharmed from a wrecked machine.
English Leather Special car ended in a wreck
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There was talk of him driving the Blue Flame rocket car in 1970, but he didn’t like the set-up and the idea of just being the driver, and instead recommended his drag racing friend Gary Gabelich who went on to break his 600.601 mph record. Then, in 1983, he came up with an elegant new rocket-powered Spirit of America – Sonic 2 with which he intended to regain his record, but when that foundered there was talk of reviving his water speed record aspirations, and a couple of concepts were revealed. None of these projects went any further, however. But after focusing on his real estate business, in 1990 he bought two new jet engines and planned yet another new car which became Spirit of America – Sonic Arrow. He was ready to fight for the supersonic ground with Andy Green in Richard Noble’s ThrustSSC, in the extraordinary battle to become the first land-bound Chuck Yeager.
Fate decreed otherwise that time, too, but he came close to setting a sixth record around 650 mph on the Black Rock Desert in 1996 only instead to set one for surviving the fastest accident on land when Spirit performed an abrupt u-turn at around 675 mph. Yet again the man who was no stranger to high-speed scares escaped unharmed. He was nearly 60, but his biggest and fastest accident yet failed to deter him from taking the repaired car to Black Rock Desert to race against Green in 1997. With outstanding sportsmanship he was one of the first to congratulate the Brits when they beat him to the supersonic summit that October.
The 600mph club: left to right Richard Noble, Craig Breedlove, Andy Green, Art Arfons
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An inductee of the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, the International Motorsports Hall of Fame and the Automotive Hall of Fame, as he neared 80 he still talked enthusiastically of a programme to beat the Noble/Green Bloodhound and Rosco McGlashan projects to 1000 mph. He was indefatigable.
With his film star looks, racer’s courage and all-American attitude, he created some of the most beautiful cars ever to challenge for the land speed record. Cobb used to be referred to as the record breakers’ record breaker. Craig Breedlove was the speed kings’ speed king, the coolest man on earth.
