WORDS: ELLIOTT HUGHES | PHOTOS: BREEDLOVE FAMILY AND WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Legendary American Land Speed Record-breaker Craig Breedlove has died of cancer aged 86. Breedlove was revered as a five-time Land Speed Record holder, and was the first person in history to reach 400mph, 500mph and 600mph on land.
Breedlove’s insatiable quest for speed began as a teenager, when he spent four years rebuilding a scrap three-window ’34 Ford Coupe. He completed the build in 1955, and drove the car to 152.80mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats at just 18 years of age.
English racing driver and Land Speed Record holder John Cobb was cited by Breedlove as a major source of inspiration, as was the famous line “Ask what you can do for your country,” from John F Kennedy’s inauguration speech in 1961.
Breedlove’s response to JFK’s sentiment was to bring the Land Speed Record back to the United States for the first time since 1928, when Ray Keech reached 207.552mph driving his White Triplex. “It was the most patriotic thing I could think of,” Breedlove recalled.
On August 5, 1963, now aged just 26, Breedlove became the fastest man on Earth by achieving 407mph in his Spirit of America jet car at the Bonneville Salt Flats. The Land Speed Record rules at the time dictated that only runs performed by cars with driven wheels were eligible, so Donald Campbell became the next official record holder in his gas turbine-powered Bluebird CN7 in 1964.
Yet that first 407mph run was only the beginning of Breedlove’s exploits, as he began swapping records with arch-rival Art Arfons. On October 5, 1964, Arfons’ home-built Green Monster reached 434mph at Bonneville, surpassing Breedlove’s unofficial record. Arfons had little time to bask in the afterglow of his achievement, though, because Breedlove responded only eight days later with a 468.719mph run.
Just two days after that, on October 15, Breedlove became the first past the 500mph threshold with an unprecedented 526.277mph run. This was, however, a record attempt that nearly cost the intrepid American his life, when disaster struck on the return run and both main and reserve parachutes failed to open. The car’s disc brakes were only functional at below 180mph, yet Breedlove smashed the pedal at around 400mph as his car careened towards the rough salt and a high bank surrounding a brine lake at the end of the course.
Completely out of control, the only thing slowing Breedlove down was rolling resistance, as he helplessly headed towards the telegraph poles and the lake’s banking. The rear left wheel clipped a telegraph pole before the Spirit of America was launched over the high bank and pitched nose-first into the lake.
Miraculously, Breedlove narrowly escaped as salty water began flooding into the cramped cockpit. Far from being traumatised by his brush with death, he laughed and proclaimed: “For my next trick, I will set myself on fire.” One week later, Arfons and his Green Monster recaptured the Land Speed Record, raising the bar to 536.710mph on October 27.
Breedlove knew that a new car was needed if he was going to reclaim the record, and so he returned to Bonneville one year later with Spirit of America II – Sonic 1, recording 555.485mph on November 2, 1965. Again, Arfons’ response came in just a matter of days, with Green Monster reaching 576.553mph on November 7. The perilous rivalry between the two men ended on November 15, 1965, when Breedlove became the first man to surpass 600mph, recording an official two-way average of 600.601mph.
Few would have thought Breedlove would continue with Land Speed Record breaking after finally beating Arfons in ’65. Yet he had other ideas and, at almost 60 years old, he headed to Neveda’s Black Rock Desert in 1996 with a new Spirit of America and backing from Shell, Ford and the SpeedVision TV channel. The goal was to eclipse the 633.47mph record set in 1983 by Richard Noble, and chase the sound barrier at 750mph.
Breedlove suffered a terrifying 675mph crash on his first attempt, as his car was unsettled by 15-knot gusts that pitched it onto its side. Again, he somehow escaped major injury, although Spirit of America was heavily damaged.
The car was repaired and returned to Black Rock Desert in the closing months of 1997 for a head-to-head battle with Andy Green and Thrust SSC to break the sound barrier and set a new Land Speed Record. As fate would have it, Breedlove’s car was damaged after a stray bolt was sucked through the engine, leaving Green to record a historic supersonic 763.035mph Land Speed Record that still stands to this day.
Although Breedlove was gracious in defeat, immediately congratulating Noble and the Thrust SSC team, he was also incessantly determined and set his sights on the 800mph mark. Unfortunately, funding proved much harder to secure now the sound barrier had already been broken, and Breedlove retired from his Land Speed Record career.
A legend in his own lifetime, Craig Breedlove is one of the most pioneering figures in all of motor sport – a fact underlined by his induction to the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, the International Motorsports Hall of Fame and the Automotive Hall of Fame. He will be missed.
