1
He was the first man to reach 500mph in a car
The Bonneville Flats in Utah were the perfect place to breakland speed recordsbecause the high salt content kept the tracks dry and the wheels cool. It was here in October 1964 that Craig Breedlove risked life and limb to break the 500mph barrier in the $250kSpirit of America.After the car reached a whopping 526.28 mph the car’s parachute, which worked as the brakes, snapped off and the car was sent flying into a telephone pole and landing in a salt pond. Amazingly he was unharmed, and this setback was not enough to put him off setting new records…
2
He was also the first man to reach 600 mph
A year after his success reaching 500mph he was ready and set up for another tilt at the record. At the same spot but this time driving theSpirit of America – Sonic 1, Breedlove clocked 593.178mph on his first run. Fast, but to reach the 600mph target when averaged out with a second run he would have to travel more than 606mph on the next attempt. He smashed it, reaching 608.201mph, meaning his final average speed scraped in at 600.601 mph.
“That 600 is about a thousand times better than 599,” he said afterward. “Boy, it’s a great feeling.”
3
His record started an intense period of American domination for speed records
Between 1914 and 1963, eight different British drivers held the landspeed record, with only Ray Keech in theTriplex Specialbreaking the dominance in 1928, and still only for less than a year. During this 49-year period the record increased from 124mph to 403mph, but a rule change that began with Craig Breedlove in the Spirit of America whereby the car did not have to be wheel-driven meant the record was smashed five times in little over two years. Between 5 August 1963 and 15 November 1965 Breedlove battled with fellow Americans Tom Green and Art Arfons in their turbojet vehicles until the 600mph barrier was broken. Breedlove’s record was to stand until 1970 when another American, Gary Gabelich reached 622mph in the carBlue Flame.
It wasn’t until 1983 that the British reclaimed the title when Richard Noble topped 633mph in Thrust2. Andy Green, who in 1997 reached 763mph inThrustSSCcurrently holds the record, but another British team,Bloodhound SSC, is looking to break that record again next year. Watch this space…
4
His wife was also a speed demon
It is claimed that Craig Breedlove never let his wife, Lee Breedlove, drive above 75mph, but that was before he convinced her to climb into theSpirit of America – Sonic 1to monopolise the salt flats and obstruct his rivals from making a record attempt. The plan worked and Lee reach 308.56mph that day, writing herself into the record book as both thefastest womanandfastest couplein the world.
5
The Beach Boys wrote a song about him
The Beach Boys certainly had a thing for writing songs about driving around in cars (I Get Around, anyone?) but they probably wouldn’t be able to pick up many girls travelling as fast as the Spirit of America could. The words to the song were written by long-time collaborator Roger Christian, who also wrote suspiciously similar lyrics to a song called the “Ballad of Bonneville" by Gary Usher's band The Super Stocks, in reference to Bonneville Salt Flats, where many of theland speed recordswere broken. This fact wasn’t noticed until after the songs were released. You can listen to the song below.
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