Thank God Craig Breedlove survived the extreme danger of his high speed accident on Black Rock Desert on October 28th. He is a most remarkable man with 5 World Land Speed records achieved and a span of record achievement which runs from 407 mph to over 600-a span greater than any record breaker before him and since. The lure of speed drew him back into the sport in 1990 when he decided to build and drive his third car - at an age when most of his contemporaries are enjoying the relaxing luxury of retirement.

Craig decided to do what he does best to design build and drive the car. Having had poor results in the past from wind tunnel work he decided to design the car himself and to treat it as a full scale wind tunnel model - altering the settings from run to run as desired. In 1965 he had an incredibly fortunate escape when Spirit of America Sonic 1 started to fly at the front end at 600mph and on recovery he calmly altered the angle of incidence on the cars canard fins and tried again - with World acclaim and huge success.

It may be now that the LSR cars are starting to run at transonic speeds that this kind of approach is only compatible with painstaking acquisition of data and small speed increases on successive runs - thus enabling trends and prediction. The aircraft aerodynamicists have found that the onset of transonic drag can result in very substantial airflow and pressure changes with only the smallest increase in speed.

Eyewitness acounts tell of 470 mph on the first run and 675mph on the second - the car flicking right at high speed and careering two miles past the spectator line. It must have been a terrifying experience for Craig seated in the exposed nose, to be out of control yet again in a runaway and damaged car.

Anyone who has attempted this will know that there has to be a balance between the critical factors - finance, weather, engineering and safety. By planning large speed increments Breedlove has chosen to maximise the use of the short weather window and minimise demands of the other factors.

In the past this policy has always resulted in great success for Craig.

	Sponsored by	This site best viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3