It was three years before Jenatzy's record was broken. By now petrol and steam powered cars had surpassed the electric cars, which were handicapped by their heavy batteries and limited range. But a steam car was the next to capture the record, when Léon Serpollet achieved 75.06 mph on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France in 1902. He claimed that the only way he could breathe during the run was to turn his head to one side whilst speeding along the seafront!

But piston power came to the fore within months, initially in the form of the French Mors road racer, with the record inching up to 77.13 mph. French race cars continued to dominate, with Belgian Arthur Duray recording 83.47 mph at Ostend in a Gobron-Brillié in July 1903. Englishman Charles Rolls, co-founder of the Rolls-Royce motor company, blasted to 84.73 mph in his Mors but his effort was the first of several that were to be rejected by the French authorities, the ACF, due to use of unapproved timing equipment. Instead Duray recorded the same speed as Rolls and claimed the record.

Over in America, Henry Ford saw the Land Speed Record as a golden opportunity to publicise his motor company. Remarkably his speed of 91.37 mph in the Arrow was not actually set on dry land, but on a frozen lake in Michigan in January 1904. Only days later American millionaire and motor enthusiast William K. Vanderbilt Jr. took the record from him in a Mercedes at 92.30 mph, also using a new type of surface - the more pleasant surroundings of Daytona Beach in Florida, which would be the scene of many future attempts. Neither record was recognised by the ACF. Back in Belgium, Frenchman Louis Rigolly was first to exceed 100 mph in his Gobron with 103.55 mph. By the end of 1904 Victor Héméry held the official record in a Darracq at 109.65 mph powered by an early V8 engine.

In 1906 America again produced an innovative and purpose-built challenger, which made a welcome change from the long succession of European road racers attacking the record. The Stanley brothers of Massachusetts created a sleekly streamlined, mid-engined steam car called the Rocket. Driver Fred Marriott trounced the petrol-engined opponents at the Florida Speed Week with a speed of 121.57 mph, which was accepted by the ACF. Knowing they could do better, the Rocket appeared again in 1907 but suffered a horrendous crash at a speed estimated by some observers as over 190 mph. Marriott miraculously survived but needed a doctor to pop his right eye back into its socket using a spoon!

The demise of the Rocket was the first serious crash in LSR history, and it marked the end of steam as a contender for the record. But it took three years for petrol-power to reassert its dominance; in 1909 Victor Héméry brought his Blitzen 'Lightning' Benz to the new banked circuit at Brooklands in England and achieved 125.95 mph over the kilometre. American racer Barnie Oldfield bought the Blitzen Benz and did 131.275 mph over the mile at Daytona, but as usual it was rejected by the Paris authorities. In 1911 they ruled that all new records must be taken as the average of two runs in opposite directions over the same course, however the disgruntled Americans chose to ignore this ruling, with Bob Burman raising the 'American' record to 141.37 mph, once again in the Blitzen Benz.

Brooklands was the setting for the first two-way record, set by L. G. Hornstead of Britain in another Benz at 124.10 mph in 1914, adding more confusion since it was slower than Héméry's existing one-way official record! After the Great War, the Americans continued to increase their one-way version of the record, first to 149.875 mph and then 156.03 mph at Daytona.

In 1922, Englishman Kenelm Lee Guinness set a new official record of 133.75 mph using the first aero-engined car, the 350 hp Sunbeam; it was the last time that the record would be set at the famous Brooklands circuit.

On 6th July 1924, Frenchman René Thomas and Englishman Ernest Eldridge fought a duel to raise the record on the long, straight but hazardously narrow Arpajon road near Paris in France. The Frenchman, driving a V12 Delage, achieved 143.31 mph, but Eldridge bettered this with 146.8 mph in his aero-engined Fiat. However, Eldridge's record was disqualified after Thomas protested that the Fiat had no reverse gear, as required by the regulations. Undeterred, Eldridge returned to Arpajon 8 days later, having fitted a reverse gear, and finally set an official record of 146.01 mph - the last time that the record was set on a public road.

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