I am fairly sure (but not 100% certain) that in all the history of Bonneville, no one has ever shown up with a new car, set it on the salt and in three runs got themselves a world record at over 300 MPH… That is an incredible achievement. Anyone who is half a car guy and has been to Bonneville should be blown away by this. It is truly a monumental achievement of epic proportions.
To say that what we did is phenomenal is a gross understatement. There are guys who come to Bonneville 2 to 3 times a year for 20 years and haven’t done what we did with (basically) a brand new car in just three runs. Hasn’t truly sunk in yet… utterly incredible. I don’t think that has ever been done in the 60+ years of Bonneville… to show up with a brand new car, with a stock iron block Cad engine (that’s right, a CADILLAC!) with a stock cast iron crank, and run well over 300 and set a record, all in just 3 runs. Is my excitement coming through yet?
Kenny Hoover received a lot of compliments on how he drove the car. He is very experienced, very good, and it shows. I want to be able to drive the car as well as he did, that’s my goal. Well, that and to go faster…
Kenny first went over 300 MPH in 1983(!) over 26 years ago, but it took our car, and 3 runs in 3 days to get him the super elusive blue hat (red hats are 200 MPH Club Members, blue hats are for the 300 MPH chapter members of the 200 MPH club). It is so difficult to get a blue hat, or even a red hat for that matter, and we made it look so easy… but of course it wasn’t easy at all. We had every obstacle and monkey wrench thrown at us for two years, not to mention a super restrictive budget. Plus we showed up a day late; the meet was delayed by one day due to weather, otherwise we would have been two days late for a four day event, that, as it turned out, was a three and a half day event…… and still we did what we set out to do; set a world record.
Huge Kudo’s to Steve Schmalz at Performance Fabrication. What an awesome race car builder. There’s a lot more in the car, we know that, and Steve is already planning for August 2010. Look out 400 MPH barrier, here we come!
Last note: there’s still the 12 hour drive back, and at least three days of cleaning up the race car, the two trailers, the push truck, the tow truck, the support vehicle, plus putting away all the tools and supplies and a ton of other stuff……… no rest for the weary…….. but it’s a lot easier to do that with a record in your pocket!
Thanks,
Amir Rosenbaum #86