(By Craig Breedlove, 67, who has broken the land-speed record five times on the Bonneville Salt Flats and Nevada's Black Rock Desert, as told to Tom Colligan.)
The sensation that's missing in an aircraft or in a boat over the water is that close proximity to the terrain. I've driven both fast boats and fast cars, but with this car you're riding along with your butt six inches off the ground. There's just an enormous sensation of velocity connected with that.
This car has the same engine as the Lockheed Starfighter, the old F-104. It puts out twenty-two thousand pounds of thrust. So the car accelerates harder than a fighter plane, because it's a lot lighter than a fighter plane.
You're strapped into the car very tightly, so you can feel all of its movements and everything it's doing. The thing starts crunching across Nevada's Black Rock Desert, and then all the bearings are screaming and you're riding inside of this metal can with a J79 jet engine that's running 103 percent rpm. You have this sensation of whirling machinery all around you.
And when you throw in two and a half g's of acceleration, pushing everything back into the seat, you have to labor a bit to breathe. You're in this semi-reclining position with your upper torso kind of erect, so it tends to bend your stomach and chest over your diaphragm area, which is probably not the best breathing position to be in anyway.
The ride is pretty damn smooth. Once these things get over about two, two-fifty, the tires don't have time to drop down into the low places. As you go up higher and higher in speed, you basically touch the ground less and less — you're kind of in between. It's like when you're landing in an airplane and it's really not hooked up to the runway yet. So once you do get up around six hundred miles per hour, it's almost as if the car has no contact with the ground. You'll hear the ground and everything, but it's as if you're on this huge cookie sheet of ice. It's this real slippery feeling.
The real dicey part of the whole thing is shutting the damn thing off. Turning off that engine — which is this enormous rotating weight — you get an immediate reversal of torque direction, and the car, all of a sudden, wants to leap up and change lanes on you. And your heart always takes a jump and your stomach comes up in your throat and you're just going so damn fast it's scary.
Once you get the thing down to four hundred or so, you deploy the parachutes. This has the effect of making you feel as if you're driving straight down a wall. Then as you slow down, the earth sort of levels back out to your senses.
It's almost like a form of violence, it is so powerful. You gain a lot of respect for that machine. It's as if you don't want to do anything aggressive to upset it; you really want to blend with that machine. It's like you're the head of a bird or something.
Once you're in there, you're very much alone. No one's gonna help you in there. You are very isolated. Makes you pay attention. This is a no-fool-around deal. Me and my big mouth. How'd I get into this thing?
The sensation that's missing in an aircraft or in a boat over the water is that close proximity to the terrain. I've driven both fast boats and fast cars, but with this car you're riding along with your butt six inches off the ground. There's just an enormous sensation of velocity connected with that.
This car has the same engine as the Lockheed Starfighter, the old F-104. It puts out twenty-two thousand pounds of thrust. So the car accelerates harder than a fighter plane, because it's a lot lighter than a fighter plane.
You're strapped into the car very tightly, so you can feel all of its movements and everything it's doing. The thing starts crunching across Nevada's Black Rock Desert, and then all the bearings are screaming and you're riding inside of this metal can with a J79 jet engine that's running 103 percent rpm. You have this sensation of whirling machinery all around you.
And when you throw in two and a half g's of acceleration, pushing everything back into the seat, you have to labor a bit to breathe. You're in this semi-reclining position with your upper torso kind of erect, so it tends to bend your stomach and chest over your diaphragm area, which is probably not the best breathing position to be in anyway.
The ride is pretty damn smooth. Once these things get over about two, two-fifty, the tires don't have time to drop down into the low places. As you go up higher and higher in speed, you basically touch the ground less and less — you're kind of in between. It's like when you're landing in an airplane and it's really not hooked up to the runway yet. So once you do get up around six hundred miles per hour, it's almost as if the car has no contact with the ground. You'll hear the ground and everything, but it's as if you're on this huge cookie sheet of ice. It's this real slippery feeling.
The real dicey part of the whole thing is shutting the damn thing off. Turning off that engine — which is this enormous rotating weight — you get an immediate reversal of torque direction, and the car, all of a sudden, wants to leap up and change lanes on you. And your heart always takes a jump and your stomach comes up in your throat and you're just going so damn fast it's scary.
Once you get the thing down to four hundred or so, you deploy the parachutes. This has the effect of making you feel as if you're driving straight down a wall. Then as you slow down, the earth sort of levels back out to your senses.
It's almost like a form of violence, it is so powerful. You gain a lot of respect for that machine. It's as if you don't want to do anything aggressive to upset it; you really want to blend with that machine. It's like you're the head of a bird or something.
Once you're in there, you're very much alone. No one's gonna help you in there. You are very isolated. Makes you pay attention. This is a no-fool-around deal. Me and my big mouth. How'd I get into this thing?
