Car Throttle

Speed, like everything in life, is entirely relative.  You might think you're "only doing 90, gosh!" but the cop writing you a ticket for doing that speed in a 45mph zone probably disagrees.  And when you hit the speed limiter at 155mph in your BMW M3, you might think you're going fast - but the guy in the ZR-1 with his foot planted in 5th shooting for 200mph can't even see your headlights.  And that ZR-1, well, it'd seem pretty mundane from the seat of a Bugatti Veyron. So what makes a Bugatti Veyron seem a little slow?  Considering a current Veyron Super Sport is good for 268mph flat out, it'd have to be something really, really fast. But when your hobby is Land Speed Record racing,

One of the things I love about land speed record racing at the Bonneville Salt Flats (and there is much to love there), is that it's literally up to you, as far as what you want to race. You want to see how fast you can make an original Volkswagen Beetle can go? Have at it. You somehow got your hands on some "lightly used" NASA rocket engines? Hey, as long as you can pass the safety inspection,, they're fine with it. There's a class for everything out on The Flats, and even though the big speeds and all the glory started going towards the jet and rocket stuff decades ago, there's still a lot of work and effort put into what used to be the top

Like my fantasy garage doesn't have enough cool cars in it, it turns out that Art Arfons' Green Monster, yes, that Green Monster, is for sale on eBay. Back in the 1960s, the land speed record went from around 300 MPH to around 600 MPH in what seemed like a matter of months, and the two combatants could have been further apart in personality or approach. The two men involved are now legends. One is Craig Breedlove. Young, good looking, Californian and with a remarkable talent for working with what would now be considered "sponsors". Art Arfons was a junk dealer from Ohio. He looked like the guy down at the machine shop that you'd trust with porting and polishing the heads on your new Hemi.