Craig Breedlove, First to Drive 500, 600 MPH, Dies at 86

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Craig Breedlove, the Southern California hot rodder who assembled a team of engineers and street racers to bolt rocket engines onto wheels, has died. He was 86.

Breedlove set records at more than 400, 500 and 600 mph in jet-powered cars running surplus fighter jet engines. For a three-year period from 1962 to 1965, Breedlove battled two other great land speed racers for glory on the Bonneville Salt Flats—Art Arfons and his brother Walt. Between the three of them the records were made, broke and made again.

Breedlove's final top speed record was a blistering 606.6 mph.

While subsequent projects raised the speed to over 700 mph, and broke the speed of sound doing so, there may never be another time so freewheeling and downright amazing as those years in the early ‘60s on the salt flats.

Breedlove started out as a hot rodder and lakes racer in Southern California. He bought his first car at age 13, a deuce coupe, according to bluebird-electric.net. By the time he was legally allowed to drive he had a ’34, which he drove to 154 mph on alcohol on the dry lakes. By age 20 he was running an Oldsmobile-powered belly tank at Bonneville to a record 236 mph.A year later it went 236.

He worked at Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica as a technician in structural engineering. From that background a future in land speed racing was only natural. In 1959 he bought a surplus J-47 jet engine and got to work on what would be called Spirit of America.

In Spirit, Breedlove he clocked 407 at Bonneville to set a new record for land speed racing. From there the record ping-ponged between Breedlove, Walt Arfons (driven by Tom Green) and Art Arfons (who drove himself). Green hit 413 at Bonneville in February 1964, Art Arfons went 434 in May, Breedlove went 468, then 500 and finally 526.

It was on that last run that Breedlove lost both parachutes and all brakes on the car. He careened down the flats unable to stop, He scissored telephone poles along the salt, hit a bump and flew through the air, landing nose-first in a salt pond and swimming for his life. When his crew finally reached him they feared the worst, but there was Breedlove, dancing along the dike, saying, “For my next act, I’m going to set myself on fire!”

Soon after that, of course, Art Arfons went 536. Breedlove responded by going over 600 mph.

It was a glorious time in motorsports, and one that will never be repeated. Breedlove came back at various times over the years with new cars, most notably with a Shell-sponsored rig that took him to almost 700 mph. Other racers came and went- Gary Gabelich went 636 at Bonneville, stunt man Stan Barrett went 739, and Englishman Andy Green 763.035.

But none could compare to the handsome American hero Breedlove. His records, and the time in which he set them, will remain unmatched in motorsports history.