Born to Run

Nice story on Craig Breedlove at the New York Times:

A Man With an Irresistible Urge to Run Wide Open
Craig Breedlove was practically a household name in the 1960s, a result of his bringing the unlimited land-speed record back to the United States. In becoming the first to officially push the mark past 400 miles an hour, he dethroned a decades-long dynasty of capable British teams.

In 1963, Breedlove stepped into a death-defying struggle among homegrown hot rodders to grab ever-faster speed records. In the process, he became the first to set the record over 500 m.p.h., and only a year later to break the 600-m.p.h. barrier as well.

Today, the persistent British again own the record � now at 763 m.p.h. � and Breedlove, at age 75, is organizing a team for an attempt to recapture it, with a goal of 800 m.p.h. Speaking last fall at the Simeone Automotive Museum in Philadelphia, where he accepted the annual Spirit of Competition award, he told of growing up in Southern California at a time when fast cars were becoming part of the fabric of American life.

He started young:

At 13, Breedlove persuaded his parents to help him buy a 1934 Ford coupe for $75, promising not to drive it until he got a license. To fix up this derelict, he worked in a local body shop for 50 cents an hour. His high school shop teacher donated a supercharger for its V-8.

Breedlove took his coupe to a sanctioned meet on the El Mirage dry lake bed in the Mojave Desert northwest of Los Angeles, where he set a course record of 148 m.p.h. While he would go on to race cars that were far less conventional, he did not turn his back on production cars, setting records in the 1960s with a Cobra Daytona coupe and American Motors AMXs.

Wow -- speed of sound is 768MPH at STP -- Breedlove is going to be dealing with some major stability problems as well as just getting the thing fast enough.