Danny Thompson and the Challenger II. Photo courtesy Thompson LSR.
The 2014 Bonneville Speed Week, commemorating a century of racing on the salt, was supposed to take place from August 9-15, but torrential rains put much of the salt flats under water and the event was cancelled. One competitor that was denied a place in the record books was Danny Thompson, who was looking to set a normally aspirated piston-driven land speed record in his father’s Challenger II streamliner, updated with a modern drivetrain and safety equipment.
Now, Thompson will get another shot at the record during the Bonneville World Finals, set for September 27 through October 3, which will expand in scope to include the cancelled Bonneville Speed Week.
When the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) called off Speed Week on Saturday, August 9, the organization stated it would consider expanding the upcoming World Finals from four days to a full week, allowing those cheated out of a record attempt in August to run.
The SCTA board approved the change, moving the starting date of the World Finals from September 30 to September 27, and further announcing that the racing program originally set for Speed Week would be carried over into the new combined event. SCTA officials will be on the salt flats beginning on Monday, September 22, publishing twice-daily reports on course conditions; tech inspection is set to begin on Thursday, September 26.
Danny Thompson. Image by Peter Vincent, courtesy of Thompson LSR.
The current non-supercharged piston-driven speed record, set by Charles E. Nearburg with the Spirit of Rett streamliner in August of 2010, is 414.477 MPH, but Thompson knows that a modest bump in the record speed won’t keep the title for long.
Powered by a pair of nitromethane-fueled Chrysler Hemi V-8 engines, each producing an estimated 2,000 horsepower, the Challenger II has already posted a one-way pass of 419 MPH, a speed attained after just two full-course, five-mile runs.
If all goes well, the Challenger II should prove capable of setting a new record (with sufficient margin to retain it for a while), but land speed record luck has often escaped the Thompson family.
In 1960, father Mickey Thompson was the first to achieve a one-way run above 400 MPH at Bonneville in the Challenger I, but a land speed record escaped him when the car broke down on the return pass.
Earlier this month, after a one-way run of 419 MPH, Danny Thompson had the AA/Fuel Streamliner record in sight, but on the car’s second pass one of the Challenger II’s two clutches failed, forcing Thompson to abandon the run. In another September testing incident, the car’s onboard fire suppression system was triggered by the g-forces resulting from parachute deployment.
In other words, even when the weather cooperates, sometimes the equipment doesn’t; in land speed record racing, nothing is ever guaranteed.
For more information on Danny Thompson’s AA/FS land speed record attempt, visit ThompsonLSR.com. For additional details on the 2014 SCTA Speed Week at the World Finals, go to SCTA-BNI.org.
UPDATE (1.October): The Bonneville World Finals has been rained out, bringing an end to the 2014 land speed record season in Utah. Thompson promises that the Challenger II will return to the salt, likely in 2015.