Re: New Land Speed Record

Posted by muntle On 2010/8/26 5:30:45

A request to the the original poster, John F Shireman if I may?

I have written a book on the Land Speed Record, and am now finalising the graphic content ready for publishing later this year. I would like to use the second picture in your original post, as I have not found a copy anywhere else, and it is perfect for my particular requirement, so would it be possible to let me know where the source was from please.

Your later poster was indeed correct, it is a Darracq V8. In fact it is a picture of Victor Hemery's Darracq before the start of his run in 1905 on the Arles-Salon road in France, where he set a new record of 109.65 mph. It was that record that Fred Marriott broke a few weeks later with the Stanley Rocket at Ormond Beach. The Darracq (which was a one-off special, the V8 being two of their standard engine blocks married to a new crankshaft) was later acquired by the Guinness brothers in the UK, and used extensively, so there are plenty of photos of it available, but I have not found one (until now) of it actually setting the record itself.

To put a little more on the bones of the other posts with regard to the steam record, in fact the British Steam Car actually raised the official record twice in 2009. On the first record run on 25th August, driven by Charles Burnett, the record for the mile was raised to 139.84mph which, although it was 12mph higher than Marriott's mile record, was actually 18mph higher than the official outright steam record; why? well because Marriott actually set two marks in 1906, the mile at 127mph and the kilometre at 121mph. Somewhat perversely, the ACF (the official record body back then) refused to recognise the mile time, but did accept the kilometre speed (the outright record can be set using either distance). Incidentally, it was Hemery who took the outright record back three years later in the Blitzen Benz that Barney Oldfield later acquired and ran at Ormond.

Back to 2009, and the following day Don Wales drove the car for an attempt on the kilometre record, which he set at 148.308mph; so the official outright steam record is now that figure. The reason the team did that was because they also wanted to beat an unofficial steam record of 145mph set at Bonneville by the American Bob Barber in 1985. The reason it was unofficial was because, although it was his fastest one-way speed, he could not manage to back-up two timed runs within the hour limit until his final attempt, which failed due to the car catching fire on its return run putting an end to his attempts.

The British Team, however, always said that they would not consider their record to be valid unless they set times beating both Marriott's and Barber's, which they did.

Incidentally, Don Wales is Sir Malcolm Campbell's grandson.

Malcolm Toogood