Land Speed
One Direction, One Clock & No Place to Hide
Land-speed racing removes the other driver and replaces him with something less forgiving: the clock.
There is no holeshot, no blocking and no last-lap pass. Build the machine, find enough room, point it straight and prove how fast it really is. Then, depending on the rules, turn around and prove it again.
The basic problem stays simple. The solutions do not. Bonneville and El Mirage give racers very different pieces of ground, while production cars, roadsters, lakesters, streamliners and thrust-powered record machines each arrive with a different set of engineering restrictions.
Start Here
Flying starts, timed miles, records, classes, traction, gearing, aerodynamics, stability and how to read a land-speed run before the timing slip does all the talking.
Where They Run
Natural salt, changing course conditions, Speed Week, qualifying, impound, record runs and why the most famous land-speed course is never quite the same racetrack twice.
Hard-packed dirt, roughly a mile and a third to get busy, recurring SCTA meets and a course that makes acceleration, gearing and traction reach an agreement in a hurry.
What They Run
Familiar sheet metal, unfamiliar speed. The body still has to look like a car the factory built, which means the racer gets to negotiate with every aerodynamic decision Detroit already made.
Two exposed-wheel traditions with different starting points: one keeps the old roadster shape, while the other builds a special-construction body around the job of going straight.
Enclosed wheels, narrow bodies, long tails, cooling, packaging and stability. Once the body is purpose-built around the air, nearly every mechanical decision has to move with it.
Jet and rocket thrust, supersonic aerodynamics, solid wheels, enormous desert courses and the point where the fastest land-speed machines begin looking more like aerospace projects than automobiles.
Bottom Line
Land speed is racing with most of the excuses removed.
The venue decides how much ground and traction are available. The class decides what shape and machinery the builder is allowed to use. The clock decides whether any of those choices worked.
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