STREAMLINERS ASIDE, THE FASTEST VEHICLE IS ONCE AGAIN THE BRONZE AUSSIE VR COMMODORE
Australian! The volunteer starters have been out there since 8am, so what is potentially the fastest car in the world will just have to wait like everyone else.
The other streamliner is Team 7, a motorcycle built and managed by Denis Manning, and ridden by America’s ‘Queen of Speed’, Valerie Thompson. Powered by a 500hp three-litre turbocharged V4, the bike (previously known as BUB Seven) is a former world record holder at 350mph in 2006 and 367mph in 2009 with rider Chris Carr. The current world motorcycle land speed record is 376mph, set by Rocky Robinson riding Ack Attack in 2010. Valerie’s best to date is 304mph at Bonneville, her speed limited by the condition of the salt. Manning says the bike is capable of 400mph if the conditions are right.
Like Target 550, the actual world record attempt – the average of two runs in opposite directions – will occur on a special 12-mile track at a separate internationally sanctioned event (also run by the DLRA) the following weekend, but both teams are keen to have a crack at some long-standing Aussie one-way records too. Team 7 is even more susceptible to wind than the car, and it isn’t until Thursday that Valerie fronts the starter for the first time, again to a big crowd.
Davenport and Thompson are just two of a record 232 entrants in 2018, of whom more than 60 are rookies. The 2005 film The World’s
Fastest Indian, starring Sir Anthony Hopkins as legendary Kiwi land speed racer Burt Munro, has led to a huge explosion of interest in salt racing amongst the motorcycle community, which now accounts for around three-quarters of Speed Week participants. This has changed the character of the event, but riders pay just as much to race as drivers, leading to an influx of funds that the DLRA has put to good use. The bike guys and gals have also dramatically increased the number of available volunteers. The five-day meeting runs like clockwork, hosting a record
850 individual runs on two tracks, 200 on the first day alone. Some 80 new car and bike records are set.
What the cars lack in numbers, they make up with spectacle and speed. Streamliners aside, the fastest vehicle is once again the Bronze Aussie VR Commodore – the world’s fastest four-door – now in the custodianship of driver Lionel West following the retirement of Rod Hadfield. Lionel says that the wind is tricky this year. It can be still at the startline and then a crosswind hits you at the four-mile mark and blows the car across the track. The only option is to throttle off and get it back on line. “The track gets pretty narrow at 260mph,” he says.
Lionel’s longterm ambition is to achieve Rod’s dream of a 300mph pass, but he’s happy for now to nudge his own record by 3mph to 270mph on Wednesday morning. He heads out again late in the afternoon and is accelerating through 267mph at the fourmile mark when the front lifts and the car goes into a spin before ending up on its roof. It is testament to the car’s construction that Lionel walks away without injury, although the iconic car sustains significant damage.
Shaine Benson in the beautifully presented Barnes Auto Co bellytank is next fastest at 256mph on only his second run, followed by flying Kiwi Mark Love in his ‘Chevrolet Firebird’ at 249mph, 20mph faster than his previous best but still under the class record. Love’s teammate Dave Rosewarne had earlier run a smaller engine combo in the same car to post a class record of 239mph. Kurt Dunn is also impressive at 243mph in the Dunn family lakester, 5mph faster than his dad Mark, while teammates Lawrence May and Steve Strupp are within a whisker of each other at 238mph and 239mph respectively in their shared 1985 Camaro.