FINAL THOUGHTS FROM DAN

There are two types of business, monkey business and serious business. In this pic, business is about to get serious. This shot is just before the first of my two Guinness record runs. The Moon discs are on, and Jennifer says you can see all the details of the car. Over 800hp is about to flow [through] those two threeinch exhaust tips; the clean air is about to exit through the diffuser after travelling under the car smoothly due to the full belly pan I made. No air will be trapped or let into the fender wells as the Moon discs block it.

After 40 seconds of wide-open throttle, the guidance system will announce “Parachute” and I will use my pinkie finger to pull the left paddle shifter to activate the air cylinder to deploy the chute. The instant the system calls out “Finish” it is time to apply the brakes as hard as I can as the runway is getting short really quick. Of course, I do not know this as I am 100 per cent blind. If this is the first run, we will have one hour and not one second more to turn the car around, pack the parachute, and cool the engine in time to do it again to try for the record.

Over four years of worrying, planning, designing, building, and testing came down to the two 40-second passes of wide-open throttle over the 1.5 miles at the Spaceport in New Mexico. Today the Vette is resting peacefully in my garage ready to do it again. The day will come when the record is challenged or broken. Then we will get real serious again. This car can run 230 in the 1.5 mile and over 250 at Bonneville.

Exactly 10 years from the day of my wreck that left me 100 per cent blind for life, I broke the Guinness World Record for the “fastest car driven blindfolded”, which is how they record it — but no blindfold was needed. I am now officially the fastest blind man in the world at 211.043 mph.