List of land speed records

thumb|right|[[ThrustSSC, driven by Royal Air Force pilot Andy Green, holds the current land speed record at set October 15, 1997.]]

The land speed record (LSR) or absolute land speed record is the highest speed achieved by a person using a vehicle on land. By a 1964 agreement between the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM), respective governing bodies for racing in automobiles and motorcycles (two or three wheels), both bodies recognise as the absolute LSR whatever is the highest speed record achieved across any of their various categories.

FIA LSRs are officiated and validated by its regional or national affiliate organizations. Speed measurement is standardized over a course measuring either or , averaged over two runs with flying start (commonly called "passes") going in opposite directions within one hour. A new record mark must exceed the previous one by at least one percent to be validated.

History

Until 1829 the fastest land transport was by horse. Then, railway speed records were set.

The first automobile record regulator was the Automobile Club de France, which proclaimed itself arbiter of the record in about 1902.

thumb|[[Ralph DePalma in his Packard '905' Special at Daytona Beach in 1919]]

thumb|The [[White Triplex in 1928, driven by Ray Keech]]

Different clubs had different standards and did not always recognize the same world records until 1924, when the Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus (AIACR) introduced new regulations: two passes in opposite directions (to negate the effects of wind) averaged with a maximum of 30 minutes (later more) between runs, average gradient of the racing surface not more than 1 percent, timing gear accurate within 0.01sec, and cars must be wheel-driven. National or regional auto clubs (such as AAA and SCTA) had to be AIACR members to ensure records would be recognized. The AIACR became the FIA in 1947. Controversy arose in 1963: Spirit of America was not recognized due to its being a three-wheeler (leading the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme to certify it as a three-wheel motorcycle record when the FIA refused) and not wheel-driven so the FIA introduced a special jet and rocket propelled class. No holder of the absolute record since has been wheel-driven.

In the U.S. and Australia, record runs are often done on salt flats, so the cars are often called salt cars.

Women's land speed record

thumb|[[Dorothy Levitt, in a Napier, at Brooklands, England, in 1908]]

The FIA does not recognize separate men's and women's land speed records, because the records are set using motorized vehicles, and not muscle-powered vehicles, so the gender of the driver does not matter; however, unofficial women's records have long been claimed, seemingly starting with Dorothy Levitt's 1906 record in Blackpool, England, and, unlike the FIA and other car-racing organisations, Guinness World Records does recognize gender-based land speed records.

In 1906, Dorothy Levitt broke the women's world speed record for the flying kilometer, recording a speed of and receiving the sobriquet the "Fastest Girl on Earth". She drove a six-cylinder Napier motorcar, a development of the K5, in a speed trial in Blackpool.

In 1963, Paula Murphy drove a Studebaker Avanti to at the Bonneville Salt Flats as part of Andy Granatelli's attempt on the overall record. The rival tire company Firestone and Art Arfons hit back against Goodyear and Walt Arfons when Betty Skelton drove Art's Cyclops to achieve a two-way average of in September 1965. According to author Rachel Kushner, Craig Breedlove had talked Lee into taking the car out for a record attempt in order to monopolize the salt flats for the day and block one of his competitors from making a record attempt.

In 1976, the women's absolute record was set by Kitty O'Neil, in the jet-powered, three-wheeled SMI Motivator, at the Alvord Desert. Held back by her contract with a sponsor and using only 60 percent of her car's power, O'Neil reached an average speed of .

On October 9, 2013, driver Jessi Combs, in a vehicle of the North American Eagle Project running at the Alvord Desert, raised the women's four-wheel land speed class record with an official run of , surpassing Breedlove's 48-year-old record. Combs continued with the North American Eagle Project, whose ongoing target is the overall land speed record; as part of that effort, Combs was killed, on August 27, 2019, during an attempt to raise the four-wheel record. In late June 2020, the Guinness Book of Records reclassified the August 27, 2019, speed runs as meeting its requirements, and Combs was posthumously credited with the record at , noting she was the first to break the record in 40 years.

Records

1898–1964: Wheel-driven

{| class="wikitable" style="clear:both; font-size:95%;"

! rowspan="3" | Date

! rowspan="3" | Location

! rowspan="3" | Driver

! rowspan="3" | Vehicle

! rowspan="3" | Power

! colspan="4" | Speed

! rowspan="3" | Comments

! colspan="2" | Over 1 km

! colspan="2" | Over 1 mile

! (mph) !! (km/h)

|December 18, 1898|| Achères, France|| Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat||Jeantaud Duc||Electric

||39.24||63.15|| || || Conducted over from a flying start.

|January 17, 1899|| Achères, France|| Camille Jenatzy First record over

|November 17, 1902 || Dourdan, France|| Maurice Augières||Mors Z Paris-Vienne||Internal combustion

|77.13||124.13|| || ||

|March 31, 1904|| Nice, France|| Louis Rigolly||Gobron-Brillié Paris-Madrid ||Internal combustion|| 94.78 || 152.53 || || ||

|November 8, 1909|| Brooklands, United Kingdom|| Victor Hémery||Benz No. 1 200 hp (150 kW) ||Internal combustion: inline-4 Benz engine|| 125.94 || 202.68 || 115.93 || 186.57 || First run using electronic timing

|March 16, 1926|| Ainsdale beach at Southport, United Kingdom|| Henry Segrave||Ladybird ||Internal combustion: a 4-litre Sunbeam Tiger || || || 152.33 ||245.15 ||

|April 27, 1926

| Pendine, United Kingdom

| J. G. Parry-Thomas

|Babs

|Internal combustion: V12 Liberty L-12 aero engine

|169.29

|270.864

|168.74

|269.984

|April 28, 1926|| Pendine, United Kingdom|| J. G. Parry-Thomas||Babs ||Internal combustion: V12 Liberty L-12 aero engine

| 172.09 || 275.341

| 171.69 || 274.590

|February 4, 1927|| Pendine, United Kingdom|| Malcolm Campbell||Napier-Campbell Blue Bird||Internal combustion: W12 Napier Lion aero engine

| colspan="2" style="text-align:center;"|—||174.88||281.44||

|February 19, 1928|| Daytona Beach, United States|| Malcolm Campbell||Napier-Campbell Blue Bird||Internal combustion: W12 Napier Lion aero engine ||206.956||333.048|| || ||

|March 11, 1929|| Daytona Beach, United States|| Henry Segrave||Golden Arrow||Internal combustion: W12 Napier Lion aero engine ||231.446||372.459|| || || Segrave was knighted for this effort

|February 5, 1931 || Daytona Beach, United States

|648.73

|Last wheel driven absolute record.

1963–present: Jet and rocket propulsion

Craig Breedlove's mark of , set in Spirit of America in September 1963, was initially considered unofficial. The vehicle breached the FIA regulations on two grounds: it had only three wheels, and it was not wheel-driven, since its jet engine did not supply power to its axles. Some time later, the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) created a non-wheel-driven category, and ratified Spirit of Americas time for this mark. In October, several four-wheel jet-cars surpassed the 1963 mark, but were eligible for neither FIA nor FIM ratification.

{| class="wikitable" style="clear: both; font-size:95%;"

! rowspan="3" | Date

! rowspan="3" | Location

! rowspan="3" | Driver

! rowspan="3" | Vehicle

! rowspan="3" | Power

! colspan="4" | Speed

! rowspan="3" | Comments

! colspan="2" | Over 1 km

! colspan="2" | Over 1 mile

! (mph)

! (km/h)

! (mph)

! (km/h)

|August 5, 1963|| Bonneville Salt Flats, United States|| Craig Breedlove|| Spirit of America||Turbojet

|||||407.447||655.722||

|November 7, 1965|| Bonneville Salt Flats, United States|| Art Arfons||Green Monster||Turbojet||576.553

||927.872||576.553||927.872||

|October 4, 1983|| Black Rock Desert, United States|| Richard Noble||Thrust2||Turbojet: 1 × Rolls-Royce Avon

|634.051||1020.406||633.47||1019.47||

| First to break the speed of sound

References

External links

– Australian challengers to the supersonic showdown
Speed Record Club – The Speed Record Club seeks to promote an informed and educated enthusiast identity, reporting accurately and impartially to the best of its ability on record-breaking engineering, events, attempts and history.
The Land Speed Record in the Sixties: an on-line collection