Sport: Nightmare on Salt

On early runs over the bumpy, damp salt flats at Bonneville, Utah, the long, low car had slued into stomach-stopping skids. But burly, brush-cut Mickey Thompson, 30, still managed to whiz Challenger I over the measured mile at 363.67 m.p.h. to set a new American land-speed record. With that, Thompson determined to make one more try at the world land-speed record of 394.196 m.p.h., established by Britain’s John Cobb.

Thompson waited as his pretty, blonde wife eased the bumper of the family station wagon against Challenger’s rear and began to push. At 60 m.p.h., Challenger’s four Pontiac engines bellowed to life. Thompson, peering through his tiny windshield, headed up the twelve-mile course.

Suddenly, Thompson realized that a tube feeding oxygen to his mask had snapped loose from the tank. Without oxygen, Thompson knew he might soon be overcome by engine fumes produced by his exotic fuel—alcohol mixed with nitromethane. Thompson briefly debated releasing the twin parachutes that slow Challenger I. But the rain clouds that could turn the course into a treacherous, uneven surface were already beginning to gather overhead. He decided to risk a last run for the record.

The sky-blue Challenger I was accelerating at 200 m.p.h., when Thompson tried to get some air by lifting the canopy with one hand. He could not keep it open. Gradually, the numbers on the mile markers began to blend before his eyes into a lulling blur. “That was the signal. ‘Boy, you’ve got to pop that chute,’ I said to myself. That’s all I remember.”

The chutes saved Thompson. When crew members finally drew up beside Challenger I and opened the cockpit hood, they found Thompson dazed and blank-eyed. Revived by oxygen, he staggered over to a truck and passed out again. Later, as he watched the pelting rains ruin the course for this year, Thompson vowed that in 1960 he would be back to get Challenger I up to 400 m.p.h. Said the nation’s hottest hot-rodder: “I still haven’t given this bus the full throttle.”