Auto Racing: Bluebird to Happiness

When it comes to Fridays, Donald Campbell would rather not.

It was a Friday in 1960 on Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats when he climbed into his 4,250-h.p. Bluebird and became a helpless prisoner as the rocketing auto skidded out of control at 300 m.p.h., then literally took off and sailed nearly 1,000 ft. to crash in a pile of junk. By some miracle he escaped with minor in juries and resumed his attempts to beat the 394.2-m.p.h. record set by fellow Briton John Cobb in 1947. But understandably, Campbell became intensely superstitious. Fridays, he decided, were not his days.

Actually, hardly any day has been his day for quite a while. Determined to duplicate the feat of his famed father Sir Malcolm Campbell, fastest human on both land and water in the ’30s, Don ald built another gas-turbine Bluebird and moved his operation to the dry salt bed of Lake Eyre, South Australia.* But some bloody awful Aussie weather washed out any attempt at the land record in 1963. For the last three months, he has had little better luck. When it wasn’t raining at Lake Eyre, the wind was too high. But at 7 last Friday morning, the course was dry and the breezes died off to a barely safe 2 m.p.h. Everything else was right. Except Friday. “This is it,” said Campbell. Friday be damned.

Strapped and double-strapped into the cockpit, he roared down the course —and was almost immediately in trouble. Bluebird seemed to be weaving; cutting into the salt, the right rear tire started spitting rubber. Somehow, Campbell hung on, blistered through the measured mile in less than 9 sec. Quickly, he turned around and blurred down the mile in less than 9 sec. again. When he came to a halt, the right rear tread was completely gone. So was the old record. Visibly shaking from the night marish ride, Campbell heard the speed: 403.1 m.p.h.

It was the new official mark, but he was bitterly disappointed at not beating Californian Craig Breedlove, whose 407.4 m.p.h. is unofficial because none of the three wheels on his jet-powered craft is directly driven by the engine. Campbell thinks his Bluebird can top 450 m.p.h., and he plans to try again soon. Maybe even on a Friday.

*Donald already holds the speedboat record: 260.3 m.p.h., set in a jet-powered craft in 1959.