Auto Racing: Nightmare on the Flats

If Akron’s Art Arfons, 40, is not the luckiest man alive, he is certainly lucky to be alive. Three times in the last three years, Arfons has driven his jet-powered Green Monster to a new world’s land speed record on Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats — and each time he has narrowly escaped death when a rear tire exploded and the car went out of control. Last week Arfons was at Bonneville to regain the record he lost last year when Craig Breedlove clocked 600 m.p.h. in his own jet car, Spirit of America. Art was confident that he had licked Green Monster’s handling problems by adding a hydraulically operated “spoiler,” or fin, designed to counteract the torque overload that had caused the blowouts.

“It handles like a dream,” he reported, then chuckled, “or maybe I should say a nightmare.”

He was right the second time. “I’m going to stand on it today,” Arfons an nounced, as he climbed into ‘the tiny cockpit last week. Its J-79 engine shrieking, Monster lurched off down the straightaway toward the measured mile.

About 250 ft. from the start, Arfons “kicked in” the jet’s afterburner. At the first timing clock, he was doing 550 m.p.h. and accelerating fast.

At about 560 m.p.h., Monster suddenly lurched to the right and went air borne, cartwheeling end over end, leaving twisted bits of metal strewn over a mile of salt. Helicopter Pilot Robert Hosking was the first on the scene. “I didn’t think anybody could possibly be alive,” Hosking said later. “But then I saw an arm move.” Securely strapped into his fleece-lined welded-steel cockpit, which escaped serious damage (although the canopy was ripped off), Arfons was not only alive—except for some cuts and bruises, he was absolutely unhurt. Monster was a total write-off. Arfons was ready to try again. “I’ve got another engine at home,” he said.