Craig Breedlove - The Spirit of America

welcome to Otto Radhika on speed hello I'm Bob Varsha in this episode of behind the headlights we'll look at the revolutionary jet-powered car spirit of America driven by ultimate speed pioneer Craig Breedlove Breedlove built spirits specifically to break the world land speed record on Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats in the 1960s it was an entirely new type of car 13,500 horsepower 38 feet long just three wheels and despite the title of our program spirit of America didn't even have headlights but it is one of the most important vehicles of the 20th century now while there were many obstacles along the way Craig Breedlove's innovative approach would propel him to become the fastest man on earth driving spirit of America Breedlove became the first person to average more than 400 500 and ultimately 600 miles per hour along the way Breedlove and spirit fought a series of fierce one-on-one battles with art our Fonz in his car the Green Monster it was a seesaw contest at more than 500 miles per hour and for a brief period in the mid 60s it captured the attention of the entire world and embodied the true spirit of America as the 1960s dawn people were dreaming big and dancing to the proof the fish and the twist the late 50s and early sixties were kind of a watershed time in American history why'd Eisenhower the oldest US president ever elected had given way to the youngest John Fitzgerald Kennedy the United States and the Soviet Union old war enemies for more than a decade began a battle for space exploration supremacy the satellite Sputnik was launched by the Soviets in 1957 they beat America again in 1961 by putting the first man in space the United States countered when John Glenn became the first man to orbit the Earth Kennedy inspired his fellow Americans to seek greater heights and so my fellow Americans ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country one of those inspired by JFK was an ambitious hot rodder from California named Craig Breedlove he was part of a small contingent of high-speed racers caught up in a fervor to travel faster on land than anyone had ever done before in a way was sort of a naive time for the country as well but a very optimistic time and no I guess you know we kind of thought we could do anything we certainly weren't rocket scientists we were hot rodders and we expressed our loyalty and emotion for the country and the best way we possibly could again American that time you see if he could think it you could build it and you could do it Breedlove dreamed of setting the ultimate land speed record he had some racing experience but he had no sponsorship and no money all he had was ambition he would be most identified with his own landmark innovation the jet-powered spirit of America spirit of America was powered by a jet engine from a military aircraft in that way it differed from virtually all of the cars that preceded it which were powered by aero engine monsters that were wheel driven it was an extremely heroic type and courageous thing for him to do in the 62 they were very much at the pushing edge of the envelope for experimentation Craig Breedlove was a fellow that was determined to break the record and in order to be that kind of person in order to expect to achieve your goal you had to be fearless and he truly was he was concerned more about his car than he was about his own personal safety I think he's a true American Hero because one he not only brought the world's land speed record back to the United States he did it because of what John Kennedy had said Craig Breedlove story is an inspiring example of how guts trepidation hard work and a little luck can triumph over seemingly insurmountable odds let's put it this way Craig Breedlove has crashed more times over 300 miles an hour than any other human being on earth and has never been hurt when you see him or meet him go rub his belly because he is the lucky Buddha of racing he just had the drive the incentive the intuitive knowledge to know that he could wanted to and could do it and he did [Music] this edition of behind the headlines tells the story of the pioneering car of its day the spirit of America and of Craig Breedlove a true American hero spirit of America was the first car that averaged over 400 miles an hour and over 500 miles an hour so it trim that does from those aspects I guess it was pretty rebel Craig Breedlove was born on March 23rd 1937 in Southern California he grew up in a show business atmosphere his father was a special-effects artist for several movie studios his mother danced professionally with the likes of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire however it was fast cars that would impress young Kraig God once I saw those midget auto racers I mean with all the paint jobs and chrome axles and you know heared the off the engine and and could smell the racing fuel for a kid growing up I mean it was like a magnet Southern California was a mecca for hot rodders enthusiasts took their cars to the high desert dry lakebeds north of LA to see how fast they could go Breedlove was one of those drivers at that time the official land speed record was 397 files per hour a mark that was set back in 1947 by Englishman John Cobb a bright-eyed teenaged Breedlove read about it in an encyclopedia and decided that his goal in life was to bring the record back to the United States even then his fellow classmates knew he was unique he was the building twin-engine flathead 34 Ford supercharged who at that time and the rest of us were just trying to keep our old Chevy is running of course he grew up in Southern California where hot-rodding grew up and most of his early runs were on the dry lake beds in Southern California and once a year they'd go to Bonneville for Speed weeks that was what we did all the time sit around us talk about cars and what we could do and how we can make the car go faster and our answers were just racing we had hot rods parked head to tail all around the school everybody had a hot rod and Craig started off you know with a so-called hot rod on the streets at 16 Breedlove got his first taste of speed in a sleek 1934 Ford coupe that topped 154 miles per hour in 1954 four years later at Utah's immense Bonneville Salt Flats driving a supercharged Oldsmobile engine streamliner Breedlove went 236 miles per hour but he became obsessed with setting a new ultimate land speed record he was such a prodigy at designing and racing cars he was so far above anything that leaves and imagine after considering a piston powered engine Craig realized he could get a lot more power for less money with jet propulsion having been at the tri-lakes and competing with his own lakester Craig Breedlove saw what the competition looked like and he knew that he needed something quite different to achieve his goal he bought a military Plus j-47 jet engine from an f-86 fighter plane for a mere $500 we frequently would take a Saturday and just cruise surplus ladies looking for stuff and when I thought a jet engine I didn't have $500 to buy it but I went to add Perkins who sponsored my coop and Tolan cadet I just I got a visit ended he had courage mechanical and fabrication skills and an inquisitive nature even more importantly Craig Breedlove had a brash blend of guts and gumption that would soon propel him to speeds never before achieved on land read loves quest for the land speed record would be no less dangerous than that of his predecessors it was always a risky undertaking that had caused numerous accidents and claimed many lives you know I mean you'd be insane if you didn't you didn't fear the car healthily and you know certainly give it a lot of respect and they give a land speed record assault is a measure of two of nature's most essential mr. means speed and time almost as soon as man had wheels he was obsessed with speed cars were not yet purpose-built for Speed Trials but that didn't stop adventurous drivers from trying to go as fast as possible the sensation of speed is only achieved by doing it and even the biggest roughest toughest beer-drinkin kind of guys will be reduced to tears when they try to explain it to you it's a it's a real personal thing but it's something else as Motor Vehicles multiplies speed became the benchmark of their performance and the land speed racer was a special breed of person I think you could call land speed record drivers and the people that helped engineer their cars true pioneers these are people that are out to explore the territory if you will that nobody's been to before they are so focused they're so single-minded in their pursuit everything else just falls by the wayside they want to go faster than any other human on the planet whatever the cost at the turn of the century the perils of driving fast were largely unknown doctors at the time were predicting that the human body could not tolerate a speed above 60 miles per hour because it wouldn't be able to breathe so takes a tremendous amount of courage to be facing that knowing that the medical community at halt says you're heading for certain death andrey ford was one of the first to establish a land speed record in 1904 on frozen Lake Sinclair in Michigan Ford reached a then incredible 91 miles per hour in a car called the arrow he was driving and they had a little chiller it wasn't a steering wheel and the person that was running the throttle was hanging on the chassis up by the motor when the car wasn't flying through the air it was skidding out of control and in fact the whole experience scared him so profoundly that later on in life he admitted the fact that after he drove that car that one record attempt he never had any interest in getting in another race car again and in fact didn't in 1924 LG horn stead turned one twenty four point one zero miles per hour in a Benz his speed was an average of two runs from then on all record speeds would be calculated that way the Brits attacked the land speed record with typical English bravado in 1925 Malcolm Campbell became the first driver to top 150 miles per hour the same year driving a car he called Babs Welshman Perry Thomas set a new world's record of 171 miles per hour a year later his car through a drive chain decapitating Thomas his beloved car was buried right on the beach there was no safety because they didn't consider they needed it and if they did what would they do if the car crash they figured they were going to die anyway it was inevitable at Daytona Beach Florida in 1928 Henry Seagrave became the first to top the 200 mile per hour barrier in his 1,000 horsepower Sunbeam as speeds rose so did the dangers but nothing stopped drivers from making land speed record attempts he thought doc way up down the beach that's camel and here he come to 240 miles an hour 300 miles per hour was the next barrier the short beach at Daytona was no longer suitable Malcolm Campbell ran almost every year at Daytona and he got up to 7i 245 miles an hour and determined that that just was not safe and then people searched out and found Bonneville which turned out to be the ideal course because it was just about limitless at the time at first Bonneville was so unknown even announcers had trouble pronouncing it Malcolm Campbell's relentless conquest of speed brings into the vast white salt flats of Bonneville Utah Bonneville sunrise was Daytona's sunset once Campbell brought the car took it off the trailer and went 300 miles an hour something that he had been trying to do desperately for years that set the tone in the case that made Bonneville arrive it was here in 1947 the John Cobb blasted across the salt flats at an average speed of 394 miles per hour his record would stand for many years until the spirit of America and Craig Breedlove arrived I could say if there was a common purpose that was certainly you know the perseverance and dedication to get the job done because everyone that I know that they were set the record has really gone through a lot to do in the early 1960s a new generation of land speed record challengers came onto the Bonneville scene it was Mickey Thompson who broke the 400 mile an hour barrier driving the Challenger one powered by four body he ate pushrod engines each producing 700 horsepower he reached an incredible speed of 406 miles an hour however because Thompson broke a driveshaft on his return pass he was not able to complete a second run and the record was not entered as official Donald Campbell Malcolm Campbell's son drove the Bluebird Proteus his first land speed record attempt almost cost him his life his car went off the black lines Bonneville course and crashed strewing bits and pieces including two wheels in its wake Campbell was hospitalized it was becoming more and more apparent the traditional wheel driven cars had reached their limit a seminal moment in the history of land speed racing came when dr. Nathan hostage became the first man to successfully race a jet-powered car a seven thousand horsepower j-47 turbojet engine powered his flying caduceus but a disappointing 331 miles per hour was the fastest speed he ever attained racers such as Ohio's art our Fonz and California's Craig Breedlove had their roots in traditional hot rodding but they believed the only way to break the ultimate land speed record and to achieve 400 plus mile an hour speeds was with the enormous power that could only be generated by jet propulsion our phones first jet car the Cyclops powered by a 5,000 pound thrust gej 47 turbo jet turned 343 miles per hour at Bonneville in 1962 experiencing earlier success land speed racing on the salt flats at Bonneville Breedlove became more serious about building a jet car Craig's idea was initially to take an old wing tank which was at that time predominantly what was used for streamliners at Bonneville and split it down the middle and stick a jet engine in between the two halves the first design I did was a four-wheel car it was similar to the way the Green Monster looked I mean it had a cockpit on one Seiden Anjan he came up with a crude sketch and called an old friend Craig came over my house one day with a brown paper roll of butcher paper and his arm there was a flat bottom thing with a jet engine in the middle and they had just captured my imagination right away and I've known Craig since were four years old so I couldn't possibly turn him down you know now came the hard part trying to acquire major sponsorship and hits hundreds of thousands of dollars from the time that the spirit first ran I mean virtually everything from that point on have been shadow or rocket although he was only 23 years old and had no public relations experience Craig Breedlove's jet car presentation impressed the top brass at shale oil and at the Goodyear Tire Company Craig Gunn had picked up the telephone and called Russell DeYoung who's chairman of the board and got an appointment with him and he showed up with his Craig said the only t-shirt he had without writing on it and a model of the of the spirit of merit of America tucked under his arm it was an ideal package as for us from what I can see for shells sake Goodyear for everybody involved he had charisma he had the magnetism these he looks like Hollywood star what followed for Breedlove and his old high school buddies was an arduous task and a new for a building a jet car he was living at home and when he did is took his parents garage and you know not got the back and I kind of hunter clicked garage he built it basically in his background true as the project was funded he had help but in the early days he literally did everything himself there were more than 100 Windtunnel tests performed primarily to determine such things as the shape of the nose if wrongly designed the nose could acquire lift and raise the front end off the ground at high speed with the rounded small tubular dislodge would have a flat belly for the error to one lift it as it increased in speed a lot of the ideas in the input came from the aircraft industry and it really it's a it's an aircraft without wings it was probably one of the first cars in Motorsports to actually have onboard data acquisition the design of the car was spectacular just from looking at the model and then when he got the original one done everybody was astounded the car was 38 feet long and nobody had ever seen a race car of that proportion it's a car believe it or not in Los Angeles Craig Breedlove unveiled the spirit of America is Jeff Morris freewheel streamliner designed to go 500 miles an hour or more Breedlove will attempt to cutter's the Lake John Cobb 15 year old mark of 394 miles an hour and bring home for America the world land speed record all of our guys with you Greg good luck the spirit of America made its debut at the Bonneville Salt Flats in the summer of 1962 but a handling issue derailed their attempts at capturing the land speed record the first time he took the thing out without a tail it was a horrific ly uncontrollable thing scared the daylights out of them they didn't have the vertical fin on the car at the time in the front the concept was that the front wheel would not steer it was six Breedlove had the idea of sharing it like a tractor with the brakes well that doesn't work because the power was so great today just burn the disc brake up completely the rear brake thing was really a nightmare I mean it's kind of like trying to drive a caterpillar Tractor breaking the one side or the other side for a speed record they didn't make any official runs that first year and we went back to the wind tunnel and developed a vertical stabilizer to keep the back of the car stable and and they engineered a steerable front wheel one thing that stood out on Breedlove's car was its wheels it had only three the FIA the sanctioning body from speed records they had some trouble qualifying it as an automobile its tires were also unique the greatest enemy of any racing tire is heat buildup and the thicker the the tires and the more eat that it keeps inside so ties were very thin in those tires they use nitrogen instead of regular pair you get out of the pump because that air has moisture in it and at those speeds it gets to throwing that moisture around in it because it's an imbalance the single front wheel was partly recessed into the nose the intakes for the j-47 were on both sides and a driver sat in an extremely small enclosed cockpit above them the backyard venture that had begun two years before was now a reality the spirit of America was a thing of beauty it weighed nearly three tonnes stood six feet two inches at the top of the cockpit canopy was 38 feet long and 11 feet wide when we rolled the car out in the driveway and out into the street on a trailer people were just gathering friend cars rossabi because it was on the Main streets of over to Volvo and cars were stopping what I had got had you know something like their private jet playing in the backyard I don't think so as dawn broke on the morning of August 5th 1963 Craig Norman breed lumps aptly named spirit of America was attempting to bring the land speed record back to the United States after a 36 year absence it seemed like you know everyone had followed Mickey's lead Mickey Thompson was first and you know he made a big splash he got a lot of attention with a challenger and it really brought a lot of focus to bear on the unlimited speed record and the fact that the United States hadn't held in so many years from a crude pencil sketch to the technologically advanced finished product the intricate vehicle called spirit of America had been years in the making now at 6:30 a.m. on August 5th 1963 the moment of truth had finally arrived for 26 year old Craig Breedlove he and his spirit of America were poised for a run at John Cobb 16 year old record on the Bonneville Salt Flats wide shedder who was the West Coast public relations guy from Goodyear said boy it's been 16 years since Cobb set this record in it it's been 37 years since America's held the record and we've had two guys killed out here in the last three years trying to do this and this was going to happen I mean we're really close the car was very well prepared the salt was incredibly well prepared we were meticulous about preparing the salt I can't tell you how many times our teams and volunteer teams walk the 15 miles picking up debris that was coming up out of salt for its initial run the car moved slowly at first then sped away as it's hot gases bit the salt was bumpy but it was through its first mile in less than nine seconds Breedlove cut his motor the to drag chutes blew out and the spirit of America had hit 388 miles per hour on its first run it was still six miles shy of John Cobbs 1947 mark in order to break the record the spirit of America would have to go well over 400 miles per hour on its return run more than second pass Breedlove took the j-47 engine up to 95 percent and sped down the Bonneville horizon the blue and white projectile flew across the salt flats and into the history books but Raleigh never announced the times Joe Joe patrolling the USAC timer he would always get the information from his clocks and then he would write it on a piece of paper and he come up to you and he'd just hand you this piece of paper and you'd open it up and see what your speed was Breedlove speed through the return run was a shattering 428 miles per hour making his average speed 407 despite that the FIA recognized it as a motorcycle because of its three wheels Craig Breedlove and the spirit of America had driven faster than anyone else ever had was a enormous emotional release for me we had really been on the edge trying to get to that point and and there was an enormous celebration once word got out Breedlove became an instant celebrity he was swept off on a whirlwind 38 city tour in 45 days the quiet kid from Mar Vista California had achieved the cult status of a movie star I was a whisked off to New York for press conferences and and you know television shows and stuff like that which was all new to me I mean I'm some kid out of Venice high school machine shopping look you know he hadn't been many places and I took him on a nationwide tour we had just about every major city in the country and Craig was so good on camera but when we first started the only thing he knew to order from the menu was either steak or spaghetti but the time we got back he could master any wine list of any restaurant in the country I mean he was a connoisseur of everything by then Craig Breedlove soared into the national and world spotlight when his spirit of America became the fastest land speed vehicle ever at 407 miles per hour however a year later challengers quickly arrived on the bonneville scene first Tom Green drove a jet-powered four-wheeler called wing foot Express to 413 miles per hour three days later our dar Fonz massive Green Monster shattered Green's mark at 434 miles an hour and only eight days passed before Breedlove got the record back at 468 miles an hour the goal is to be the fastest car at the end of the season when the salt flats become watery and unusable Breedlove had some time left and decided to take advantage of it and push the boundaries of speed racing even further two days later he would attempt to reach a magical milestone 500 miles per hour Breedlove blasted to a monumental 513 miles per hour on his first run then spirit of America was on its way to an even faster time on the return pass unexpectedly the car rocketed past the marker at the end of the measured mile here on ternoon iran for you and i got no shoot i thought oh man you know so then I punched the button a few times again I thought well you know already heard the thing explode he pushes the button for those parachutes weren't designed to to be deployed at over 400 miles an hour there's a braking system that was supposed to be used in a slowdown before any of that was employed when the shoes hit they delaminated and literally tore themselves to pieces and where we'd normally come coasting to a stop and Greg would throw the canopy open and hop out triumphantly he went by there at 500 miles an hour car honking Magoo I knew you know I had I had to think I had to figure out my option and I was going as fast chasing then at 60co and I remember seeing the car get smaller and smaller and smaller as he tried to lift the car you know in a wide loop he landed up taking out a couple of telephone poles pretty soon you run out of room and then there's a big Dyke that they had built up assault the car won't climb the side of the bank and it just level down and it was just flying like an airplane when that car was in the air but it was flying after it hit the salt Dyke Brina I had the presence of mind enough to open the latches and let the air take the canopy off and then I slid both hands under my shoulder harness over my stomach and held my stomach and waited for the impact of the water it could have been a disaster if if that water had not been there or that berm had not been there because he was headed right for the railroad tracks that ran adjacent to the salt flats and of course there was a freight train coming the car hit one time and it sort of skipped like a stone and then the second time the water grabbed it I mean it just pulled it in and next thing I knew I was submerged basically in the car everybody involved was running as fast as they could I don't think anybody left that he had a chance of surviving we were 10 miles an hour away or miles away when he was in the ditch so he had to take care of himself get help I figured you know is likely the end of my life and and no one had put me there but me had he been dazed or unconscious it would have been duck anyway I was pretty pretty happy to swim out of the thing and be in one piece just want to know how fast we win well I was really glad to see him walking and talking things about the third guy to him and he says well I brought my racer Roger Dodger and he was a racer you know that's the difference in the race or not a guy got in the car we break the record guys what was the time Craig Breedlove was the survivor of a harrowing encounter with death he had set a new land speed record of 526 miles per hour equal to the cruising speeds of the latest jet airliners however as fate would have it is archrival from Akron Ohio wouldn't let the record stand for long every run that you make I mean in an experimental vehicle I mean you're not too sure what it's going to do and so I've always you know approached the run like you know you got probably a 50/50 shot anyway that you're going to be okay and you you're committed at that point and you you know I don't really don't think about it that much you know I guess 90% is showing up when his spirit of America climbed past the 500 mile an hour barrier Craig Breedlove had set the land speed racing bar even higher Breedlove fortunately survived the hairy crash that almost took his life but that violent wreck into the salt brine put his spirit of America out of service two weeks later our dar funds and his Green Monster were quick to take advantage of the remaining time left in the Bonneville season art came back and broke my 526 record that's what the record was that day he had run 536 and so I needed a new car 1964 ended with our funds and Green Monster holding the record and Breedlove without an operating Racer the Breedlove team would have to act immediately to get ready for 1965 it was a brisk pace that produced the new spirit of America named the Sonic 1 the first spirit of America took took three almost three and a half years the Sonic 1 car we were required to complete that car in seven months and running we worked seven days a week and I mean just outrageous hours it was an enormous effort enormous effort we were in the cordoned off area when the Watts Riots happened so things were really scary around there we bought shotguns and got up on the roof you know to keep our bowling hukum Bird down we definitely wanted to protect that car because you know we've been working so hard on it Sonic 1 was now on an even par with our funds and Green Monster he too had a j79 engine with over 17,000 pounds of thrust and single disc brakes designed to stop from 200 miles per hour the body was topped with the usual high tail fin but its nose tapered to a needle sharp point the cars designer did the nickname the coca-cola bottle but it was superbly filled he got a bigger engine and got a bigger car and this monstrous almost immediately was over 500 backward in the first car it had to work hard to get up to that being right next to it he's like watching the space shuttle League I mean it would blow big giant chunks on the ground Lena Breedlove raced the car to a new record of 555 miles an hour on November 2nd 1965 in his usual style our Fonz came right back on November 7th to top that Park at 576 here were two drivers in their prime battling back and forth for the ultimate land speed record was almost like a basketball game you know where one team would score and another team would score and it was back and forth it seemed almost crazy at the time those guys were trading the records back and forth three and four times a year for several years Wow six days later not to be outdone and once again hoping to close out the year with the record breed loved once again reached another pinnacle while the car was buffeting fiercely and the nose trying to lift it off the ground Breedlove and the car set an astonishing record of over 600 miles per hour he was like a kid with a new toy he was just going on and on and on how fast the car was going but he said the car had a digital's the owner and he says I couldn't see this we'd all mark it was going so fast on the 608 mile an hour run we had absolutely zero weight on the front wheels of the car we looked at the the recorders afterwards and just just shook our head because we were just like right on the verge of flying John Cobbs land speed record had stood for 16 years but between 1963 and 65 the mark was shattered 11 times in 28 months the record rose over 200 miles per hour this unique period in land speed racing would soon end but the Breedlove orphans rivalry would hold a special place in the annals of world record-breaking automobiles have a lot of respect for art and of course I've known him for years and and been a you know son's competitor of arts but you know he's a great guy and he's achieved marvelous thing his name now carved in land-speed history as the first man to cross the 600 mile an hour barrier Craig Breedlove had escaped the fate of many of his predecessors things were so rosy at the Breedlove household that his wife Lee even set a speed record for women at 308 miles per hour driving sonic one in 1965 she probably could have gone faster I mean it's just that there was no reason to she already had the record and they're just just additional risk and you learn in this business sometimes you're better off this stuff while your head unfortunately the breedlove luck soon ran out he lost his American Motors contract and a storm flooded his workshop destroying virtually everything he owned and regrettably he lost his land speed title when Gary gavel each went 622 miles per hour in 1970 but in 1996 in his late 50s Craig Breedlove would emerge again when you participate in something as intense as an unlimited speed record effort most of life's pursuits after you do something like that are relatively mundane this time in his newest spirit of America the sonic arrow Breedlove attempted to set a supersonic record at an estimated 675 miles per hour the spirits left rear wheel of roughly lifted sending the rocket car into a lurid skid carving a 180-degree arc across the desert surface I mean I was way too hot I would have gone supersonic on the run and I was just you know going to have to come out of burner in the middle of a measured mile and right then the I got hit hit by a the wind shear and I corrected for the car rolled on its side miraculously once again Breedlove survived the land speed record did not Andy green blasted to the world's first official supersonic land speed record a mind-blowing 763 miles per hour in 1997 while Breedlove has never been a man to shrink from a challenge today his third-generation spirit of America sonic arrow is silent waiting for sponsorship I wouldn't count him out he's shown a great deal of tenacity a great deal of fortitude and a great deal of creativity the at his age I think he'd still do it his reflexes are just phenomenal you know part of me feels like I could probably do it if I had to but the other part of me tells me you know that that the perception of an even of a 67 year old guy doing this was ridiculous and certainly I've had my day in the Sun he and the innovative vehicle represent a special time and a remarkable era it was an amazing thing that he had done the Beach Boys for pete's sake wrote a song about Breedlove it was a big deal and he was quite famous and still is most people know who Greg Breedlove is I wouldn't accomplish my own personal goals if I hadn't been inspired by crack one thing about Breedlove all his cars were so immaculate and so clean and pristine and it just real works of art in themselves it was probably one of the most Trillian projects that I was ever involved in that unsuspected it would be we all did it was just or inspire in every way the spirit of America and its fearless driver will always be remembered as the car and the man that changed racing history the quest for the land speed record is one of the last true amateur endeavors drivers receive no purse for breaking the record so accordingly Craig Breedlove takes no salary and he's put a large share of his own money into his latest jet car spirit of America 3 Craig Breedlove and spirit of America are inextricably intertwined whether or not Breedlove and his newest spirit succeed in breaking the sound barrier and ultimately setting a new world land speed record is yet to be determined but their legacy is secure for 40 years the names Craig Breedlove and spirit of America have been synonymous with speed and the achievement of the supposedly unattainable hopes of mankind I'm Bob Varsha I hope you've enjoyed this episode of behind the headlights join me again soon for another story of an extraordinary automobile [Music]

Channel: HODIUSDUDE

Views: 21,369

Rating: 4.8249998 out of 5

Keywords: Behind the Headlights, Speed TV, Speedvision, Craig Breedlove, Spirit of America, Land Speed Records, USAC, Bob Varsha

Id: OOAJadgCmn8

Length: 43min 2sec (2582 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 06 2017