Land speed record

The first regulator was the Automobile Club de France, which proclaimed itself arbiter of the record in about 1902.[7]

Ralph DePalma in his Packard '905' Special at Daytona Beach in 1919

The White Triplex in 1928, driven by Ray Keech

Until 1903, trains held the land speed record for fastest vehicles in which people could travel.[8]

Different clubs had different standards and did not always recognize the same world records[9] 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.[10] National or regional auto clubs (such as AAA and SCTA) had to be AIACR members to ensure records would be recognized.[11] 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.[12] 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.

Dorothy Levitt, in a 19 kW (26 hp) 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.[13]

In 1906, Dorothy Levitt broke the women's world speed record for the flying kilometer, recording a speed of 154 km/h (96 mph) and receiving the sobriquet the "Fastest Girl on Earth". She drove a six-cylinder Napier motorcar, a 75 kW (100 hp) development of the K5, in a speed trial in Blackpool.[14][15][16]

in 1963, Paula Murphy drove a Studebaker Avanti to 262 km/h (163 mph) at the Bonneville Salt Flats as part of Andy Granatelli's attempt on the overall record.[13] In 1964, she was asked by the tire company Goodyear to try to improve her own record, which she raised to 364.31 km/h (226.37 mph) in Walt Arfons's jet dragster Avenger.[13][17] 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 446.63 km/h (277.52 mph) in September 1965.[13]

Five weeks later, Goodyear hit back against Firestone with Lee Breedlove.[13] While recordkeeping has not been as extensive, a report in 1974 confirmed that a record was held by Lee Breedlove, the wife of then overall record holder Craig Breedlove, who piloted her husband's Spirit of America – Sonic I to a record 496.492 km/h (308.506 mph) in 1965.[18] 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.[19]

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.[20] 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 825.127 km/h (512.710 mph).[21][22]

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 632.40 km/h (392.954 mph), surpassing Breedlove's 48-year-old record.[23] 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.[24] 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 841.338 km/h (522.783 mph), noting she was the first to break the record in 40 years.[25]

• List of vehicle speed records
• British land speed record
• Production car speed record
• Land speed record for rail vehicles
• Motorcycle land speed record
• Aero-engined car
• Pioneer 2M – Soviet Union attempt at the land speed record in early 1960s
• Budweiser Rocket – Claimed but not verified to have reached 739.666 miles per hour (1,190.377 km/h) and to have broken the sound barrier in 1979
• North American Eagle Project – Aiming for 808 mph (1,300 km/h), the project was abandoned after one of its drivers was killed in the car.
• Bloodhound LSR – Project aiming for 1,050 mph (1,690 km/h).
• Rosco McGlashan – Australia's fastest man on the land. His Aussie Invader team is building a fully rocket-powered LSR car with an attempt at the record currently on hold pending funding.[47]

• Autoracing Speed Records at Curlie
• Aussie Invader official website – 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