Speed Week & Danny Thompson

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05snopro440

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Joined
Sep 18, 2012
Messages
5,141
Location
Sherwood Park, Alberta
Is anyone following Speed Week?

Danny Thompson has Challenger 2 there, it's the 50th anniversary of the car running at Bonneville (Mickey Thompson first took it to Bonneville 50 years ago). In 2016 he set a record at 406mph. Yesterday his first run off the trailer was 446mph, and this morning I was listening to the live stream as he ran a 450 mph backup to yesterday's pass. That means the record in AA/FS is now 448.757 mph, and Challenger 2 is the world's fastest piston powered vehicle! On both runs he had to be out of it at some point, so I would believe there's still some left in it.

The last photo is from 2016, all the others are from the last two days.

More reading here: https://jalopnik.com/danny-thompsons-challenger-ii-set-the-piston-driven-lan-1828282279

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We need live streaming and/or television coverage.

Congratulations to Danny, though I find it odd he removed his father's name from the car.

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Good for the Thompson family that this record was achieved. Tragic the way Mickey died.

I agree Bob, a nice closeout to his dad's mission 50 years before. It was an a very tragic end to Mickey's life.

We need live streaming and/or television coverage.

Congratulations to Danny, though I find it odd he removed his father's name from the car.

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Maybe for copyright purposes? I don't know why but he did also make a lot of changes and updates to the car.

Appreciate the details Snopro. Great stuff! [cl

Glad you enjoyed it :cool:

Engines didn't even sound like they were breathing hard.

No they really didn't. Although they were in that 7000+ RPM range. Some people think driving a car straight at speed is easy, that video proves otherwise (he was nearly lock to lock on the steering near the end).
 
I had to calculate from mph to kmh twice to make sure it was correct.... holy moly thats fast :eek:

You're not kidding! Speed Demon (George Poteet) ran 452 MPH yesterday and need to back it up for a record today. They're in a different class so different SCTA record but could still be the fastest piston-powered vehicle again.

And Team Vesco ran 463 mph in the turbinator, which is currently the fastest wheel driven vehicle and may be bumping that up if they can back up their run this morning. Some fast players there this year! Lots of other records are being broken because of the great salt conditions.
 

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