Spirit of Rett History: American Hot Rod Foundation

[4-barrel Mike]

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americanhotrodfoundation
After Earl Wooden crashed his Comp Coupe at over 300 mph he took some time off to repair himself. He then went looking for a new toy and ended up buying Howard Nafzger's streamliner built in ’99. After a rebuild that included a stretched chassis and insertion of a 523” D.R.C.E II Reher Morrison gas burner, it was entered at Speedweek in August 2004 as the Wooden/Vaughn entry. With Earl driving, he cruised across the salt at 346.880 mph. After backing up the run he had a new AA/Gas Unblown Gas Streamliner record of 344.085 mph and retired the Nish Motorsports record of 331.688 mph set in ’02. Not resting on his laurels Earl was back for the World Finals on October 15th and upped his record to 364.761 mph… but the car’s saga is not over.
Earl then retired and sold the car to Charles Nearburg who renamed the car “Spirit of Rett” then proceeded to hold all four fastest unblown streamliner records at the same with the car, A/FS 379.6 MPH, A/GS 353.825 MPH, AA/GS 368.136 MPH, AA/FS 392.503 MPH. In September 2010 he broke the Summers Brother’s 45-year-old National and International records set with the “Golden Rod” with a two way run of 414.40 mph. Then in 2011 set the FIA Category A, Group II, Class 10 record in the car at 366.59 MPH. ©AHRF/Louis Senter Collection (LSS_090) #AmericanHotRodFoundation

AHRF posts prolifically on Instagram.

Mike

[Rex Schimmer]

The "Spirit of Rett" has always been a fast and interesting car. When Charles Nearburg bought the car he did revise the front end configuration and also ran Reher Morrison engines and was very successful. If you look at the car it certainly appears that there could be room for an additional engine which could make it potentially a challenger to Danny Thompson's AA fuel record.
Nearburg is a pretty interesting guy as he has a number of very nice historic road racing cars, several being older F1 cars and he is pretty successful in the historic racing circles. I wonder if he is ever going to re-appear at the salt?

Rex

[Stan Back]

He held the AA/FS record with one engine.  And the AA/GS record, too.

[edinlr]

The last time I was at Reher Morrison I asked what the status was on the Spirit of Rett.  They told me that he had a different shop building a blown motor for a future attempt.  It should be fun to watch.  I guess I have to wonder why someone would want to complicate the package when you have a proven method with big Chevy motors and nitrous.  If a 532" isn't enough go 632", 762", 872", or their new 959" motor.