Landracing Forum
Thrust-powered Land Speed information => Discussions on absolute land speed records => Topic started by: TrickyDicky on April 14, 2014, 12:52:35 PM
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... Donald Campbell set the land speed record for 4-wheeled vehicles at 403.1 mph*.
Is nothing happening today to celebrate this anniversary? :-o
* According to the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). :-D
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World's fastest Winnie the Pooh!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqvpcX4HoCg
* According to the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). :-D
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I'm waaaaay more impressed with the hot rodders who have followed and achieved comparable or better speeds than some wealthy Brit with major government and industrial support.
Pete
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Thanks for pointing this out! By coincidence I'm (re-)reading "Bluebird & The Dead Lake", which I think is a very interesting telling of the 1963 & 1964 Lake Eyre attempts. An extremely isolated and harsh environment, no question.
I did not check the FIA site but most other sites seem to think the record was set in July of '64.
Last, after the Bonneville crash the rebuild of the car and the subsequent expedition to Lake Eyre was financed by Campbell - as described in the book, anyway.
Tim
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I don't think we've come very far at all considering John Cobb had actually run over 400mph in 1939.
Sid.
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I don't think we've come very far at all considering John Cobb had actually run over 400mph in 1939.
Sid.
1947. But still a long time ago.
From a pedant.
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I did not check the FIA site but most other sites seem to think the record was set in July of '64.
The FIA are the definitive source. If they say it was 14 April, it was 14 April. Even if it was 17 July.
How do we know what really happened in 1964?
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On the correct date there will be an event at Brooklands to remember the first leg of the "double" from 50 years ago - 17th July. This will also see the launch of a book on Malcolm & Donald compiled and created by David de Lara.
There is a dinner at the National Motor Museum Beaulieu on the 19th. with Tonia Bern-Campbell.
In Australia there are events up to 31st December, when Donald broke the water speed record to take the FIA wheeldriven record (they had no thrust powered class until '65) and the UIM Outright water record.
Donald was not 'rich' in the sense of having abundant personal funds but he did get British industry to back the creation of Bluebird CN7 (designed by Ken Norris), much as Ricjhard Noble has done with the various Thrust and SSC projects.
Having crashed at Bonneville in '60 Donald had no interest in returning to the US salt so went to Australia in '63 and '64 and found water on Lake Eyre hence speeds even a year later well below the potential of CN7 (500 mph).
Was Donald a hot rodder? I think he and Mickey T got along comparing backgrounds, he was an engineer after all not a fur trader or insurance broker.
Let's not waste some band width trying to define a 'hot rodder' when talking about land speed racing and outright land speed records? How would you describe Mike Akatiff and Denis Manning and Danny Thompson and Ron Main and ....... :evil:
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I should have pointed out that there could be transatlantic banter as to whether Donald held an 'absolute land speed record' or just an automobile record. :|
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It really is the 50th anniversary today. There's a good article summarising all the important facts here:
http://www.news.com.au/national/speed-ace-donald-campbells-bluebird-landspeed-record-at-lake-eyre-turns-50-today/story-e6frfkp9-1226992390819?from=public_rss
I remain bemused that the FIA has the date wrong (14 April vs 17 July). My personal theory is that it is caused by someone French handwriting the date and it being misread by someone else (i.e. conceivably a French '7' could be interpreted as a '4'). But who knows?
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Having dealt extensively with the FIA over the last 2 or 3 months, I can tell you there are dozens of anomalies (i.e. stuffups) in that record list, and the further you go back in time, the less likely you are to find answers! I think there was some good wine out of Bordeaux in the 1980's, for instance, because le memoirs go blank for long periods.
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I believe I detected a little Canadian wine earlier in this thread. :-D
Sid.
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Not really. I'm just way more impressed with the much more independent North Americans, Australians,Kiwis, etc. who have done it much more on their own instead of enlisting major help from government and industry. :-D :-D :-D
Pete
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Having dealt extensively with the FIA over the last 2 or 3 months, I can tell you there are dozens of anomalies (i.e. stuffups) in that record list, and the further you go back in time, the less likely you are to find answers! ...
Would you care to share some of those anomalies? Are there records you are chasing that you suspect are not correctly recorded?
What I don't understand is the apparent reluctance to correct glaring errors. This is supposed to be the World governing body. Any information they publish should be double checked and then checked again. And if there are still errors (clerical or otherwise) they should be big enough to admit it and publish corrections.
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its possible that they would correct inaccuracies...for a fee...obviously its not important enough, or things would
be different...
the LSR side of FIA and FIM is obviously not a priority that they are passionate enough about to keep in the highest regard...
the "tradition" speaks for itself...
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A short movie...www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-28308872 (http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-28308872)