Woman Record, did Kitty set records, Jessie Combs....the whole story is a little bit complex....
Dick wrote about Lee Breedlove...
actually, the whole woman record pain starts in 1964, Lee Breedlove run in 1965...
during the 1964 season Firestone and Goodyear had booked the salt for mostly a week to set records...
here, in 1964, Art Arfons, Walt Arfons (Tom Green) and Craig Breedlove...
the contract was that way....when they had set the record and they didn't use the salt for more runs, the salt was open for the next competitor, albeit the time of the contract wasn't over...
so the teams from Walt and Art had there quartermiler jet cars also at the salt and sat some well known female racer into the jet cars and they drove a woman record, which was a idea of the advertisment departments of Goodyear and Firestone....great advertisment....also women can run fast with our rubber....
with this trick they took care that the competitors couldn't use the salt...
in 1965 it was than Craig Breedlove who used that trick....the only different....this time, his wife Lee, used the same jet car as he has used for his record...the Spirit of America Sonic 1...
this car finally was the first over 600 mph, Lee drove something over 300 mph....
and again the same B S...advertisment...also women....can....blabla....
from there on it was a while before the next fast woman showed up....
big different, she was really fast.....Kitty O'Neil....
there was a young guy named Billy Meyer....his father was the owner of SMI Motovation...
he had the idea to use a rocket car to became the fastest......name Aquaslide n Dive Special....another company of his dad....Bill Frederick got the order to build that car...when the car was nearly finish, Billy Boy had lost the interest...or better, he found out, that's a number to big...
so...there was a car and no driver....
and there was a stuntman with some money....Hal Needham.....he jumped in...and to get more sponsor money....they looked for a woman....
Kitty O'Neil was a well known and very popular stunt woman...and fast....and she brought some money, too
the car was called meanwhile SMI Motivator....
at first they tried the car at Bonneville which didn't work well out...
the team moved to Alvord Lake in Oregon....
but the SMI couldn't compete against the Blue Flame, who hold the record since 1970...now we had 1976....
as this car had only three wheels...it runs under FIM, like 1963, Craig Breedlove first Spirit of America as a tricyle with thrust power....SoA with jet....SMI with rocket....
so it was actually an open record.....
Why the official paper from Earl Flanders said....woman record flying kilometer....to today there is no information, why FIM used woman record....
well, the contract between Frederick/Needham and Kitty O'Neil, to Needham's opinion, just allowed her to run for a woman record.....
at first, Kitty set this 512 mph record, which could be certified as a new record, as it was an open record.....the next day, she was even faster and very close to the Blue Flame record...
when she was ready for the return run...a lawer of Needham showed up and done her out of the car....no new record...
the paper of the 512 mph record was signed by Earl Flanders, that everything was correct under the rules of the FIM....it was never certified as Frederick/Needham never paid the FIM.....and so it never found his way into the FIM record book
in 1977 Needham tried to run the SMI at Tonopah Dry Lake.....he never came close to the speed which Kitty reached and finally he crashed the SMI....
Meanwhile, Kitty had set official records for the FIA record book....not over the flying mile, but standing speed records....with the big support of Ky Michaelson.....some of her records are still
stand....
and she run the original Hustler, now called Captain Crazy, of Lee Taylor...Taylor had the water speed record from 1967 to 1977 with the Hustler....to today, Kitty is the 4th fastest person on water.
well, and now here is Jessi Combs....
Ed Shadle's idea was always to get more publicity and sponsors for the NAE project let a woman running the NAE, too....
there were several women before Jessi sat in the NAE...but not one of the other women every drove...some of them where unfortunately killed by a other motorsport/flight activity....or stepped back from the idea....
the NAE was a jet car, using a F104 Starfighter as base, with five wheels....Ed tried to run him with three wheels, but this didn't worked out....if he had the idea to break Craig Breedlove SoA three wheeler record....don't know how that could be possible as this record was frozen since 1979....
anyway....the NAE and the SMI was two different organisation...SMI was FIM and NAE was FIA....
so, when Jessi starts she was actually only going for the fastest speed set by a woman....not to beat Kitty's Alvord record....which was only "certified" by the beer brewer book....
and Jessi had to go against the 512 mph two way speed....the speed which Kitty run a day later was official never shown.....
Jessi run in 2019 two way....with a 4 hour turnaround time.....I have no idea what the beer brewer got in thier rule book....but it wasn't FIA....and the NAE didn't match anymore to the
FIA safety requirements after January 2016.....
normally when Jessi run, the time trap was over the mile....Kitty, was over the kilo....the beer brewer came up with a kilo speed....wherever they got that timing....
the outcome of this woman record is well known....with a very sad end for Jessi...
what really happend or caused the incident, official we will never hear, as the the police found a reason, so that all involved parties could walk away without getting in trouble.....
Summary
Kitty O'Neil could be official in the FIM record book if there would have not been a male which hate to be beaten by a woman......as here the 512 mph was on an open record.....
and for Jessi....as there is no male/female record....in 2019 jet and rocket was faster than 600 mph.....tough to reach for the NAE......
so it was nothing more than a not existing woman.......B S.....or the idea from an advertisment guy.....
Dick, Thank you for that information.
When researching Kitty O'Neil all I found from multiple sources was that she was contracted to break the woman's world speed record.
What class did Lee Breedlove run in and who's record did she break?
Thanks, Don