How Fast is Fast?
The news came over the internet on October 12. Using a car built specifically for the purpose by Dodge Motorsports Engineering and Arrington Racing Engines, driver Russ Wicks set a stock car world record of 244.9 miles per hour, which has been confirmed by Guinness World Records. The record was set on October 9 at the Bonneville Salt Flats, and the car is a 2007 Dodge Charger built to NASCAR specifications. This shattered Wicks’ previous world speed record in a NASCAR vehicle of 222 miles per hour. Incidently, Russ Wicks now holds records on both land and water.
Mopar has been running big numbers on sand for decades. There was Norm Thatcher and his blown machines in the 1960s. The Summers Brothers’ truly revolutionary streamliner, now enshrined in Dearborn at the Henry Ford Museum, used four Chrysler Hemis to boot the wheel-driven land speed record up over 409 mph in 1965. And, for stock car fans, nobody can forget the records set by Bobby Isaac in the K&K Daytona during the 1971 season. Bonneville is where most of these cars were used, though ultimate land speed efforts are now achieved by thrust-propped machinery, and at places even more deserted than the desert outside of Wendover, Utah. The record currently stands at a sonic-boom producing 763 mph, set by Andy Green in Richard Noble’s Thrust SST machine at Black Rock in 1997.
Most Mopar folks remain more interested in wheel-propelled efforts. Not many people are aware of it, but the 426 Hemi in its early development was pushed hard to attain record marks. Perhaps most overlooked was A.J. Foyt, a Dodge driver in 1964, who briefly drove the Hussein I Gran Prix car, a Hemi-powered monster based around a Cooper Monaco owned by oilman John Mecom. Backed by Zerex, the car reportedly proved to be ill-handling due to the big engine weight. Give Foyt the heads-up for being brave enough to even pilot this thing; at 1,820 pounds and a capability to hit 200 mph on 1964 vintage tires, it would have been a sphincter-tightening handful. For some additional info and shots, check out these images of the restored car. It's now residing in the museum at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Even earlier, Hemi power was a big deal. A Dodge Coronet broke 196 stock car records at Bonneville Salt Flats in 1953. When famed NASCAR builder Ray Nichels was garnering his early notoriety in open-wheel racing, he joined the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company as its chief mechanic for all race tire testing. Driver Sam Hanks teamed up with Nichols to set a new world's closed-course speed record at Chrysler Corporation's newly-built Chelsea, Michigan proving grounds in 1954, using the Hilborn injected, roller-cammed A311 331” Hemi race engine. Hanks went around the track at an average of 182.554 mph in a Kurtis-Kraft roadster that Nichels prepared with Chrysler Hemi motivation.
Chrysler had invited the top-four finishing drivers from that year's Indy 500 to this event; those drivers took their Offenhauser race cars for a wide-open spin on the highly banked 4.7-mile oval at speeds to 179 mph. After the A-311-powered tire-test car went 3 mph faster, Offy owners quickly lobbied the AAA Contest Board to cut displacement of the Hemi engine to 272 cu in. Though Chrysler shortened the A-311's stroke to meet spec for the 1955 season, the engine was no longer competitive.
In 1957, Nichels traveled to Monza, Italy on behalf of Firestone, and set a series of world speed records on the infamous track there, the world's highest-banked oval, with driver Pat O'Connor behind the wheel of the Chrysler Hemi-powered Kurtis-Kraft roadster. Ironically, Foyt would be driving USAC stockers for Nichols during the 1964 season when Hussein I made the rounds, and won the NASCAR Firecracker 400 in a Dodge at Daytona that summer.
And mentioning Daytona, steeped in history, it also saw records smashed by Mopars. In 1962, jack-of-all-trades Art Malone drove the "Osecki-Malone Special," a roadster powered by a supercharged Dodge 413-wedge to World's Closed Course Speed Record at Daytona International Speedway at 181.561 mph. That would stand until 1965, when Lee Roy Yarborough would try to break it in a blown ’65 Dodge Coronet during Chrysler’s boycott of the series; unofficially, that effort yielded a 184 time. Of course, it would later be Buddy Baker getting the accolades for topping 200 mph first on a closed course during a special run at Talledega in March of 1970, in the #88 Daytona.
So much for the past. In the meantime, with Wicks getting his numbers, the Mopar street reputation got a boost back in July when Karl Jacob decided to see what he could do using the new E85 methanol/ethanol blend in his reworked SRT10 Viper. The car, a 2005 model, was fitted with two intercooled turbochargers (cranking 15 pounds of boost during the record pass) and updating the fuel and engine management systems to work with the blend, which enhances horsepower but reduces fuel mileage.
Ron Misjak, Jr., of Chicago's Super Viper Systems (SVS), built and then drove the car to a truly jaw-dropping 220.7 mph speed in the standing mile (0-220) on a timed temporary course set up on an airport runway in Oscoda, Michigan. Jacob stated that the goal of this effort was not so much to gain notoriety as to show the viability of the E85 fuel program; the previous street record was a 217 mph blast from a Viper out of the Hennessey stables on high test gasoline. Click here to see some images of the record-setter.
Stunkard can be found here at MoparMax once a month, or all the time over at www.quartermilestones.com.
Whaddaya Think? Click here to write a comment! Close this box
