Photo: Speed Demon 715/Facebook
When you say Bonneville, you at once add salt flats, Speed Week and crazy vehicles, and the result usually brings up talk of land speed records. A new one has been posted by the Speed Demon 715 streamliner in the AA / BFS class for piston-powered cars – thus surpassing the 2018 land-speed record of Mickey Thompson’s son Danny in the 1968 Challenger 2 Streamliner.
Two years ago, Thompson was clocked at 448.757 mph to become the champion holder of the highest top speed achieved by a piston-driven vehicle. Even then, the Speed Demon 715 was its closest contender and now the team has managed to claim the title for themselves.
The new record speed stands at 470.733 mph and owner-driver George Poteet spared no time to announce on social media his new accomplishment. Of course, there is no need to be modest after achieving speeds akin to high-level flight level performance from commercial jet-engined aircraft!
By the way, if you think this is not for the faint of heart you need to consider that both Thompson and Poteet are quite sage already – the former was 69-years old when he set his average over two runs, while his rival is 71 right now.
At the time of the accomplishment the Speed Demon was equipped with a 555 cubic inch big-block Chevy powertrain featuring a couple of turbochargers – after they secured the record run the team turned to equip the Speed Demon 715 with a smaller 256 cubic inch engine to try and break the 348 mph E class record as well.
Unfortunately, it was not meant to be, and we cannot discuss two land speed world records belonging to the same car. This is because a technical problem (a flashing oil light warning) forced them to drop out after the first mile. Later they discovered an internal problem with the second engine and decided to retire instead of risking any further issues.
The new record speed stands at 470.733 mph and owner-driver George Poteet spared no time to announce on social media his new accomplishment. Of course, there is no need to be modest after achieving speeds akin to high-level flight level performance from commercial jet-engined aircraft!
By the way, if you think this is not for the faint of heart you need to consider that both Thompson and Poteet are quite sage already – the former was 69-years old when he set his average over two runs, while his rival is 71 right now.
At the time of the accomplishment the Speed Demon was equipped with a 555 cubic inch big-block Chevy powertrain featuring a couple of turbochargers – after they secured the record run the team turned to equip the Speed Demon 715 with a smaller 256 cubic inch engine to try and break the 348 mph E class record as well.
Unfortunately, it was not meant to be, and we cannot discuss two land speed world records belonging to the same car. This is because a technical problem (a flashing oil light warning) forced them to drop out after the first mile. Later they discovered an internal problem with the second engine and decided to retire instead of risking any further issues.
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