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We’re one day closer to the official opening of Bonneville Speedweek, and as promised, we have another teaser video in store for you featuring Danny Thompson’s historic Challenger II streamliner that he’ll attempt to break the all-time wheel-driven land speed record with in a week’s time.
[2]The mission for the Challenger II project, like all competitors who visit the famous salt flats in Utah, is all-out speed. But for Thompson, it’s much more than that, as he aims to see through what his father set out to accomplish more than 40 years ago with they very same car: to exceed the magical 400 mile per hour barrier with the wheel-driven machine featuring piston-powered engines and take home the record.
Of course, Thompson and his team, which includes more than 20 individuals handling everything needed for an effort of this scale, from engineering and fabrication to press and hospitality, will have their sights set well beyond the 400 mile per hour mark, as the current world land speed record for a wheel-driven machine stands at 462 miles per hour.
Standing in their way will be not only the unruly elements of Bonneville, but eight other combatants all searching for the very same record. But perhaps no one is more driven to bring home the record than Thompson, who is hungry to see to fruition the dream his father worked so hard to achieve in 1968.
Photography by Holly Martin