The land speed record is the highest speed achieved by a person using a vehicle on land. There is no single body for validation and regulation; in practice the Category C flying start regulations are used, officiated by regional or national organizations under the auspices of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile. The land speed record is standardized as the speed over a course of fixed length, averaged over two runs. Two runs are required in opposite directions within one hour, and a new record mark must exceed the previous one by at least one percent to be validated.
History
The first regulators were the Automobile Club de France, who proclaimed themselves arbiters of the record in about 1902. in his Packard '905' Special at Daytona Beach in 1919 Until 1903, trains held the land speed record for fastest vehicles in which people could travel. Different clubs had different standards and did not always recognize the same world records until 1924, when the Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus introduced new regulations: two passes in opposite directions averaged with a maximum of 30 minutes between runs, average gradient of the racing surface not more than 1 percent, timing gear accurate within 0.01sec, and cars must be wheel-driven. National or regional auto clubs had to be AIACR members to ensure records would be recognized. The AIACR became the FIA in 1947. Controversy arose in 1963: Spirit of America was not recognized due to its being a three-wheeler and not wheel-driven so the FIA introduced a special wheel-driven class. No holder of the absolute record since has been wheel-driven. In the U.S. & Australia, record runs are often done on salt flats, so the cars are often called salt cars.
In 1906 Dorothy Levitt broke the women's world speed record for the flying kilometer, recording a speed of 91 mph and receiving the sobriquet the "Fastest Girl on Earth". She drove a six-cylinder Napier motorcar, a 100 hp development of the K5, in a speed trial in Blackpool. While record keeping has not been as extensive, a report in 1974 confirmed that a subsequent record was held by Lee Breedlove, the wife of then overall record holder Craig Breedlove, who piloted her husband's Spirit of America - Sonic 1 to a record in 1965. According to author Rachel Kushner, Craig Breedlove had talked Lee into taking the car out for a record attempt in order to monopolize the salt flats for the day and block one of his competitors from making a record attempt. In 1976, the women's absolute record was set by Kitty O'Neil, in the jet-powered, three-wheeled SMI Motivator, at the Alvord Desert. Held back by her contract with a sponsor and using only 60 percent of her car's power, O'Neil reached. On October 9, 2013, driver Jessi Combs, in a vehicle of the North American Eagle Project running at the Alvord Desert, raised the women's four-wheel land speed class record with an official run of 398.954 mph, surpassing Breedlove's 48-year-old record. Combs continued with the North American Eagle Project, whose ongoing target is the overall land speed record; as part of that effort, Combs was killed, on August 27, 2019, during an attempt to raise the four-wheel record. In late June 2020, the Guinness Book of Records reclassified the 27 August 2019 speed runs as meeting its requirements, and Combs was credited with the record at, noting she was the first to break the record in 40 years.
Records
1898–1964 (wheel-driven)
1963–present (jet and rocket propulsion)
's mark of, set in Spirit of Americain September 1963, was initially considered unofficial. The vehicle breached the FIA regulations on two grounds: it had only three wheels, and it was not wheel-driven, since its jet engine did not supply power to its axles. Some time later, the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme created a non-wheel-driven category, and ratified Spirit of Americas time for this mark. On July 17, 1964, Donald Campbell's Bluebird CN7 posted a speed of on Lake Eyre, Australia. This became the official FIA LSR, although Campbell was disappointed not to have beaten Breedlove's time. In October, several four-wheel jet-cars surpassed the 1963 mark, but were eligible for neither FIA nor FIM ratification. The confusion of having three different LSRs lasted until December 11, 1964, when the FIA and FIM met in Paris and agreed to recognize as an absolute LSR the higher speed recorded by either body, by any vehicles running on wheels, whether wheel-driven or not.
