Craig Breedlove obit

Craig Breedlove, First to Drive 500, 600 MPH, Dies at 86

Fearless All-American land-speed racer thrived when Bonneville was the land of speed dreams. 

He was not on the list.

Craig Breedlove, the Southern California hot rodder who assembled a team of engineers and street racers to bolt rocket engines onto wheels, hdied on April 4. He was 86.

Breedlove set records at more than 400, 500, and 600 mph in jet-powered cars running surplus fighter jet engines. For a three-year period from 1962 to 1965, Breedlove battled two other great land speed racers for glory on the Bonneville Salt Flats—Art Arfons and his brother Walt. Between the three of them the records were made, broken and set again.

Breedlove's final top speed record was a blistering 606.6 mph.

"He was an American treasure," said wife Yadira Breedlove. "Our hearts are heavy today letting him go, but we also acknowledge Craig's courage and bravery seeking motorsports honors for the United States of America. For decades, his deeds touched many, many people around the world.

"I shared my life with a wonderful man that I will always admire. He filled me with deep, abiding love. My intelligent, strong, happy, brave, humble husband saw life with great positivity and was always full of so many projects. For 20 years I have known joyful love, compicity, respect, and learned so much by his side. He will forever stay in my heart."

While subsequent projects by other racers raised the land speed record to over 700 mph, and broke the speed of sound doing so, there may never be another time so freewheeling and downright amazing as those years in the early ‘60s on the Bonneville Salt Flats.

Breedlove started out as a hot rodder and lakes racer in Southern California. He bought his first car at age 13, a deuce coupe.

By the time he was legally allowed to drive he had a ’34, which he piloted to 154 mph running on alcohol fuel on the dry lakes. By age 20 he was driving an Oldsmobile-powered belly tank at Bonneville to a record 236 mph.

He worked at Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica as a technician in structural engineering. From that background a future in land speed racing was only natural. In 1959 he bought a surplus J-47 jet engine and got to work on what would be called Spirit of America.

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In Spirit, Breedlove clocked 407 at Bonneville to set a new record for land speed racing. From there the record ping-ponged between Breedlove, Walt Arfons (with driver Tom Green) and Art Arfons (who drove himself). Green hit 413 at Bonneville in February 1964, Art Arfons went 434 in May, Breedlove went 468, then 500 and finally 526.

It was on that last run that Breedlove lost both parachutes and all brakes on the car. He careened down the flats unable to stop, scissoring telephone poles along the salt, hit a bump and flew through the air, finally landing nose-first in a salt pond and swimming for his life. When his crew finally reached him they feared the worst, but there was Breedlove, dancing along the dike, saying, “For my next trick, I’ll set myself on fire!”

Soon after that, of course, Art Arfons went 536. Breedlove responded by going over 600 mph, setting his final record at 600.6 mph.

It was a glorious time in motorsports, and one that will never be repeated. Breedlove came back at various times over the years with new cars, most notably with a Shell-sponsored rig that took him to almost 700 mph. Other racers came and went: Gary Gabelich went 636 at Bonneville, stunt man Stan Barrett went 739, and Englishman Richard Noble went 633 followed by fellow Brit Andy Green at 763.035.

But none could compare to the handsome American hero Breedlove. His records, and the time in which he set them, will remain unmatched in motorsports history.

Breedlove was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1993, the Dry Lakes Racing hall of Fame in 1995, International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2000, and the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2009.