Criag embarks on the ride that made him, in 1964, the first man to travel over 500 MPH in a car
A shiver ran through me as I stepped into the cold predawn air at the motel. I had awakened more scared than usual that morning, and the feeling had stayed with me. It was usually gone by the time I got out of bed, but this morning it rode with me to the Salt Flats. It was October 15, 1964. The air was crisp and clear, and there was little wind. The season was nearing its end.
Most of the crew and the newsmen were already at the Flats when Nye and I arrived. There were the usual greetings: "How's everything?" "What's happening?" "How do you feel, Craig?" But I wasn't in a mood to be sociable--even to talk, for that matter. There had been complete silence in the car on the way to the course because I had the run on the rough salt on my mind--500 mph on the rough salt. Everybody was talking to me, and I muttered something noncommittal--"Fine," or something--and thought to myself, "I wish they'd just shut up and leave me alone so I can go out and do this."
We planned to use the same strategy as the day before. I would build up through the rough stuff on the first run and shut down in it on the way back. The car was ready at the south end of the course, and I walked over to it and mounted the ladder. I got in and rechecked the power setting. It was set at 97.5 percent power. I shivered again as I sat down. In the mornings the seat is always ice cold. The cockpit is stark.
I looked at my gloved hand. It was steady as a rock. My knees weren't shaking, but there was fear. It was an entirely different feeling from what I had experienced that time at El Mirage. Then it had been a fear of anticipation, of not really knowing what it's going to be like, a sort of nervousness. This time it was a fear for my life--and that's a lot different. I experienced a physical calmness, a strong, positive feeling, but I had a sensation new to me in the pit of my stomach--a tight feeling. I took a deep breath and felt a little better.
The routine process of getting the car ready momentarily took my mind off the fear. Each time I ran through the same checklist and flipped the same switches. It's like starting an airplane; you make doubly sure everything is ready. During the light-up procedure, you have to regulate the fuel pressure very carefully. It's a touchy situation, one that can easily be blown. If you flood the engine and blow the light-up, you have to wait 45 minutes for the next attempt at starting because of all the raw fuel in the chambers. And if you have to wait that long, you may have also blown the weather situation. So there's always pressure when you light the engine, but getting started is such a complicated process that I usually forget everything else. This time concentrating helped, but it didn't entirely eliminate my uneasiness. Still I was more settled and calm. As usual, I figured that I was committed.
With the engine started, I put my breathing mask on. Again everything was mechanical. There was a valve on the mask with which to adjust the flow of air, and I set it so that a little bit of oxygen was blowing on my face, even when I wasn't breathing. It cooled my mouth and my nose underneath the mask, and it was a refreshing feeling--a little like splashing my face with cold water. I felt a little sharper. I polished my goggles on the sleeve of my driving suit and looked at the windshield. It, of course, was clean, but I like to check everything.
The engine was idling. Everything was set to go. I looked at Nye and nodded, and he lowered the canopy. I pulled it down and jiggled it into place. I had sat in the car so often that putting the canopy on was like putting on an old jacket. I knew exactly how much to the right or left it had to be moved before the pins lined up and it dropped into place. Nye moved away and held up two fingers to remind me of the final two procedures: turn on the cameras that photograph the run, and turn on the electronic device--a photosensitive tape recorder that requires development of the tapeline film--that records the effects on the car, the pressure on the wheels, and the air speed. Both types of record are necessary for further developments of the car and for planning future LSR attempts.
I gave Nye the sign back, meaning, "Yeah, I remember," and planted two fingers on the respective switches. I was in go position. My hands held the wheel tightly, and my thumbs were right over the two parachute buttons mounted on the butterfly-type wheel--like gun buttons in World War II fighter planes.
I looked at the new foot throttle we had recently installed. Now, no matter what happened, I wouldn't have to take my hands off the wheel. The stop was set on the throttle, so all I had to do was slam the pedal down all the way and I would have the power setting we had planned on.
I took a deep breath and slammed the throttle to the floor. The car shot forward. It accelerated Swiftly, and I was already doing over 400 mph when I saw the rough stuff coming. I carefully maneuvered as far to the left side of the course as possible until I saw the marker for mile three flash by. Then I steered the car back to the right to avoid the next series of bumps. It bounced little, but nothing like the day before. Roland and his men had done a good job.
As the car approached the measured mile, it was really moving. The needle on the air-speed indicator was nearing 500 mph, and the car was streaking across the smooth salt like a comet. Clearing the second set of timing lights, I cut the engine.
Popping the chutes at such speeds is an unnerving experience. The deceleration forces from the fantastic speed affect your equilibrium in such a way that the earth seems to tilt. All of a sudden you seem, to be running straight down the side of a cliff. It's as if the earth really is flat and you've run right off the edge of it. Then, as the car slows down, the earth "rights itself' and everything is in proper alignment again, but for a moment or two you hang on to the wheel extra tight.
The Spirit came to an easy stop, and the crew and newsmen rushed over. Bill Fleming of ABC's "Wide World of Sports" ran over to me and asked how it had felt. I said, "I'm sorry, Bill, but I can't talk to you right now. I have another run to make before it's official. I'll be happy to talk to you at the other end." He understood, and I told the crew to get the car ready for the return.
Joe Petrali drove up and handed me the paper. I had made the world's first 500 mph run. The average speed was 513.33 mph. I remember thinking, "That's a lucky number; there are a lot of threes in it."
The crew rapidly refueled the car, repacked the chutes, and checked everything--car and tires and everything. Then when I was ready to relight the engine, I was even more nervous. I knew that if I blew it now, the whole run was down the drain because I would not be able to make the required second run within the one-hour time limit. In any case, before we started the procedure, I leaned forward, removed the stop on the throttle, and tossed it to Nye. He kissed it and put it in his pocket. The run would be at 100 percent power--flat out.
The engine started, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I left the starting line with a feeling of confidence and didn't anticipate any rough salt. I swept past mile two at 450 mph. And then it happened!
I heard a loud snap, and the car started pulling badly to the right. Frantically, I turned the wheel to the left. The car came back on course, but I had the steering wheel turned completely upside down. I didn't know whether to abort the run or to stay with it and hope for the best. I dimly realized that I must have lost one of the suspension bolts and that the front wheel was beginning to camber over. I was steering the car as if it were a motorcycle, and it was starting to lean. I could see the measured mile and I didn't know what to do, but I was moving so fast that I didn't have time to make a real decision, anyway. I was committed. I hadn't even taken my foot off the throttle. Then I was in the measured mile. All I could do was hang on to see if I could hack it through the timing lights.
The car started to lean more and more, getting off course again. I was convinced that it wasn't going to make the lights. In a flash I became afraid the car might hit one of the batteries used to power the lights; so I backed off the engine. The car immediately seemed to right itself; it was as if some kind of torque had been released, allowing it to go straight again.
Then it hit me that I could make the lights. I smashed down again on the throttle, and the engine caught and relit. With a big burst of speed, the car cleared the last marker under full power.
I glanced at my air speed. The needle was pointing to 550 mph. Great! But the most important thing, at that point, was getting the car shut down. I was praying when I cut the power and hit the first chute button. I heard it fire and felt a tug: I knew I had lost my chute. I tried to collect my thoughts and actually talked out loud to myself. "You're going too fast, you've got to slow down." Mile four went by. "Wait just one more mile." I saw the sign for mile three and fired the emergency chute button. The gun went off, the sound reverberating inside the cockpit like a cannon--and there was nothing. No tug, nothing. The emergency chute must have come out with the first one and have been ripped off with it. I punched the button again and again. "You heard the gun go off, dummy. It's not going to fire again."
I knew that if I stepped on the brakes at that speed, they would just burn out; they had been designed for stopping at speeds of 150 mph and less. I looked at the brake pedal and then at my air speed--the car was still going almost 500. I thought, "It's the only system you have left. If you don't step on the brakes now, it's going to be all over anyway." So I pressed the pedal. It smashed right to the floor. I pumped it again and again, and I could hear the sickening thud of the pedal hitting the metal floor. I had absolutely no brakes. I leaned back hard in the seat. I didn't know what to do, and I was still really traveling. I flashed by mile zero, where the car would normally have come to an easy stop. The crew and the newsmen stood by the marker, frozen in horror. I looked at my speed--420 mph--and I was at the end of the course. Beyond the zero marker lay rough salt, a row of telephone poles, a shallow lake, and a ten-foot-high salt dike that had been built when a drainage ditch had been dug across the south end of the Flats.
Andy Linden, the ex-Indy driver, had once said, when he told of his car spinning out at 170 mph at Monza, Italy, "You're apt to lose your balance if you step out at that speed." I could hear Andy's voice saying it as the rough salt loomed ahead.
There was nothing else left to look for outside. The markers were all gone; I would just have to ride it out. Suddenly, I seemed to have plenty of time. I looked at the roll bar and at all of the welds I had made in the car, and I remembered putting all of these things in. I glanced down at the instrument panel and remembered drilling the holes and mounting all of the instruments, forming all the metal support structures, and bending the windshield around. I looked at the padding put in to protect me, and I knew that I was trapped. I took a deep breath, and the oxygen rushed into my lungs. It was almost like being trapped in an iron lung.
I looked around the inside of my goggles and then refocused my eyes on the blue plexiglass of the windshield. I listened. The engine was shut down, and I could hear only the slamming and banging of the suspension as the car sped over the rough salt surface beneath it. I thought of the many times I had sat in the car. This was to be the last. I remembered all of the cars I had sat in and for a second thought of the black leather seats in the coupe. I distinctly remember asking myself: "What put me in this thing? Why am I here in the first place?"
I looked out the windshield and gasped. Straight ahead was a row of telephone poles. I knew that I couldn't miss them, but I thought that if I could at least get the nose between two of them it might not be as bad. I steered to the right, and the car moved over a little. Then I put my head down ready for the impact, but there were only two sounds: WHACK! WHACK! The car was jarred a little, but it was still moving, and I thought, "I've got another chance."
Then the car hit the shallow salt lake, and the spray shot high into the air. The water was slowing the car down a little and it was a good feeling. But then I saw the dike looming straight in front of me. The car hit the dike and shot into the air--the whole horizon turned sideways. As the car cleared the top, the right outrigger wheel clipped the dike--just enough to give the car a tip--and the impact righted the car. It was flying like an airplane--level and straight and quiet. There wasn't a sound. Man, I was flying.
The horizon was gone and everything was crazy to me. Then the nose started to dip, and I could see the water under me. The car was going to land in the lake on the other side of the dike. All I could think of was getting the canopy off. I knew I wouldn't be able to get it off once the car was underwater; so I grabbed the latches and turned. The canopy popped up about two inches, and the wind pulled it out of my hands.
The car was almost in the water; so I tucked my hands inside my shoulder harness to hold my stomach because I knew that I was going to hit pretty hard. Then the car came down, with a tremendous crash, but broke free again, skipping across the water like a pebble. The next time the car hit, there was a big wall of water; only this time it was up over my head. The car was underwater. I snapped open the harness and started to climb out. I pulled about two or three times and couldn't get out of the car. "Oh, no, all of this and now I'm going to drown." I started to panic but caught myself and said, "Just wait. There's something wrong, and you can figure it out."
"The wildest ride" ends in 18 feet of salt water after
setting a new record of 526.27
MPH.
The breathing mask, of course--it was still connected. I ripped it off the helmet, floated to the surface of the lake, and swam to the shore. I climbed out and stood there, looking at the car--its tail pipe sticking on of the water, weird sounds coming out of it. The water was steaming and going PLUNK, PLOP, GURGLE. I looked at my hands and my fingers and my feet. I was all in one piece, and I just fell down on the salt and laughed out of relief. Everything was so funny that I couldn't stop laughing. One of the Goodyear public relations men came gasping over the hill and rolled down the other side.
I looked at him and said, "For my next trick, I'll set myself on fire."
He looked at me and then at the car and said, "You know, you're nuts."
I replied, "I'm all right, baby. What's my speed?"
Alive to enjoy his new record, Craig talks to newsmen as his
car sinks slowly in the
west.
In a few minutes the rest of the group would arrive, and I knew that I would have to have something to tell the press. I had to keep Art Arfons off my back; if he thought the car was damaged beyond repair, he would be right back here to run. Anyway, when the newsmen arrived, I said, "It's not damaged badly. We're going to take it over to the air force base and get it ready to run faster."
At that point my sponsors went into a state of shock.
Joe Petrali and his men arrived en masse. Everybody was red faced and scared and out of breath, and I felt really sorry for them. Joe shouted the speed from the top of the dike. "Craig, you went 539 on the second run. You've set a record average of 526.28. Thank God you're here to see it."
A
crew member weeps when he finds Craig still alive after the
crash
A little later, Ted Gillette, the ambulance driver, and his crew dashed over the hill (about 30 minutes had gone by since the crash because they had gotten stuck in the shallow lake--which I thought was a neat trick and, like everything else, pretty funny). Ted had two state patrolmen with him, and they were all in a complete panic. They immediately tackled me and wrestled me to the ground. The doctor was waving a hypodermic needle full of sedatives around and one of the patrolmen pulled out his knife and started slashing the laces of my boots. Right there I got my first injury from the wreck. "You cut me," I screamed. They carried me struggling to the ambulance and switched the siren on. The ambulance was bouncing around over the salt, and the doctor was still waving this hypo around. I raised myself up and said, "Hey, look, I think that the nervous person around here is you. You'd better give that thing to yourself, or put it back in the bag." The doctor put it away. Then Ted almost wrecked the ambulance, and I said, "Listen, Ted, why don't you turn off the siren and slow down? You're going to kill us all." He was even trying to pass cars on the wrong side of the road. I finally convinced him that I didn't want to go to the hospital. The only place I wanted to go was back to the motel and take a shower.
He slowed down and asked in a disappointed voice, "How about a Band-Aid for your cut leg?"
Cockpit of the Spirit of America before and after the 1964
crash into the briny
lake
