"Assault on the Salt":
The Shelby Daytona Coupe made its last competition appearance (under Shelby American ownership) at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah in November of 1965. The driving team consisted of Craig Breedlove, Bobby Tatroe, and (for a few hours) Tom Greatorex. By the time they had finished, the car had set twenty-three new records. How and why this record attempt was made is a fascinating story.
To run at Bonneville, the salt is reserved by teams about a year in advance and during this booked period no one can run until you relinquish the salt, or until your time runs out. Goodyear was backing Craig Breedlove and Bobby Tatroe's attempts to set two world land speed records. Tatroe's rocket-powered "Wingfoot Express" was badly damaged and Breedlove's "Spirit of America" jet car was having problems and would require a few days to prepare. They were at risk of "losing the salt" to arch rival Art Arfons's Firestone-shod "Green Monster". Goodyear and Breedlove called Shelby and arranged to send a Daytona coupe to hold the salt by making "record attempts" with it. It was all a clever scheme to prevent Arfons from snatching the record.
|
|
CSX 2287 was chosen to go as it was now only used on the auto-show circuit and hadn't been raced since Le Mans in June. Shelby's crew chief, Tom Greatorex, installed a new engine, installed the tallest Goodyears that would fit, and then hauled the car the eighteen hours to Utah. |
|
|
|
|
This photo used with the permission of Chip Tatroe and the American Jet Cars site. |
Above: Tatroe gives Breedlove advice |
|
"Goodyear's reps decided it would be nice to acquire a 24-hour endurance record as well. Asked about this, USAC officials scratched their heads and said there were no provisions for running at night, but a 12-hour daylight record might be possible if Goodyear would cover the cost of surveying a 12-mile circle. But, of course, that would use up another day. There were also no provisions for fueling an endurance run, so Greatorex drove to nearby Wendover and bought several 50-gallon drums of fuel and a simple hand pump to transfer it. At dawn the next morning, the thundering voice of the Daytona's engine broke the crystalline desert's silence, and the run began. Around and around CSX2287 went, Tatroe and Breedlove switching off as the hours passed. Once, when Breedlove overslept, Greatorex climbed in after refueling the car and drove for a couple of hours." |
|
|
Excerpt from: Car and Driver, July 2001 |
Above photo used with the permission of Chip Tatroe and the American Jet Cars site. |
|
|
"One of the records I expected to break was the 12-hour endurance mark; so I needed a co-driver. The choice was easy. I chose Bobby Tatroe, the wild man from the rocket car. Bobby had been hanging around the Flats because he had nothing else to do after the Wingfoot Express had gone up in flames. He was wild about the idea of co-driving the Cobra. We got out the next morning, and he wanted to take the first two hours. Jumping into the car, he went screaming off on the one-mile circle. Two hours later he slid into the makeshift pit area, and I took over." (continued) |
|
Above photo used with the permission of Chip Tatroe and the American Jet Cars site. |
|
"Neither of us had ever been in the car before, and we were out there running--at about 160 mph. It was a ball, especially in a spot in the eastern section of the course. The salt was soft and at that point it had broken through to mud. The car would go completely sideways every time we hit it. We loved that section because it broke the monotony of the whole thing, and we started seeing how far back around the circle we could keep the car sideways after hitting the soft stuff. The crew finally figured we had been inhaling too much carbon monoxide and that it affected our minds." |
|
|
Excerpt from: Spirit of America - Winning the World's Land Speed Record, Craig Breedlove with Bill Neely © 1971. |
Above photo used with the permission of Chip Tatroe and the American Jet Cars site. |
Towards the end of their 12-hour run, the Daytona's engine was still running strong but the clutch was starting to slip. Greatorex instructed Tatroe and Breedlove to just run it in third gear! When it was over, the coupe had set 23 international USAC/FIA records. In particular was the 12-hour average of 150-mph, which included the time lost by re-fueling the car with the hand pump and also a record 3-hour average of 160.92 mph covering a distance of almost 483 miles!
|
|
Excerpt from Car and Driver, July 2001: When Greatorex returned to Shelby's shop, the Texan was aghast at the condition of his champion racecar. It had taken such a pounding that there seemed little reason to pay for a restoration. Shelby walked thoughtfully around the car for a while, and finally seeing it as a lost cause, turned to Greatorex and offered to sell it to him for a piddling $800. "Nah, I don't think so," replied the exhausted crew chief. "I've had enough." |
Credits:
I would like to express my warmest thanks to Bobby Tatroe's son Chip Tatroe, who provided most of the photos in this section as well as forwarding me scans of the original record documentation provided by the United States Auto Club (USAC). I kindly request these photos not be re-produced without prior written consent from Mr. Tatroe. To find out more about the land speed record attempts and the amazing men behind them, please check out Chip's site:
American Jet Cars Guaranteed hour's of entertainment!Other sources:
Car and Driver - Volume 47, July 2001: The Car that Lived Up to It's Legend - Peter Brock. © 2001, Hachette Filipacchi Magazines Inc.
Spirit of America - Winning the World's Land Speed Record, Craig Breedlove with Bill Neely © 1971.
