land speed record

This morning, at California's Edwards Air Force Base, a British steam car put the kettle to the metal and broke the oldest-standing land speed record. Driver Charles Burnett III piloted the car to speeds of 136 mph and 151 mph during two separate runs.

British engineers celebrated a triumph that comes after days of setbacks and 10 years of development. Attempts to break the record last week had faltered when the steam car's turbine became stuck, although the car had unofficially broken the record during test runs.

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The wind may be restless, but the fastest air-powered ground vehicle is surprisingly steady as it sails over the dusty ground. Called Greenbird, it was developed by English engineer Richard Jenkins and the U.K.'s largest private green electricity supplier, Ecotricity.

On March 26 in a dry lakebed in California, the craft broke the world land-speed record for wind-powered vehicles by more than 10 miles an hour, setting the new record at 126.2 mph.

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Call it the Dees-Milodon Engineering-Davis B Streamliner. That's the name of the vintage speedster in which automotive celeb Jesse James this week set the land speed record for a hydrogen-powered car. The daredevil star of Spike TV's "Jesse James is a Dead Man," reportedly hit just shy of 200 miles per hour in the modified, 40-year-old streamliner, breaking a previous record set by BMW.

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Back in 1997, RAF wing commander Andy Green proved breaking the sound barrier on land wouldn't destroy the universe. Now, a successor to the ThrustSSC, the jet car Green piloted a decade ago on Nevada's Black Rock Desert, is in the works. Target: 1,000 mph.

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A racing team led by 66-year-old Ed Shadle is gunning for the world land speed record of 763 miles per hour—their goal is to break the 800 mark. Shadle has spent a decade and $150,000 getting ready, and transforming an old jet into his potentially record-smashing ride, the North American Eagle. The car boasts 42,000 horsepower, and will supposedly do 0 to 800 in just 20 seconds. And it's entirely green, running on solar . . . no, just kidding.

The big news, though, is that Shadle is looking for drivers.

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Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett has been reported missing in Nevada, and a search is underway. It's unclear what the record-setting pilot was up to, but he has been spending time in that part of the country attempting both record-setting glider flights and prepping for an attempt at the absolute land speed record of 763 mph. He was expected to begin testing at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah in September, driving a jet-powered vehicle.

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Dept.: You Built What?!


Tech: Motorized monowheel


Cost: Around $5,000


Time: 900 hours


Jake Lyall thinks the idea for a new kind of motorized one-wheeled vehicle came to him in a dream. Which makes sense, given that the 37-year-old part-time programmer and Renaissance Fair jouster had never worked for a garage, studied engineering, or even held a welder before he built the RIOT Wheel.

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NAME: Dave Minto



AGE 52



JOB: As technical director of the High Speed Test Track at the Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, Minto oversees hyper-speed (over Mach 5) ground tests of everything the Air Force shoots into the air—from ejection seats to prototypes for anti-ballistic missile delivery systems.

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