WENDOVER — Terry Nish is going very slowly in his pursuit for high speed, which by his standards means starting at around 360 mph and going up from there ... up to 400 and eventually more than 409.277.
On its maiden voyage on the 7-mile track on Bonneville Salt Flats, his high-speed streamliner, driven by his son, Mike, "made one of the prettiest runs you could ever imagine ... 360 mph en route to its first 400 run."
Not wanting to risk car or driver, his instructions were to shut down after four miles rather than run the full five miles. At the four-mile timing light, the car was at 360 and climbing.
"There's time," he said as he sat sheltered from the sun under a large canopy. "This isn't like other types of racing. There are no hot laps or warm-up runs. You can't strap a driver into a car like this and tell him to run out and crank it up to 400. So we'll make a couple of runs to let Mike get the cobwebs out."
Tuesday, after several hours waiting in the lineup of cars at the start, Mike Nish announced it was going for "400 mph."
Coming out of the five-mile timing light, the streamline was running at 385 miles per hour.
"I'm greedy, I guess," said Terry Nish. "I was hoping for a 390 run, but I'll take this run, don't get me wrong. We'll have to check the car over, now, before we decide if we'll make a run on the 385."
The Nishes are going for a record set in 1965 of 409.277 mph. That car had four engines, one for each wheel, and was naturally aspirated. Officially, that record has never been broken. Unofficially it has. There have been several cars run over 409.
Al Teague went 409.98, but his single engine was assisted by a blower. Tom Burkland went 417.02, but his two engines were power-assisted. And the late Don Vesco went 458.44, but did it in a turbine-powered car.
"No one has broken the record with a naturally aspirated, single-engine car. We've had the car up to 386 and that's as fast as anyone has ever gone with a single engine, so we're pushing the envelope. But, there's no doubt in my mind the car will run over 409," he noted.
The engine, the smaller of two Nish is running with, was modified over the winter to increase the horsepower from 558 to more than 600. If the salt can take it, he'd like to run the car, with the smaller engine, at 400 or above. He plans to return to the salt in September for a private running on the 409 record set by Bob Summers in 1965.
He did point out that his single engine is currently producing more horsepower than all four of Summers' engines. A good Hemi back in 1965 was producing around 600 horsepower. This would make for total of around 2,400 horsepower. Nish's engine is producing close to 3,000 horsepower. His larger engine can produce upward of 4,000 horsepower.
"We won't need the 3,000 horsepower to get where we want to go. Numbers tell us we need something over 1,600. Still, that's a lot of horsepower," he added.
One drawback he faces is that his car is two-wheel drive. All of the other high-speed cars have been four-wheel drive.
"The reason for four-wheel drive is that at 400 mph you're pushing a lot of air. That's where aerodynamics enters in. Traction is a big factor. Getting up to 350 is not a problem, but from there on traction becomes a factor. At 386 and at 360 the car ran beautifully," he explained.
"When you think about it, if we get there with one engine and two-wheel drive, that means we've climbed a pretty big mountain."
Mike Nish said that one thing that will help him and the crew this year is better communications.
"We've been experimenting with cellular communications. In the past we've never been able to communicate past a couple of miles. When we run in September we'll be on a 12-mile track. We tested it here and it worked well up to eight miles, so it's promising. Having good communications is important for a lot of reasons. I can relay information to the crew, and they can let me know what's happening from where they are," he said.
Terry Nish, a longtime circle-track racer who switched to salt-flats racing, recalled that when he first came to the track the record he aimed for was 291 mph.
"I thought we'd never get there. We'd go out and run 240 and 250, and after three years I said there's no way we'd ever run 291. Then the next year we ran 291.4, and from there things went up ... 300, 320, 340, 360 and then 386. I can't really figure out what we did other than put in a lot of hard work."
The streamliner the Nishes are running is the same car they introduced in 2001. It crashed in 2005, was repaired and back on the salt in 2006.
Concerned about the stopping distance on the seven miles of graded track, Terry Nish said his crew went out late Sunday and Monday and "tire packed" another three-quarters of a mile.
The plan was to run hard through the early section of the course and then shut down and test the stopping power.
As the week progresses, as Terry Nish explained, his orders are to go slowly, go as fast as the track and the salt will allow, but to take no chances. The record is, indeed, within reach.
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