Hardly anybody had heard about Utah's Salt Flats until a daredevil racer named Teddy Tetzlaff drove an automobile an unbelievable 141 miles an hour.
It was 1914, and though Tetzlaff made the news, his record run was overshadowed by rumblings of war across the Atlantic. Twenty years later, the Salt Flats became the scene for 24-hour endurance races and speed records.
At first, the 24-hour events were dominated by David Abbott "Ab" Jenkins, a man from Spanish Fork who gave up his homebuilding business to pursue his racing hobby full time. Jenkins had turned to 24-hour racing after growing bored with county fair races and hill-climbing contests.
In 1934 Jenkins stripped the fenders off his 12 cylinder Pierce Arrow, determined to break the 24-hour record set seven years earlier in Montlhery, France. With no one to spell him, Jenkins drove the Pierce Arrow around and around the circular track for 24 hours and shattered the old record.
Jenkins' achievement caught the attention of three British speed kings — Sir Malcolm Campbell, John Cobb and Capt. George E.T. Eyston. Campbell and Cobb turned to auto racing after fighting in World War I, Campbell in the Royal Flying Corps, precursor to the Royal Air Force, and Eyston in the Army. But it wasn't until Ab Jenkins set his record in 1934 that the speed kings set their sights on the Salt Flats. In 1935 they headed to Utah.
The 24-hour records had been set at the Montlhery track, but it was not a particularly fast surface, at least compared to the Salt Flats. During a nine-year period at Montlhery, the record was broken just three times.
But when the Brits joined Ab Jenkins in Utah, the record was broken three times in nine days.
First Cobb, with the aid of two relief drivers, broke Jenkins' record. Then Jenkins, using one relief driver, got the record back. Cobb came right back to average 135 miles per hour over 24 hours, yet another record.
The endurance record was one thing; the land-speed record was another, and this was the obsession of Sir Malcolm Campbell, the most famous of the speed kings.
The magic number was 300 miles per hour, and Campbell had been pursuing that number for eight years. Sir Malcolm began his quest for 300 mph on the Pendine Sands of western Wales, and then took his car to Daytona Beach in Florida. It was on the sands of Daytona Beach that Ab Jenkins persuaded Sir Malcolm that Utah was the best place to go for 300 mph. The Utah Salt Flats offered a faster and smoother surface than the beaches of Florida.
On a late August evening in 1935, Campbell flew into Salt Lake City with Eyston, who planned to join Jenkins and Cobb in the 24-hourlong distance races, while Campbell went after the 300 mph mark.
Sir Malcolm wasted no time in going after the record. He spent the first day getting acquainted with the Salt Flats: the 13-mile south-to-north course had been freshly scraped, numbered signs marked each mile leading up to the electronic wires of the measured mile, and a stripe of black diesel oil painted down the middle of the 13-mile stretch kept the driver on track.
Early the next morning, Sir Malcolm took a few test runs, planning to take his car, Bluebird, up to an easy 180 mph to get warmed up for the record run. But everything went so well he found himself doing 240 mph on the final practice run.
He moved up his official run for the record to Tuesday, Sept. 3, 1935. A few bleary-eyed spectators followed the Bluebird as it was towed from Wendover, where it had been guarded around the clock for the previous week. I was covering the event for the Deseret News and joined a hundred or so other observers near the starting point.
At precisely 6:30 a.m., Campbell started from the south end of the course. The Bluebird gathered speed through the first six miles and then flashed through the measured mile at 304 mph. When the time was announced, everyone cheered.
Bob Underwood of the United Press invited me to ride down to the turnaround point at the north end of the course, where Sir Malcolm would start his second run. As we approached the one-mile marker of the course, an official flagged us down and yelled at us to get to the turnaround point and tell Sir Malcolm not to take off.
There was some sort of glitch with one of the timing wires at the measured mile. Not only that, the official's walkie-talkie was on the fritz, and he couldn't reach the officials at the turnaround point.
Underwood and I took off in his Ford coupe, setting our own one-mile record on the Salt Flats. When we skidded to a stop at the north end of the course, the Bluebird's engine was roaring and ready to take off. We waved and shouted enough to get Campbell to shut off the engine. As he took off his helmet, he uttered a few colorful Anglo-Saxon phrases about the delay.
The rules specified that the two runs had to be made within an hour, and as the minutes ticked by we waited for the word to go. When the all-clear signal finally came, there were just five minutes to spare.
Campbell's second run was slower than the first. The average time came to 299.8 mph, just an eye-blink short of the coveted 300 mph. Sir Malcolm announced he would make another try the next morning.
Two hours later an embarrassed chief timer visited the Wendover garage where Campbell and his crew were preparing for the next day's run. The official told them there was a mathematical error in figuring the combined time of the runs. The correct figure was 301.13 mph. Sir Malcolm had his coveted record.
He was the guest of honor at a civic luncheon where he sat next to Heber J. Grant, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The two men, on the surface very different, hit it off. Their friendship continued for several years through letters and exchanges of books, some the men themselves had written.
When I interviewed Sir Malcolm in his London office a year-and-a-half after his triumph on the Salt Flats, he pointed to a shelf of books President Grant had sent. One was a biography of Brigham Young. "He was an extraordinary man," Sir Malcolm commented.
On another shelf were at least a half-dozen books Campbell had written, mostly on automotive and safety subjects. Just before I left he walked over to his bookshelves and pulled out a book he had written called "Searching for Pirate Treasure in Cocos Island."
"We never found any gold," he said as he autographed a copy and handed it to me. "But we had a good time looking for it."
After he set the 300 mph mark, Sir Malcolm gave up auto racing and put his beloved Bluebird in a museum. Looking for a new challenge, he took up motorboat racing, and two years after setting the land-speed record on the Salt Flats, he set a new water-speed record on Lake Maggiore, Switzerland. He became the only man to hold the land-and water-speed records at the same time.
Meanwhile, George Eyston and John Cobb were making plans to go after Sir Malcolm's land-speed record. I interviewed both men about their upcoming attempts to break the one-mile speed record. They had both helped design new racing machines that were different from each other. Eyston's was seven tons with a steel body. Cobb's was a three-ton vehicle with an aluminum body.
At the press preview of Cobb's car at Brooklands racetrack in Surrey, England, one reporter wisecracked that it looked like a giant turtle. (Also at the preview was a young Associated Press reporter named James "Scotty" Reston, who many years later became the distinguished columnist and editor of the New York Times.)
When I talked to Eyston over lunch at his home in Lennox Gardens, he told me he was taking his new machine to the Salt Flats in the fall of 1937, in hopes of breaking Campbell's record. Not long after our lunch, Eyston and his wife were guests at a dinner at the Royal Automobile Club honoring President Heber J. Grant, who was in London for the church's centennial celebration.
Eyston spoke at the dinner, announcing he was leaving soon for Utah to try to set a new speed mark. He went out of his way to praise Utahns for their hospitality on his previous visits.
His attempt was scheduled for early September 1937, but he encountered a couple of setbacks. First the clutch broke on the Thunderbolt, his seven-ton behemoth, and it had to be sent back to England for repair. Then unseasonable rainstorms soaked the Salt Flats, and he had to wait for them to dry out before making his run at the record.
Finally, on Nov. 19, Captain Eyston took the Thunderbolt up to nearly 312 mph, breaking Campbell's record by 10 mph. When Eyston returned to London, among those waiting on the platform of Paddington Station to congratulate him was Sir Malcolm Campbell.
For the next two years, Eyston and John Cobb took turns setting speed records on the Salt Flats. Eyston upped his own mark from 312 mph to 347 mph, but just a month later, Cobb's aluminum "turtle" roared through the measured mile at 350 mph.
He hardly had time to bask in any acclaim because the next day Eyston drove the Thunderbolt 357 mph. Cobb came back with a record run of nearly 369 mph. Then World War II put a halt to racing and records.
After the war, Cobb went after the 400 mph mark. In 1947, his redesigned aluminum racer hit 405 mph on the first leg of the run, but a slower return run gave him an average time of 394 mph, a record that will last through eternity.
The era of piston-driven racers was over. Jet-powered racers eventually took over, with speed records being set by a new generation of racers — such as Art Arfons, Andy Green and Craig Breedlove.
Cobb turned to speedboat racing in hopes of joining Campbell as the holder of land and water records at the same time. In September 1952, he took his aluminum Crusader to Loch Ness, and on his first official run reached 200 mph, a good 20 mph faster than the existing record.
But as the Crusader passed through the measured mile, it exploded, killing Cobb and scattering debris everywhere.
Cobb, 52, was buried in his hometown of Esher, near the Brooklands racetrack. A memorial to him was built near Loch Ness.
George Eyston gave up racing after the war and was active as a director for several companies. He died at age 82 of a heart attack he suffered on a train en route to visit a client.
Sir Malcolm maintained his popularity as an author, speaker and consultant — and even ran for Parliament but lost in a close election. He died at 63 after a long illness.
His son Donald tried to follow in his father's footsteps but was nearly killed when he crashed on the Salt Flats during a record attempt. He died in 1967 during a water-speed-record attempt on Coniston Water in Northern England, the same lake where his father had set his final record 28 years earlier.
Ab Jenkins, the man who put the Salt Flats on the map by persuading the British speed kings to come to Utah, kept setting long-distance records as the Brits turned their attention to speed records.
In 1939, Ab found himself in a different race altogether when he was persuaded to run for mayor of Salt Lake City and won in a very close election. Shortly after taking office, Ab took one last fling at the 24-hour record, boosting it up to 161 mph on the 10-mile circular track. The record stood for 16 years.
After four years in the mayor's office he became a test driver and consultant for American car manufacturers. He died in 1956 at the age of 73.
Jenkins' famous blue-and-gold race car, the Mormon Meteor, was on display for several years in the Utah State Capitol.
A few years ago Jenkins' son, Marvin, reclaimed the Mormon Meteor and restored it to its former glory. He now takes it around the country, showing it off to racing fans and reminding them of the days when speed was king.
Selected world records
1934: Ab Jenkins, 127 mph — 24-hour endurance
1935: Sir Malcolm Campbell, 301.13 mph — measured mile
1937: Capt. George E.T. Eyston, 311.42 mph — measured mile
1947: John Cobb, 394.19 mph — measured mile
Parry Sorensen is a professor emeritus of communications at the University of Utah. E-mail: PDSORENSEN@aol.com