Boneville may get the glory but El Mirage is an incredible place with history that spans the test of time in the world of land speed racing. Unlike the packed salt of Bonneville, racers are confronted with a silt-like dirt as their surface at El Mirage. They are also facing down far less room to operate as the SCTA’s El Mirage race course is about 1.3 miles long as opposed to the varying distances of the short and long courses on the salt. El Mirage is far more of a sprint style event than Bonnveille is and virtually everything, including the ground beneath their cars is working against the racers. But as all good BangShifters know, horsepower cures all ills.
One group that knows that better than anyone on Earth? John Beck, Dave Davidson, and Donnie Cummins the proprietors and operators of the legendary 911 Roadster. This blown, nitro burning hemi powered high boy is the first of its kind to go over 300mph at Bonneville and it furthered its legend at the final SCTA El Mirage meet of the season by running a blistering 277mph and we have the video of the car doing just that below.
This thing pulls and pulls like some sort of satanic bulldozer. You can hear driver Dave Davidson working the throttle to fight for some semblance of traction as the big motor tries like hell to run away. He never lets it and his judicious use of that pedal is what allowed the car to achieve the massive (for this location and for any sane human being) speed on this run. The car had gone in the 240s and 250s out there but we think they skipped the 60s and went right for the gusto here.
As you will see, this is not some insanely stretched, streamlined, or otherwise morphed roadster. There’s a blown nitro-bomb at the tip of Dave Davidson’s toes the whole time and boy does that thing sing a sweet tune! The blown fuel roadster is one of the most legendary land speed cars of all time and especially in this modern era. It defines the concept of being ate up with motor. These guys, all three of them, should be very, very proud for what they have done and continue to do. Epic is way overused but this defines it.
Aero be damned, NITRO RULES
How smooth is that motor!
That’s what a well-tuned Hemi sounds like that is so under-stressed that 277mph seems like a Sunday morning stroll down to the local store to pick up the lunchtime beer….
Great run. Just watching the run I noticed that my field of vision narrows just like mine does with my crummy 100 MPH runs.
Dan