(Photos by David Whealon/ DWPhotos.net) – UPDATED 5/20/16 — During the ECTA Ohio Mile meet last weekend, Jack Donohue made history and achieved his goal of reaching 100 mph with a 101mph pass during the event. This feature was written last year but has been updated with recent information and photos. This is 100% BangShift approved awesomeness!

Of all the unforgettable moments I have had working with and now working as one of the owners of the ECTA, none will ever match my near mental breakdown when I saw Jack Donohue and his guys pulling into the Ohio Mile facility with a stake body Chevy truck and a land speed racing 1952 Ford 8N tractor on the trailer behind it. To be more specific, it was a Chevy truck with a trailer and blue lump on it under a car cover that I immediately identified. I happened to be in the middle of a conversation with a racer when I blurted out swear words like I had Tourette’s Syndrome and pretty much took off running like a kid chasing an ice cream truck. Seeing that thing roll in was a moment I will never forget but the better story is why Jack Donohue built this freak in the first place.

It all started in 1935 when legendary Bonneville conquerer Ab Jenkins drove a Massey Ferguson tractor 68mph across the salt flats in a terrifying effort that set a speed standard for traditional tractors that no one had really tried to go after. Jenkins described the ride as one of the most scary of his career and the tractor acted like a “frightened bison” as he was running at speed. He never drove the thing again. The entire story of the Ab Jenkins tractor run is here in a long feature we published last year.

Enter Jack Donohue who knew of this story and wanted to both do Jenkins proud and also lay waste to that 68mph speed that had been sitting on the books for decades and decades. Donohue spent his career as a NASCAR chassis builder, part time racer, full time fabricating master, and jack of virtually all racing trades. He’s also loved Ford 8N tractors since his dad brought one home for use on the family farm many moons ago. With a mutual love of tractors and speed, the fabrication skills to literally make anything and the racing knowledge to tie it all together, a plan was hatched and 8Ncredible was born. Donahue worked closely with the SCTA on the construction of the tractor and frankly that is the only reason he was allowed to run it with the ECTA. As it was granted permission to compete at Bonneville (Donohue’s original planned locale to bust the record as it was the place Jenkins set it) we were more than happy to have him at the Ohio Mile for the machine’s first public outing. Last weekend was the tractor’s second racing attempt and boy was it successful!

Powered by a Ford flathead V8 that’s naturally aspirated, the engine uses a Holley 4bbl carb, aluminum Offy heads, some block hugger headers, and and MSD ignition to light the fire. It is simple as tractors should be and for those of you Ford N-series freaks out there, it is NOT a Funk flathead conversion, we’ll call this one a Donohue. If you are wondering about those big rear tires and how they were allowed to run, the answer is simple. They are massive airplane tires, not agricultural rubber. Because of this, they are more than capable of withstanding the 100mph+ speeds that Jack would ultimately like to run.

As you’d expect, the chassis fabrication and metal work on the thing is immaculate. From the cage which has Jack tucked in tight to the massive rear tire enclosures, this thing was built to an exceptionally high level. The best part is that is is still completely identifiable as an 8N tractor. Oh, how about the original steering wheel that is on a quick release?! There have been some gauge additions made but the original dash and hand throttle (not used) are present and again, all of it speaks to keeping the tractor as tractor-ish as possible.

On the chassis side of things there is a rectangle tube frame that ties the whole machine together and lots of tubing that has been expertly welded and added behind some of the areas the minimal bodywork hides. The small wing on the back between those two massive wheel wheel coverings may not do a whole lot but it looks cool as hell and serves as a place to eat a snack so it has all kinds of value. I’m still in love with this machine if you have not been able to tell.

There was one element of that tractor-ish program that made things perhaps more interesting for Donohue than he (or anyone else) planned on the big end of the track. The thing went into the high 50mph range to start with and the speeds came up from there, ultimately running 89, and then 96 mph on the last run which is tantalizingly close to the 100mph mark that Jack is looking for but there’s work to be done. The tractor axle in the front of the machine REALLY did not like the speed and it was in a very crazy looking high speed tramp where one tire and then the other were bouncing off the course at over 90mph! This situation seemed to kick up somewhere in the 80mph range and it got more pronounced with speed. Over the winter, Jack is going to do some work on the front end of the thing to aid in stability and control.

(Update: Jack modified the front axle and there are actually coil overs at the end of the beam style piece which completely fixed the tramping issue and allowed him to crank up the speed. Amazing)

So by this point you are wondering how in the hell they got the thing going so fast, right? After all, you can put a more powerful engine in something but that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to get any speed up, so what’s the trick with this tractor? That’s kind of a trade secret. We do know that the tractor comes off a push truck so there is some really tall gearing somewhere in there. We don’t know if there is a custom ring and pinion in the tractor or if there has been lots of work done in the transmission of the thing or what. The 8Ncredible DOES have the factory style transmission and axle still present so the voodoo magic really lies in those two parts of the machine. Jack eluded to some ingenious tweaks to the transmission but he did not really want to go into detail about them so we’ll leave it sitting there. After all, he did the work on this thing.

8Ncredible is one of the primary examples of why land speed racing is the coolest form of wheeled mechanical competition in the world. If you can hatch an idea and meet the safety standards set forth, even when those are basically plowing (see what I did there?) into new territory of creativity or weirdness, you can come and race. While Jack Donohue and the guys with 8Ncredible were sitting in tech they were behind a guy with a Mercedes Gullwing that is worth millions of dollars, literally and no one gave that sucker a second look. People were drawn to that tractor like moths into a bug light and for obvious reasons. This thing is amazingly well crafted, unique as hell, and a classic example of how land speed racing is a true test of mechanical ability, creativity, and the indomitable spirit of the racers involved.

I love tractors. I love land speed racing. There is literally nothing better than this.