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Blood Feud: Walt And Art Arfons Took Their Strife To The Grave – These Vintage Stories Delve Deeper Into The Mystery Than Any Others


Blood Feud: Walt And Art Arfons Took Their Strife To The Grave – These Vintage Stories Delve Deeper Into The Mystery Than Any Others

If you have not read Samuel Hawley’s incredible book “Speed Duel” you owe it to yourself to do so immediately. Hawley tells the tale of the epic mid-1960s land speed record wars in as deep and exciting a fashion as it humanely possible. You’ll burn through the pages like your fingers are on fire. There are amazing subplots that keep you hooked. Hot rodders versus British aristocracy, west coast playboy verses farmer kids from the center of the country, and perhaps most interestingly brother versus brother.

Those brothers are of course Walt Arfons and his half brother Art. Their story is one of great success, simmering anger and in the end, sadness. The two began their careers in motorsports together, racing creations that they built from war surplus parts and scrap from their farm. They were both brilliant empirical thinkers who could just figure stuff out and understand engineering principles far beyond their level of education and better than some who held degrees. Mysteriously, an intense rivalry eventually forced the brothers into years of angry silence and strife which they never fully healed before they both headed to the great beyond. The wildest part? No one is really sure how it started of if there was a single incident that pushed them over the edge. The story was so interesting even 50 years ago that Sports Illustrated writer Jack Olsen documented it deeper than anyone and you can read it all in the two SI stories below.

The physical closeness of the brothers made it even more strange and tense. They worked within spitting distance of each other. They lived next door. Their kids had fun together but aside from early photos of the brothers with their initial Green Monsters, you’ll never see them together. Granted there were moments of healing like when Art congratulated his brother on taking the record before stealing it back just days later or when Art suffered a near 600mph crash, Walt came to the hospital and sat by his brother’s bed. But those moments would be short lived and things like misplaced mounts of dirt, uncomfortable public meetings, and barely disguised slights would ultimately keep them apart for good.

The men never came to blows (that they talked about or anyone saw) but when you read the stories below you’ll see that they really did not like each other at a core level. Perhaps it was mutual frustration of the knowledge that together they would have probably pushed the land speed record to places that people would still be chasing or maybe it was the thoughts of how much money they both left on the table by fighting each other rather than working in lock step. Either way, it was an inter-family cold war that historians are still trying to completely sort out.

If you love racing history, you’ll be enthralled with these stories.

Part One: My Brother, My Enemy In Speedland

Part Two: Duel On The Salt

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3 thoughts on “Blood Feud: Walt And Art Arfons Took Their Strife To The Grave – These Vintage Stories Delve Deeper Into The Mystery Than Any Others

  1. Mark Watkins

    Wow. Thanks Brian. I read Speed Duel and it filled me with wonder and sadness. We will never see times like this again.

    No hospitality suites, no huge self-supporting transporter or motor coaches. Just passion that cuts like an oxy-acetylene torch. Everything was hard for those guys, yet they soldiered on. I spent a sunny day at Bonneville in 2011 and it wasted me. The LSR racer in that era was wired completely different from us softies today.

  2. Dennis

    Wow! Knew about Art but not his brother. Saw Art with his Green Monster Pulling Tractor a few times in Ontario, Canada.

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