For all the glory that comes with the history of land speed racing, there are about twice as many sad stories of guys who had big dreams, huge guts, and heavy feet, but not the good sense to know when they were in too deep. Guys like Athol Graham and in this video Lee Bible personify these guys who were looking to do great things and who sadly ended up dead in there pursuit. For Lee Bible the end came on the sand of Daytona Beach in 1929. He was driving a car known as the Triplex, so called because it was equipped with three massive engines. It had held the land speed record in years past but after being bumped down the page.
The car, owned by Jim White and previously driven by Ray Keech, was about as evil as it gets. You’ll learn the whole story in the video below but this thing was no weak sister and it apparently was even more hellacious to drive. Going 200mph in a modern car is kind of dangerous enough but doing it on sand in something like this, which makes a farm tractor look like a McLaren is unfathomable to most everyone today.
Keech had some harsh words after Bible got killed and they would come back to haunt him not too far after this incident. The history here is amazing and it is a slightly dark look back into the battle that was the land speed record through the 1920s.
Great video
Grease monkey wanna be a hero? Very true and tragic!
A recent similar story reminds me of the tragic loss of Jessi Combs, Her goal was to be the fastest female on 4 wheels. A questionable mechanical failure cost this beautiful woman her life. To my knowledge there has not been any investigation as to what exactly happened.
The investigation believes that the front tire hit an object in turn destroying the tire and causing the crash.