KEEPING THE SPIRIT ALIVE SINCE 1999
Arthur E. Arfons
3/2/1926 - 3/12/2007
437
Arfons began on the road to the land speed record by accident--almost literally. An avid pilot, he drove to the Akron airport one Sunday to discover that the road was blocked and lined with people. He thought there had been a plane crash, but it turned out to be a drag race on the runway. He was instantly converted to the sport. He and his older brother Walter put together a dragster that they called the Green Monster because they painted it with left-over green tractor paint. It could do only 85 mph. But the brothers kept working at it, building one Green Monster after another, culminating in a jet dragster that Art drove 342 mph at the Bonneville, UT, Salt Flats in the fall of 1960.
That was still more than 50 mph short of the 1947 record set by John Cobb. The brothers broke apart for unexplained reasons and Walter prepared a car for Tom Green, who raised the land speed record to 413.2 mph on Oct. 2, 1964. Three days later Art did 434 mph in the latest Green Monster.
Craig Breedlove raised the mark to 526.28 mph on Oct. 16, and Art regained the record with 536.71 mph on Oct. 27. Breedlove came back a little more than a year later, averaging 555.127 mph on Nov. 3, 1965.
Art was ready to re-take the record four days later, but a right tire exploded on his second run when he was averaging more than 577 mph. He survived, and made his last try on Nov. 17, 1966. By then, Breedlove's record was 600.6 mph.
Arfons was doing more than 600 mph when a wheel came off his car. Again, he survived without serious injury, but he never made another run at the land speed record.
He did occasionally do drag racing exhibitions, but after his car went out of control and killed three spectators in 1971, he quit entirely.
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Milt Marion 1909 - 1999 -
Richard John Beattie Seaman 1913 - 1939 -
Tony Gaze 1920 -
Johnny Moorhouse 1922 - 1999 -
Chico Serra 1957
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Pete Lovely 1926 - 2011
Pete Lovely started racing in a track roadster in the late 1940s. In 1955 he won the SCCA 1500cc Championship and was offered a drive by Lotus in Europe. He took a class win in the 12 hour race at Rheims with Innes Ireland, before competing in a few Grand Prix with an ex-works Lotus 49B. -
Bob Said 1932 - 2002
Bob Said started racing in 1952 in the USA but turned his attention to Europe where he raced with Maston Gregory. He raced in the American Grand Prix in 1959 at Sebring, driving Paul Emery's ancient Connaught. He lost everything in 1962 but rebuilt his fortune and took up winter sports, participating in the Winter Olympics in 1968 and 1972 in the bobsleigh event. He then became an Emmy award winning producer. He died of a heart attack while watching the OSCARs on TV. -
Bruce Kessler 1926
Kessler was an American driver who shared a car in the 1958 Monaco Grand Prix with a certain B.Ecclestone! He went on to be involved in the trawler and television industries, even acting as a TV director for such notable shows as Knight Rider, The A Team and I Dream of Jeannie. -
Lloyd Ruby 1928 - 2009
Often reffered to as the best driver never to have won the Indy 500, he led the 500 in five occasions. A works driver for Ford in sportscars he had better luck winning the Daytona 24 Hour race twice. He took partin two Grand Prix, once at the Indy 500 when it counted as a round of the World Championship and in the 1961 US Grand Prix. -
Robert Schroeder 1926 - 2011
Rob Schroeder made one World Championship Grand Prix appearance in the 1962 US Grand Prix before returning to relative obscurity.