Hi everyone. I finally got around to finishing the land speed record website I set up as an "extra" to my book Speed Duel: The Inside Story of the Land Speed Record in the Sixties (Oct. 2010, Firefly Books). I posted a message about it in the HAMB's introduce yourself section in January. Anyway, I've added a total of 90 photos to the Craig Breedlove "Spirit of America" section (a total of 7 pages of photos now) and the Art Arfons "Green Monster" section (a total of 5 pages of photos now), plus one more shot on the ill-fated "Infinity" LSR car kindly sent to me by Burly Burlile of Utah. The link is http://www.samuelhawley.com/lsr.html Enjoy! Sam Hawley
Your book is a 'awsome' read..... Anyone who enjoys LSR, this book is a must ! Great Pic's on your site as well, Thanks.......
Hello Sam, Welcome to the HAMB. I bought your book, good stuff. I have Breedlove's original Trophy 200MPH club jacket from his Spirit of America 526.28 record. Have you ever seen any photos of him with this? Or any leads where I can look? Thanks, Josh
Hi Candy-man! I'm glad you liked the book. I hope you get to Bonneville in August with that belly tanker. Good luck! To Josh: Sorry, but I've never seen a photo of Craig Breedlove in that jacket and can't think offhand of any leads. How did you come to acquire the jacket? As a little aside on jackets, photo # 2 on page 7 of the "Spirit of America" photos http://www.samuelhawley.com/lsrphotosspirit7.html shows Tom Hanna in the special "Spirit of America" jacket--entirely unofficial--he had made. I didn't include this in the book, but here's what Stan Goldstein, SOA team manager in 1965, told me: "He [Tom] was young, he was self-taught, he had developed a pretty good reputation and he was very straight-forward. And he knew how to self-promote. And the other guys were intimidated by him, so I really had my hands full, and it was right up to the last minute before we decided whether he was going to come to the salt flats or not. And then when we did, I remember he showed up...hed gone out and had a custom-made Spirit of America jacket made. Tom Hanna, Spirit of America, blah blah blah. It made everybody look pretty bleak." Sam
Followed it all back in the day via the mainstream press and hot rod mags. This is great stuff, fills in a lot of the missing information they left out. Thanks for posting. Getting the book is now on my to do list. Ed
Welcome aboard Sam. Your book looks great. I had to order it. I met Craig Breedlove as a kid (that's me with my jaw dropping) he had his wrecked S.O.A. at our local auto show. wish Dad would have taken a picture of it instead of us. Can't wait to get the book.
Great web site! Thank you for sharing it. I am going to have to get your book it really looks like a fun book to read.
Noticed a post on Facebook by Tom Hanna and Danny Thompson about this earlier today. Gotta get one of the books.
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