History of Mickey Thompson Bonneville
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mngq4uZlFXQ
see also post #4 in this very thread
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Mickey Thompson racing legends video history is here:
https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/g...g-legends.html
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Danny Thompson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZDy4gL4wjk
Danny Thompson attempts to break the 420 mph world land speed record . . . with his father, Mickey Thompson's, Challenger II built in 1968. It's being built up to modern specs and go 420+.
Danny Thompson Review: Reflects on his goals and accomplishment with his streamliner "Challenger 2" at the 2014 Speed Week in Bonneville.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NeHZnberW4
Mission - Destiny
George Tamayo
In today's media-fueled world of hyperbole, the overuse of certain words has had the effect of rendering them somewhat redundant. "Passionate" and "obsessed" are surely near the top of the list. For "passionate collector," read someone who simply takes their hobby half-seriously.
But spending five minutes with Danny Thompson is to understand what it means to be truly passionate and obsessed.
"For the last seven years, this is all I've focused on and thought about. I spent a little time watching the Olympics, because those athletes are the greatest in their sport," says Thompson the Monday after the Rio Games drew to a close. "But for 12 hours a day, seven days a week, this is all I do. I did take part of Thanksgiving and Christmas Day off."
What Thompson is so obsessed and passionate about is breaking the class land speed record in Challenger 2, a car built by his father, the legendary Mickey Thompson. On Sept. 16, 2016, at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats, Thompson was set to attempt to finish what began in 1960 – to break the record in a wheel-driven, normally-aspirated car. The benchmark currently stands at 414.477mph, set by Charles E. Nearburg at the wheel of the Spirit of Rett, Sept. 21, 2010.
This August, Thompson recorded an average of 406.7mph over two runs. He knows he's within touching distance.
Thompson is now 66 years old. His silver hair is shorn tight. He has strong hands, leathery skin and his favorite word has four letters, rhyming with puck. Son Travis constantly reminds him that he can't say it during interviews, but when finished, Thompson gleefully declares, "I made it through without saying 'f***.'"
He says he lives in constant pain, the result of severe arthritis in his knees and hips earned from years of riding motocross, but won't take any medication, claiming it would just make him "dumber."
What is most striking about Thompson are his almond-shaped eyes. They're darting and alert, yet can soften to a doe-like expression, revealing his true sincerity. To get to this point, he's been forced to sell all of the cars from his father's collection. But, as he puts it, those cars were sitting in a museum, and he had to go break a record.
He's had, by his estimation, some 3,000 sponsorship pitches declined. He's consumed every bit of help his family and friends have offered in his single-minded quest. There's a lot on the line for this moment, these few exhilarating seconds of glory and completion. Thompson hopes a successful run will aid him in recouping at least some of the small personal fortune spent, but he knows it won't make him a rich man. At least, not monetarily.
"This all started in 1987," says Thompson, "when my dad told me he wanted the record. He would finance it, and I would drive. The record would belong to the family. Until then, he'd never supported my racing."
The story could have ended there. On March 16, 1988, Mickey Thompson was gunned down, along with his second wife, in the driveway of his suburban Los Angeles home. Motorsport lost a true original that day. The elder Thompson was a pioneering racer, promoter, builder, team owner and businessman extraordinaire.
In 1960, Mickey Thompson embarked on setting a new land speed record. It was the age before jet propulsion, when the fastest cars were wheel-driven. Mickey Thompson built Challenger 1, a four-engine hot rod from junkyard parts.
The original land speed record, set in 1898 by Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat at 39.24mph, had since been reset 29 times, reaching 394.196mph by John Cobb on Sept. 16, 1947. With no formal training or backing from a major manufacturer, Mickey Thompson took Challenger 1 to 406mph. To make it official, he had to do it twice, and on the second run, Challenger 1 suffered a mechanical problem. The record still officially belonged to Cobb.
Four years later, Donald Campbell, using jet propulsion, went 403mph to set the new absolute land speed record. Because it wasn't wheel-driven, it was meaningless to Mickey Thompson. It had become obvious that the absolute land speed record would forever be the province of jet- or rocket powered vehicles, but Mickey Thompson was determined to get the wheel-driven record. Thus, he set out to build Challenger 2.