The following year (1971) he designed and built the Honda Hawk motorcycle streamliner, ridden by Jon McKibben to 286.556 miles per hour over one mile distance. It was also the first world land speed record over 1,000 kilometers per hour. Their successful initial land speed venture resulted in Gary Gabelich setting the world land speed record, 630.388 miles per hour (1,014.656 kilometers per hour) over the kilometer distance with a flying start. The Blue Flame was their first attempt to run on the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1970. Later, working in research at the Institute of Gas Technology on catalysis in natural gas combustion led to gas industry sponsorship of The Blue Flame land speed record vehicle.Īs a partner in Reaction Dynamics, he helped to design and build the X-1 rocket-powered dragster, the prototype of the Bonneville streamliner, and the Blue Flame. NASA-sponsored contract research projects at the IIT Research Institute brought him to the Marshall Space Flight Center at Huntsville, Alabama where he worked on rocket propellant monitoring hardware for the Saturn I and Saturn V booster test programs. Inspired by working with "Big Daddy" Don Garlits, Keller briefly raced at the drag strips in his Cadillac-powered 1939 Ford. Both drag racing and the fantastic speeds at the Bonneville Salt Flats filled his youthful dreams of building and racing fast cars in the 1950s. As a founding member of the Igniters Auto Club of Chicago in 1951, Keller, along with his eighth grade classmates, had a passion for hotrodding.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |