BELLY OF THE BEAST
AS WE reported last issue, George Poteet and his Speed Demon streamliner set the land speed racing world on fire at this year’s Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) Speed Week, becoming the world’s fastest pistonpowered vehicle on land with a two-way average of 470.016mph (756km/h).
In doing so, he broke the two-way, top-speed, wheel-driven internal combustion engine mark of 448.757mph set in 2018 by Danny Thompson in his refurbished 50-year-old Challenger II, which ran two normally aspirated nitro-fuelled Chrysler Hemis.
As cool as that accolade was, what Poteet and his team were really interested in was adding to their collection of SCTA blown fuel streamliner class records. Going into Speed Week, the team already held six records using a variety of engines, including small-block Chev, LS-based, a four-cylinder Dodge and a Ford flathead.
The missing record was AA/BFS, which mandates a 501ci or larger engine (or engines), which the team had never run. That’s bigblock territory. The record had been stuck at 417mph since 2004 when it was last set by Tom Burkland’s all-wheel-drive streamliner running two supercharged Generation II Chrysler Hemis on alcohol.
Poteet’s solution was a 3155hp, Ken
