Raschke Rockets to 459.734 MPH to Set Land Speed Record at Bonneville
By Evan J. Smith
Driving the Speed Demon streamliner at the Bonneville National Speed Week, Chris Raschke Director of Sales and New Products at ARP recently set a land speed record traveling 459.734 mph!
Raschke averaged 446.716 mph over the last mile of the course in the B/FS (Blown Fuel Streamliner) entry. Amazingly, this places Raschke on a short list of only 13 drivers who have eclipsed 400 mph in a wheel-driven vehicle, and he is the 17th member of the 400 mph Chapter.
“When everything is good the car drives really nice,” said Raschke. “When you stage and prepare to go, they lock you in and it’s very comfortable. I know everything about the car because I’ve worked on it for 14 years. When you’re sitting with the engine idling you can’t really hear a lot. Then they push you off as fast and hard as they can [with the use of a push vehicle], and you make a judgement on when to let the clutch out. As you drive off, you eventually mat the throttle and watch the tach climb,” he explained. “Depending on which engine is in the car [the team has four engines] it can be lazy down low or aggressive. But once it gets on the boost it starts to pull.
“With the 383 engine, which we ran most recently, I shift at 9,500 rpm, and by the time I’m in 7th gear I’m running 420 mph.” The Speen Demon Streamline uses an air-shifted, billet Liberty 7-speed transmission. “At 400-plus mph the course gets very narrow, so the goal is to keep it straight by aiming at a point on the mountain that’s 27 miles away,” said Raschke. “After making many runs, I can feel the difference between 380 mph and 460 mph, it’s really fast at that speed.”
Raschke’s high-speed past wasn’t without drama though. “At the end of the 459-mph run, we lost the parachute. We blew the main chute right off the car, and when I realized it, I was still doing 400-plus mph! I hit the secondary chute, it’s designed for about 480 mph, so it didn’t do much at the slower speed. I finally stopped 5 1/2 miles later at the 10 ½-mile mark. The car has carbon/carbon brakes, which I overheated, so I was just along for the ride at that point, but eventually I got it stopped,” he said.
“We have four engine combinations that we can run depending on what class and record we’re going after. We hold the record in a variety of classes. Currently the engine is a 373-inch small-block Chevy with Dart block and Dart Little Chief Heads. Boost comes from Precision twin turbos that we use on all four engines and it burns VP methanol. We can run up to 60 psi. on the small block. The team also runs a 555 Big-Block Chevy for AA class. The car has already gone 481 mph with former car owner George Poteet driving. “Unfortunately, George passed away two weeks before the Bonneville event—he will be dearly missed,” said Raschke.
By Evan J. Smith
Driving the Speed Demon streamliner at the Bonneville National Speed Week, Chris Raschke Director of Sales and New Products at ARP recently set a land speed record traveling 459.734 mph!
Raschke averaged 446.716 mph over the last mile of the course in the B/FS (Blown Fuel Streamliner) entry. Amazingly, this places Raschke on a short list of only 13 drivers who have eclipsed 400 mph in a wheel-driven vehicle, and he is the 17th member of the 400 mph Chapter.
“When everything is good the car drives really nice,” said Raschke. “When you stage and prepare to go, they lock you in and it’s very comfortable. I know everything about the car because I’ve worked on it for 14 years. When you’re sitting with the engine idling you can’t really hear a lot. Then they push you off as fast and hard as they can [with the use of a push vehicle], and you make a judgement on when to let the clutch out. As you drive off, you eventually mat the throttle and watch the tach climb,” he explained. “Depending on which engine is in the car [the team has four engines] it can be lazy down low or aggressive. But once it gets on the boost it starts to pull.
“With the 383 engine, which we ran most recently, I shift at 9,500 rpm, and by the time I’m in 7th gear I’m running 420 mph.” The Speen Demon Streamline uses an air-shifted, billet Liberty 7-speed transmission. “At 400-plus mph the course gets very narrow, so the goal is to keep it straight by aiming at a point on the mountain that’s 27 miles away,” said Raschke. “After making many runs, I can feel the difference between 380 mph and 460 mph, it’s really fast at that speed.”
Raschke’s high-speed past wasn’t without drama though. “At the end of the 459-mph run, we lost the parachute. We blew the main chute right off the car, and when I realized it, I was still doing 400-plus mph! I hit the secondary chute, it’s designed for about 480 mph, so it didn’t do much at the slower speed. I finally stopped 5 1/2 miles later at the 10 ½-mile mark. The car has carbon/carbon brakes, which I overheated, so I was just along for the ride at that point, but eventually I got it stopped,” he said.
“We have four engine combinations that we can run depending on what class and record we’re going after. We hold the record in a variety of classes. Currently the engine is a 373-inch small-block Chevy with Dart block and Dart Little Chief Heads. Boost comes from Precision twin turbos that we use on all four engines and it burns VP methanol. We can run up to 60 psi. on the small block. The team also runs a 555 Big-Block Chevy for AA class. The car has already gone 481 mph with former car owner George Poteet driving. “Unfortunately, George passed away two weeks before the Bonneville event—he will be dearly missed,” said Raschke.
