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ARNESON: Heavily Baked And Lightly Salted
Danny Thompson leaves the Bonneville Salt at 264 MPH...
Erik Arneson  |  Posted November 09, 2010  
The "after" pictures of Thompson's ill-fated Bonneville pass tell the tale of a good run gone bad. (Danny Thompson Collection)
Danny Thompson escaped the dramatic crash on the other-worldly Bonneville salt with a tiny hole in his left leg created by an unidentified black shard, a bruised right leg and the instant realization that he went the absolute wrong way with some aero decisions in the third and final year of running record-setting Mustangs across the wide-open Utah landscape.

Funded by Oklahoma farmer and fanatical racing enthusiast Brent Hajek, Thompson has spent the last three seasons on the speed merchants’ surface of choice in a series of E85-powered Mustangs, paying tribute to his famous father Mickey’s iconic 1968 efforts for Ford.

Captured on the cover of Hot Rod Magazine, Mickey and multi-talented driver Danny Ongais took three 1969 Mustangs to the salt, setting nearly 300 American stock car speed and endurance records at Bonneville and on a runway at nearby Wendover Air Force Base.

In 2008, Hot Rod put Danny and the first of his three Mustangs on the cover, marking the 40-year anniversary of his father’s historic effort and the beginning of his own.

Mimicking the colors of Mickey’s three Mustangs (blue, red and yellow), Danny’s 2008 effort in the “blue” car scored the one-way mark of 252 miles per hour, but broke before completing the record-requiring return pass.

In 2009, Danny piloted the “red” Mustang, an E85-powered 2010 Ford Mustang from Ford Racing and Hajek Motorsports to a C/BFALT-class world land speed record of 255.764 mph, hitting a top exit speed of 258.41 mph.

And, last month, the world’s fastest Mustang driver was back at the salt with a package he believed would take the new “yellow” car to the 300-mph mark.

Powered by a supercharged 5.4 liter Cobra Jet Modular V8 engine developed by John Mihovetz and his team at Accufab Performance, the car produced 1,240 horsepower on the dyno, leading the team to describe the package as “one pissed off engine.”

With nearly 500 more horsepower than the 2009 power plant, the only aero change made to the car proved to be pivotal in the effort to reach 300.
Danny Thompson & Brent Hajek pose with the pristine pre-run Mustang. (Danny Thompson Collection)

“I totally missed in analyzing last year’s runs,” Thompson admitted. “I made the wicker on the rear wing smaller, and it became obvious real quickly that I had gone the wrong way … last year, it all came down to the last hour and we were running into a head wind. It got a little loose on the last pass, but I was able to hold onto it.

“Part of the difficulty with an effort like this is that you really don’t get to run a lot of laps,” Thompson added. “You don’t get the chance to collect a lot of data. In three years, I’ve only made maybe five and a half passes in these cars.”

On this year’s opening pass, an abbreviated test run got the car up to 228 miles per hour with 68 percent throttle open.

“On the second run, with 98 percent throttle open, we were at 258 miles per hour through four miles with another mile to go,” Thompson said.

But at 264.7 miles per hour, things went south in a hurry. Well, south … then north … then south … you get the picture.

“I felt it get a little loose and I got it back, but then it went ‘snappy’ loose and in no time I was flying,” Thompson said.


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Erik Arneson

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