200 MPH Club

We at LAX,

hope you have an exceptional experience.

People always ask, "What does it feel like

"to go 260 mph?"

Well, on these salt flats, there's no point of reference

in your peripheral vision.

You know what it's like driving down the freeway

when there's phone poles, or a guard rail or trees

and they're whizzing by, you don't have that here.

You really only know intellectually,

that you're going that fast.

And you've got just the buzz inside the car,

and the heat, and the noise,

and you know what's going on.

You know you're going more than 200 mph.

But it doesn't feel like that.

It's sort of like driving on the moon.

If I get the 200 mph club done here in Australia,

I will have five entries in 200 mph clubs.

There aren't a whole lot of people who have done that.

It's less than ten, it might be less than five.

And if Keith gets it done down here

then he will be in seven 200 mph clubs,

and I don't think any body else has done that.

So a right-hand turn, left-hand lane.

Yeah.

Meaning over there, by that...

You're good.

We were looking the wrong way again.

Looking the wrong way, yeah.

Dammit.

Course we have to look over there too.

I want to say that's where I was looking.

That's not where I was looking.

I was looking right down this lane.

Yeah, I'm looking down there.

Am I good over there?

You are.

Stay in your lane.

All right now we're good, we're golden.

Now we're just straight.

We're on A1 again so we'll just stay on here

until our feet get tired.

One of the things David and I have done for each other

is we've kind of balanced each other's highs and lows.

David is really really good at planning and thoughts,

he loves going through the record book

and trying to figure out where our skills

meet the record book.

I bring to the table the ability to get it done.

To take all of that thoughts and theories

and put it all together.

Between the two of us, we've been fairly successful.

But more importantly than being successful,

we've helped each other both accomplish our goals.

I really wanted to come here

because I felt I had unfinished business.

The first time, was I think 2008,

we shipped our Bonneville race car here to try to run it

at the salt flats in Australia.

And when we got here, the salt was wet,

and they wouldn't let us run,

so we packed it up and shipped it home.

We're going to Lake Gairdner,

which is the fourth biggest salt flats in Australia.

And it's way bigger than Bonneville,

but it's just like the Bonneville Salt Flats

in the United States, which is normally

where I like to do my land speed racing.

There's some stress racing here,

because it's so far out in the middle of nowhere.

And let's be honest, when you're going as quick as

maybe 240 mph in these cars, things can go wrong,

and you can get hurt pretty badly.

And we're a long way from medical care.

There's only a few dry lakes in the world

that actually have the ability to be raced on.

We're out here in the middle...

We're 300 miles into the Outback in Australia.

We are truly desolate.

Australians live around the outside of Australia.

Nobody lives in the middle of it.

We, right now, are in the middle of it.

We're not going to win anything here,

we're not going to make any money, there is no prize money.

When we're all said and done,

we're going to get a freaking hat.

It's the most important thing in the world to me.

I've been chasing this hat for what?

This is my fourth time here.

I've been chasing these hats for years and years,

I've got all these hats wrapped up on my counter,

and I don't even wear hats.

I'm looking forward to feeling the salt underneath us.

Feels like Bonneville right now.

It's always kind of a cool feeling isn't it?

The first time you roll in

and everything's just perfectly smooth.

I have always kind of had a fascination

with land speed racing.

Many years ago a friend of mine was hurt very badly

and it made me realize I could either

continue this fascination,

or I could actually do something about it.

So I got up off the couch and bought a race car,

took it home, started racing it.

It's literally that simple.

I don't know how to put that any better.

Who am I?

I'm just a guy that likes cars.

I was the editor of Hot Rod Magazine

for more than 12 years.

And I look at land speed racing as the very very origins

of everything that hot rodding is.

All the way back into the early 30s,

when hot rodders down in central LA,

were first knocking the fenders and running boards

off of their Model As and Model Ts,

and driving them on Podunk little roads

all the way up to the Dry Lakes in southern California.

I almost feel like I owe it to the heritage

of what they started for us and this entire industry,

to keep this going, to keep writing about it,

to keep racing it,

and feeling like I'm kind of brethren with them,

by actually doing it.

We made it.

The records that we're running on here are all open records

meaning that any pass that we make in excess of 200 mph

will be a record and will get us in the 200 mph club here.

This is the one opportunity in amateur racing

where a guy from the middle of nowhere

can literally come up with a national record,

and sometimes an international record.

This is an amateur event.

It's about the guy getting off the couch and going racing.

It's about the little guy.

I'm from Brisbane, Queensland,

just north of the Gold Coast.

My name is Fleabag.

Some people, it's all about going fast, I really don't care.

I just enjoy building the car.

If it broke I had no way in the world of means

of paying my way out of it or repairing it or anything.

I just cross my fingers and hope it all worked out.

The car we're going to drive here

is the 1968 Chevy Camaro.

It's aerodynamically bone stock

but it has a 500 cubic inch engine

and it makes about a thousand horse power.

It belongs to a guy named Jack Rogers

who Keith and I know from Bonneville.

And he sent three of his cars down here in this semi truck

which means Keith and I are probably going to be

checking over the car really well.

Also because I've never even seen this thing before.

Ouch.

Dude I'll tell you what, that frickin' hurt.

Do you have ice?

I burned the piss out of myself.

Oh really?

Yeah that just burned the hell out of me.

Wow, the foam stuck to you?

The foam stuck to me and then my hand's on fire.

Oh wow.

But just the pain of that, tells you why to wear

every bit of fire suit you can wear.

Yeah the pain of this makes you realize

how bad that would be if you actually burned yourself.

Meanwhile, I'm hungry.

Well, what are we eating?

I dunno.

My hand?

Keith Turk and David Freiburger are both

giving a lot to the sport that we all enjoy.

And I knew of the fact that they came to Australia

a couple of times and were unsuccessful

because of the refrain of getting on the track.

So I called Keith and said "Look, we're coming over here

"if you two guys would like to join us,

"we'd be honored to give you the opportunity

"to do what you tried to do several years ago."

It was a great opportunity to give some payback

to these guys that do so much for the hot rodding sport.

You see so many unique approaches

to the same problem of speed.

It's not a cookie cutter deal like you see at NASCAR

or some of the other racing venues that are so professional

and rule-backed.

You get a small set of rules,

and other than that, you're unlimited.

I am Animal.

My title is race director.

I've been doing that unofficially since 1996.

That means that anything goes down, I'm the boss.

I have been known to burn a couple of flags over the years

which I'm not really proud of,

but I've never burned an American flag.

Because I am a patriot of speed.

Over the years, I have seen from 50CC bikes,