Saturday 2nd December 1899

Born on this day, John Rhodes Cobb, who dominated British racing, setting a series of lap records at the famous Brooklands racetrack in England, including an unbroken record of 143.44mph in 1935. In 1938, at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, he set a new land speed record of 350.194mph in a Railton racer, breaking the 345.489mph record set by George Eyston two weeks before. Eyston, driving a Thunderbolt, went on to regain the land speed title that year. However, in 1938, Cobb returned to Bonneville to wrest the title from Eyston for good, this time racing to 369.741mph. Cobb’s record speed stood until 1947, when Cobb himself returned to Utah in another Railton and set a new record of 394.196mph, although one of his unofficial runs was in excess of 400mph. In 1952, Cobb was killed at the age of 52 while trying to set a new water-speed record on Loch Ness in Scotland. His impressive land-speed record stood until 1963, when Craig Breedlove, driving a jet-propelled vehicle, broke a record that no other drivers of cars with internal combustion engines could touch.