City of Salt Lake Special( 1959 - 1960) (2010- ) |
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Sports Illustrated - Death On The Salt FlatsSalt Lake City mechanic and driver Athol Graham, trying for a new speed record at 400 mph, was killed when a wheel flew off his homemade car Hays Gorey - August 08, 1960 A scarlet, cigar-shaped racing car rocketed down the gleaming white straightaway of Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats this week in an all too daring effort to break the 400-mph land speed barrier. At the controls was Athol Graham, a 36-year-old Salt Lake City mechanic who had dreamed for 10 years of surpassing Sir John Cobb's speed of 394.2 mph and entering into the 400-mph realm. The roar of the airplane engine powering Graham's car dinned across the Flats as it neared the three-mile point on the 12-mile racing strip. The machine was going more than 300 mph and still accelerating. Then the left front wheel flew off the axle. The car twisted sharply, bounced into the air and tumbled end over end for three quarters of a mile, disintegrating into a tangle of gasoline-soaked junk. "This is Post 2. He crashed!" an official observer near the accident scene shouted into a phone connected with the timer's stand at the measured mile. "Did you say he passed?" called back a timer from the stand. "No. He crashed!" answered Post 2. Graham was unconscious when the first ambulance reached him. Flown to a Salt Lake City hospital, he died two hours later. It was a shockingly tragic beginning to a season which is to see the biggest assault ever made on a land speed mark. In the next six weeks at least four other men are coming to Bonneville with good chances of reaching 400 mph. One, England's Donald Campbell, might even do 500. Son of one-time speed king Sir Malcolm Campbell and holder of the present water-speed record (260.35) he has worked three years to develop his Bluebird streamliner (see page 20). Three million dollars and the help of 68 British-companies have gone into Campbell's effort, set for early September. Among the other contenders due. at the Salt Flats are Mickey Thompson, the El Monte, Calif. hot rodder whose four-engined Challenger I set a U.S. mark of 332.8 last year, and has been improved since, and Arthur Arfons, a speed-happy mill-and-feed man from Akron, whose car is undergoing final wind-tunnel tests this week. Even a jet will be run at Bonneville. Owned by Nathan Ostich, a 50-year-old Los Angeles physician, and powered by a B-36 bomber engine, it has enough horsepower to top 500 mph. But beating them all to the starting line was the most improbable of all the record challengers—Athol Graham. Graham was a mechanic in a Salt Lake City garage 10 years ago when his nagging itch to break Cobb's record became a magnificent obsession. He didn't believe that the building of a high-speed racing car required the technical help of major corporations and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Confident of his mechanical genius and ability to shop and barter, he set out to build a car by himself. In the first five years he accumulated three Allison airplane engines and a new Cadillac. He quit his job in 1955, sold the Cadillac and opened up his own garage in the outskirts of Salt Lake City. There, when he wasn't repairing a balky carburetor on a customer's family sedan, he began putting together his dream, the City of Salt Lake.
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Salt Lake Tribune - A son's dream and a father's legacy By Kirsten Stewart Butch Graham has no real memory of his father, other than what he's gleaned from family and old newspaper clips. But he has the car. The car that Athol Graham, a garage mechanic, lovingly fashioned from salvaged airplane and truck parts. The car that on August 1, 1960, rocketed down Utah's gleaming white Bonneville Salt Flats at 300 mph before crashing and claiming Athol's life. The car that Butch, 50 years later, is rebuilding in homage to a man whose death was reported in Sports Illustrated as the "shockingly tragic beginning to a season which was to see the biggest assault ever on a land speed mark." Says Butch of the multiyear undertaking, "I must be crazy ... I guess I'd like it if the car found a home in a museum somewhere." For race enthusiasts, Athol's teardrop-shaped "City of Salt Lake" embodies a heyday when all it took to grab a piece of land speed history was courage and mechanical genius. The British owned the speed record for the first half of the 20th century. But in the '50s, young hot rodders set their sights on capturing it for America. Surplus World War II airplane engines were abundant and "available for little or no money," recalls 73-year-old Glen Barrett, a head timer at Bonneville who witnessed record-setting runs by legendary, jet-propelled hot rodders Craig Breedlove and Mickey Thompson, and of mill-and-feed man Arthur Arfons from Akron, Ohio. Beating all these men to Bonneville in 1960 -- a year in which nearly a dozen record attempts were planned -- was Athol Graham. "He was just a guy with a dream and he went after it, like we all did," says Barrett. His family can't remember a time when Athol wasn't dreaming of the Salt Flats, a natural race course so flat and barren you can see the curvature of the planet. "He saw no reason why a local boy, a Utahn, shouldn't hold the record," says Butch. Most of the year, the Flats are covered by rainwater. But as the water recedes, winds whip them into a perfect plain, usually in late summer or early fall, and racers from all over the world descend to test man and machine. Athol's attempt was made on a clear, breezy day, according to news accounts. Roughly 500 spectators watched the 36-year-old kiss his wife Zeldine and climb into his bright red streamliner, intent on surpassing Sir John Cobb's speed of 394.2 mph. "He didn't seem nervous," recalls Zeldine, who turns 80 this year and still lives in Salt Lake City. Zeldine was stationed at the end of the 12-mile racing strip when the airplane-engine powered car roared to life and race officials announced he had passed the one-mile mark. Then, shortly after the two-mile mark where Athol was clocked exceeding 300 mph, she heard, "This is Post 2. He crashed!" The car had inexplicably skidded, flipped and tumbled for more than half a mile. Wreckage was everywhere and Athol was unconscious when crews got to him, says Zeldine, who flew with him to the hospital. Hours later, he died, leaving behind four children. Butch, the youngest, was 3 years old. Running his hand along an elongated piece of steel that he shaped and painted to replace parts of the damaged cockpit, Butch says he has grown more appreciative of his father's passion and genius. "It just gets into your blood. You start dreaming about how to make it better and faster," says the 53-year-old painter and motorcycle mechanic. He has no desire to relive the past, his mother's grief and all those years growing up fatherless and poor. "But what else do you do with a car like this?" Butch says. "You can't just throw it away." Years ago, Zeldine wrestled with the same problem. She had invested in the machine, working nights as a nurse to supplement the family's income. But for her, it was also a source of resentment. For 10 years, the car consumed her husband, who ignored those who said it couldn't be built without the technical and financial aid of big-name sponsors. "I told Athol when he got through with it, he needed to pay attention to his kids," she says. "He was leaving in the morning before anyone was up and getting back after everyone was asleep." In a test drive on the Salt Flats, Athol's sleek racer reached 344.7 mph. "I think it went as fast as any car with a reciprocal engine can drive," says his brother, Robert Graham. The cause of the wreck became a matter of debate and some controversy, as did Zeldine's early attempt to rebuild the car using the some of the life insurance money she collected. Eyewitnesses reported seeing the wheels fly off the car. "What's great about the car is its simplicity. It has no transmission. He basically used a torque converter from a diesel truck," says Butch. "You put the pedal down and go. The wheels and axle couldn't take the pressure." Butch suspects Athol may have also succumbed to mounting pressure from sponsors and media. "I don't think he knew what he was getting into," he says. Butch says if preserving the car has been a burden, it's also been a blessing. For years, it sat neglected in a vacant field and later, in Butch's garage. Now it has proved welcome relief from the fiscal stress of the recession, says Butch. "I gave him the car one Christmas without knowing what he'd do with it," says Zeldine. "He was the only boy in the family and was quite resentful of that, and really needed a dad. I'm really glad he's doing this." kstewart@sltrib.com Athol's racerAthol Graham's racer was cobbled together from throwaway parts.
His total cost » $2,500. Want to help? To raise money to finance the rebuild, Butch is selling commemorative T-shirts at his shop, Paint West, 1606 West 3500 South.
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Video Courtesy of KSL.com |
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| See the full restoration photos, here at ChevyAsylum | |
