Early History

Mickey was a hot rodder from the start. When he was 15 he started racing on El Mirage. He had a buddy drive his Model A to the dry lake and Mickey drove it to 79 miles per hour on his first trip. The future was cast and Mickey became known as the kid that had the fastest car in high school. In 1958 he was going to a sanctioned drag race with a twin engined dragster and stopped by the Salt Flats at Bonneville. He took it to 294 miles per hour, setting a record that was 25 miles an hour faster than anyone else and took 25 years to break. It is said that it was then that he decided it was time to go for the land speed record.

Mickey drew out the design of the frame of " the Challenger" on the floor of his his garage and started to build. He was working one evening and a man approached him asking him what he was doing. "I 'm building the car that will break the land speed record." he replied. The man asked him what engine he was going to use and Mickey replied that he wasn't sure, but he'd need four of them. The man was Bunkie Knudsen from Pontiac and they furnished the engines. In 1959, Mickey took Challenger 1 to a two way average of 345.33 miles an hour, setting four speed records.

He returned to his garage and redesigned the car adding scoops to funnel more air into the engines, and returned to Bonneville. On September 9th 1960 Mickey drove the redesigned Challenger  406.60 miles per hour to become the fastest person in the world.

To be continued...