Formula One cars, it may seem obvious to state, are
made for speed. But not for outright terminal velocity: they’re designed to go
around a twisting and turning track as quick as possible. Which leads us to
wonder how fast an F1 engine could propel a vehicle if it were unleashed for
that purpose, and that purpose alone.
The Cook Motor
Racing Team built a streamliner with an F1-spec V10 engine built by Judd and
took it to the salt flats at Bonneville for the 2018 World Finals, where it was
officially certified to have cracked 512 km/h.
That’s a heck of a lot faster than today’s
grand-prix racers have managed – even at the high-speed circuit of Monza (the
fastest track on the calendar), where they’ve managed 360 km/h on the
long straight. Even in the V10 era back in the mid-2000s (when this Judd engine
was made), the top speed ever achieved (again, at Monza) was 372
km/h.
In that context, the CMR team’s achievement in
Bonneville is rather impressive, to say the least. What’s more is that weather
conditions prevented the team from making additional runs that might have
resulted in an even higher speed, and potentially a new world record (of some
sort or another).
It was still enough, to make its
driver/owner Reg Cook the fastest Kiwi in history – something of which fellow
New Zealand native Burt Munro and his World’s Fastest Indian might be proud.
And we have a feeling that Bruce McLaren might be smiling down on the endeavor,
too.
