Arthur Eugene Arfons is a Second World War navy veteran. He is an ordinary blue-collar worker and the man who pushed land speed records to extraordinary levels against the more publicity-conscious Craig Breedlove in the 1960’s. At the age of 81, Art died. Akron, Ohio is his home town where he was buried with spanners in his hands and with his extraordinary things by his side that he achieved through his courage and innate engineering skill. These extraordinary things are: a J79 jet-engine operating manual and a jar of his beloved Bonneville salt by his side.
Art Arfons was included in the giants of land speed record-breaking. The duels between him and his fellow American Craig Breedlove in 1960 on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, when they kicked the record from 400 to 600mph with their new breed of jet-cars, were the stuff of legend. In 1954, Arfons became hooked on drag racing and his Green Monster cars became part of the sport's folklore. This man a muscular six-footer with movie-star white teeth set in a broad, tanned face, whose flat planes and high cheekbones bore testimony to the Greek ancestry of his father, Tom, and the Cherokee Indian of his mother, Bessie.
He ran the family's grain store in Akron, Ohio for many years, but when he shattered the land-speed record in October 1964, the world came to know him as the "junkyard genius of the jetset. The Spirit of America of Breedlove that used an improvised spaceframe chassis with a '37 Lincoln axle up front, a Ford truck axle at the rear, and steering courtesy of a Packard cost $250 000. While Arfons's ingenious Green Monster costs $10 000. Arfons built a machine for $32 to hand-build the body for less than $1000. He rigged up a shotgun for $3, to fire the braking parachutes. The projectile cost Arfons $10 000 Excluding the forged aluminium wheels and rubber tyres contributed by Firestone.
For $625, He acquired the engine, which was a damaged General Electric J79 from an F-104 fighter. He recalled when he got it home he called GE and asked them for a manual and they said no, he can't have one. He had a colonel from the military stop by the next day and told him that he was not allowed to have the engine because that was a classified one. Art showed his piece of paper where he bought the engine and told the colonel that he bought it because they didn’t want it and had thrown it away. Arfons rebuilt the engine without assistance and stunned the military. The military said that the first time they tied it down and ran it they dried up a small creek out behind the shop and it was blowing boulders away! And once, a guy came after him waving a .45!"
Tom Green piloted the jet-powered Wingfoot Express, owned by Art's step-brother Walt, to a record 413.2mph at Bonneville in Utah, on October 2, 1964. Art Arfons donned his trademark black leather jacket and Navy surplus trousers three days later and obliterated that with an easy 434.02. He and Breedlove played out their game of high-speed Russian roulette over the ensuing months. Breedlove attained 468.72, then 526.28, before Arfons replied with 536.71. Breedlove hit back with 555.48 before Arfons reasserted himself with 575.55 in 1965. At 600.6mph, Breedlove had the final answer.
They didn’t have any illusions about the dangers of their calling. Until Arfons's final attempt to beat Breedlove went horribly wrong On November 17 1966. Bob Hosking, the helicopter pilot due to be filming the event, had a nightmare in which the Monster crashed and threw a wheel up through his chopper's blades the night before the run. Arfons sped down the course and was peaking at 610mph when, incredibly the following dawn and the dream of Hosking came true as the car pitched into a series of rolls that scattered it over 4.5 miles of salt right because the front-wheel bearing seized. One of the wheels really flied as high as the helicopter but mercifully missed the blades.
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