Fossett team to try to break speed record

CARSON CITY -- A racing team founded by missing adventurer Steve Fossett still intends to try to break the world's land speed record on an alkali flat near Eureka next summer.

Eric Ahlstrom, the leader of Fossett's Reno-based world land racing team, told Eureka County commissioners last week that the team will try to hit speeds of greater than 800 mph in 16-mile-long Diamond Valley. Ahlstrom did not say which member of the team would drive the Fossett car, a 47-foot-long vehicle that resembles a jet without wings.

British driver Andy Green set the current record of 763 mph in the Black Rock Desert north of Reno on Oct. 15, 1997. It was the first time in history that a land vehicle exceeded the speed of sound.

Traditionally, land speed records have been set either at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah or in the Black Rock Desert. Diamond Valley is off state Route 278 about 17 miles northeast of Eureka.

Chris Worthington, planning and environmental coordinator for the Bureau of Land Management in Battle Mountain, said Tuesday that a permit to allow the speed record trial has not been issued. Worthington said he still was studying the request and might not issue a permit before February.

"Diamond Valley is the best land speed racing site in the country, better than Black Rock and Bonneville" with a higher alkali content which "makes it harder right after it's dried," Ahlstrom told the county commission.

He said ideal driving conditions probably would occur in late July, August and early September.

Diamond Valley never has been used for speed events, according to Worthington. He said access to the area is open to anyone, but the Fossett team intends to discourage people from going to the area during the speed trials.

"They told me Black Rock is too heavily utilized and Bonneville (is) too short," Worthington said.

Ahlstrom told the county commission the speed record attempt could become "quite a media circus" and he was trying "to keep that down."

He joked that local residents could make big money towing media vehicles that attempt to drive across the playa and get stuck.

Fossett has been missing since Sept. 3 when he took off in a small private plane from the Flying M Ranch, south of Yerington, on what Civil Air Patrol Maj. Cynthia Ryan said was a flight to scout for dry lake beds in which to try to set a land speed record.

A massive search by the Civil Air Patrol, the Nevada National Guard, private pilots and others failed to find any trace of Fossett or his plane.

His wife, Peggy, filed a request last month with a court in Chicago seeking a declaration that Fossett is dead. In that filing, she said that Fossett's final flight was just a pleasure trip and not a scouting expedition.

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or (775) 687-3901.