{"id":2009448,"date":"2026-06-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2009448"},"modified":"2026-06-25T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T21:00:00","slug":"drove-like-a-devil-lived-like-a-saint-the-man-who-broke-over-500-speed-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2009448","title":{"rendered":"‘Drove like a devil, lived like a saint’: the man who broke over 500 speed records"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Who?<\/h3>\n

Drove like the devil, lived like a saint. Meet Ab Jenkins: breaker of over 500 speed records, pioneer of the Bonneville Salt Flats, city mayor, devout Mormon.<\/p>\n

Not a exactly a party animal, then?<\/h3>\n

Not unless your idea of a party is \u2018driving a mad homebuilt plane-engined racecar very far, very fast, before having an early night with a cup\u00a0of tea and the bible\u2019.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ah, the original grindset.<\/h3>\n

Born in 1883, David Abbott Jenkins shot to national fame in 1926, racing his\u00a0Studebaker non-stop from New York to San Francisco in a record-breaking 86 hours, beating the train while fuelled by nothing stronger than prayer and perseverance. But it was on the salt flats that the teetotal, god-fearing Jenkins found his calling, establishing Bonneville as a temple of speed in the process.<\/p>\n

Were maniacal speed merchants of the 1930s all so… wholesome?<\/h3>\n

They were not. His rivals were generally known for hard drinking, harder living, and dying young. Jenkins? In the final laps of 24-hour runs, he\u2019d whip out a safety razor and shave \u2013 one handed, at 100+mph \u2013 just to look presentable for the finish line photo call. Priorities, people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And hang on… he was a mayor, too?<\/h3>\n

Yep. Adored by the Utah public, in 1940, Jenkins was elected mayor of Salt Lake City, despite not campaigning at any point. Nothing says \u2018vote for me\u2019 like a few hundred speed records under your belt, it would seem.<\/p>\n

At which point he hung up his race boots?<\/h3>\n

Absolutely not. In fact, it was while serving as mayor that Jenkins achieved arguably his most legendary feat on the salt flats, piloting his Mormon Meteor III \u2013 a custom land-speed racer powered by a 750bhp, 26-litre V12 aircraft engine \u2013 over 3,868 miles in 24 hours at an average speed of 161mph in 1940, a record that would stand for 50 years. Presumably civic duties were light that week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Embarrassingly for modern men, it took a team of eight to beat Jenkins\u2019 achievement in 1990.<\/p>\n

And then<\/em> he hung up his race boots?<\/h3>\n

Again, not so much. Jenkins continued to push boundaries to the very end, setting his final speed record at the age of 73 and perishing of a heart attack a couple of months later. Never drank, never smoked, never crashed hard, never slowed down. Amen to that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who? Drove like the devil, lived like a saint. Meet Ab Jenkins: breaker of over 500 speed records, pioneer of the Bonneville Salt Flats, city mayor, devout Mormon. Not a exactly a party animal, then? Not unless your idea of a party is \u2018driving a mad homebuilt plane-engined racecar very far, very fast, before having […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-2009448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2009448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2009448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2009448\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2009448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2009448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2009448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}