US racer Combs awarded female land speed record posthumously

American racer Jessi Combs, who was killed in a land speed record attempt last year, has been officially named as the new female record-holder.

She was driving the North American Eagle, a joins US-Canadian project intended to break the 23-year-old land speed record of 1,228kph set by Andy Green in Thrust SSC in 1997. Combs’ achievement takes her past the previous record for fastest speed achieved by a woman, which was 825.1kph, set by Kitty O’Neil in 1976.

The North American Eagle used a General Electric LM1500 turbojet engine capable of producing up to 52,000bhp. Combs’ crash occured during a record attempt on a dry lake be in Alvord Desert, Oregon.

“I really don’t know how I feel about this at all as no record could ever be worth her not being here,” Combs partner Terry Madden said in a social media post.

“But it was a goal that she really wanted – and as hard as it is for me to even look at the car without crying. I’m so proud of her.

“She woke up that morning to an alarm saying ‘let’s make history’ and we had an absolutely amazing day. On the morning run she broke her previous top speeds and we went back to the trailer and had a long heart to heart – she had a few things that were bothering us safety-wise and I told her I would support her no matter what she decided to do.

“That afternoon we booked a house in Lake Tahoe for the next night, and she decided she was going to run that one last afternoon run to back up her record and then walk away from it for good and let her back-up driver go for the overall world record instead of her. That was to be the last time she ever got in that car.

“It has torn me apart that all I had to do is say let’s go and we would have left before that run, she asked my opinion and I told her Togo for it if it was what she wanted. That conversation has torn me apart everyday since the accident.”

Image: Jessi Combs via Instagram

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