November 2020 • Photos Nestor, Tony and Dave Kommel
Presented by BUA Motorsport, RatTrapRacing.com & USAutomotive.com

Hot rods, sedans, sports cars, streamliners and motorcycles break a total of 29 records at the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) season finale at El Mirage dry lake, California.

It’s has only been a couple weeks since the first SCTA land speed event of the year and already we’ve had the final. Held over two beautiful days in November, the conditions were near perfect with a good 1.3-mile course and light winds compared with the October meet when strong winds obliterated the event.

The fastest car of the October meet was the Costella-Yacoucci Waters Nebulous Theorem III streamliner with a speed of 268.484mph. In November, driver Rick Yacoucci bumped his existing record to 284.732—pretty amazing when you consider that his ’liner is powered by a 250ci small-block Chevy ‘mouse’ motor running on gasoline, albeit turbocharged.

In total, 18 car and 11 motorcycle records were broken during the course of the two-day event that saw 220 recorded runs. Other records that got bumped that weekend included Dave Davidson in the 911 Roadster that upped the Scott, Smith, Leggitt AA/Blown Fuel Roadster record from 243.283mph to a solid 254.507.

Besides all the broken records, the weekend also saw some excitement when cars took an unscheduled spin. For example, Dave Silveira took the Mariani Street Roadster for a spin going clockwise, then anti-clockwise until he drove out of it unharmed.

Ted Carlton taking the Mariani Roadster for a spin. Photos Dave Kommel

The #352 Coe Family Studebaker with Justin Coe at the wheel went for a wild, wiggle-ass ride until he finally straightened it out. Finally, Timmy McMaster went through the lights backwards at 150mph but was maybe north of 160 when his Y-Block-powered Roadster took leave.

You see all sorts at El Mo including home-built ‘Pientenpol’ airplanes, one powered by a Corvair flat-six.

For the 2021 schedule visit: SCTA-BNI.org