If it was easy everyone would be doing it! Land Speed Racing that is.

Enter Brit Geoff Stilwell who only came to land speed racing in 2016 when Ron and Brian Hope invited him to the Bonneville Speed Week and let him drive their 1985 4WD Dodge Daytona. Although he had raced motorcycles some years ago, Geoff had never been in a land speed car but he was quickly hooked and purchased the Kuhl, Olson & Bowman Roadster. In 2018, Geoff powered the 500 ci Keith Black Hemi-powered rear-engine ’27 Ford Roadster to a new A/Blown Fuel Rear-engine Modified Roadster record of 258.679 mph. A record that still stands.
Unfortunately, Geoff did not get the coveted ‘red hat’ that is the only reward in land speed racing—beyond personal satisfaction—for setting records. The minimum speed for entry in the Bonneville 200 MPH Club in Geoff’s class is 290 mph—go figure.

Since the 2018 record runs, Geoff’s 7707 has been completely rebuilt by the team at Mick’s Paint, Pomona, CA. A new, longer chassis was built to accept a new 496 ci Brad Anderson-based hemi built by John Beck of Vintage Hot Rod & Design & Fabrication, Chico, CA. The 5,000 hp engine features Bill Miller pistons and rods, a Blower Shop 14-71 supercharger and Enderle injector with MSD ignition and Racepak data acquisition. The transmission is a B&J 2-speed and the rear end a Winters quick-change.

As Geoff had never raced El Mo before, he made licensing passes at the November 2021 event and returned in May to continue the process of testing for Speed Week. To achieve his ‘A’ license Geoff ran 200.18 mph on his first run making a perfect pass. Unfortunately, no second run could be made on Saturday and Sunday’s run was clocked at 215, however, the Racepak data indicated a GPS speed of 224. Either way, the run was right on target for this test session. Next, it was back to Mick’s Paint to apply what was learned testing to make ready for Bonneville Speed Week, Aug. 6-12, 2022.

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