BORN SLIPPY

OLDSMOBILE STREAMLINED AEROTECH ENDURANCE RECORDS THAT STILL STAND TODAY.

-  BRENDAN McALEER

RACETRACK in the empty desert of West Texas, the howl of a V-8 comes echoing in across the landscape, starting to rise in volume. A low, slippery shape approaches, headlights ablaze. A startled animal suddenly bolts across the tarmac. Not quickly enough.

At a speed somewhere above 150 mph, the car collides with the deer (or perhaps coyote; the stories differ), and the effect is like a right cross to the jaw. The vehicle flies off the track, slamming down more than 150 feet away onto a pile of rocks, one of which punctures the floor between the driver's seat and the pedal box.

Incredibly, the driver walks away from the crash, with a shattered full-face helmet and jangling nerves. He walks away from the test track as well, the close call highlighting the imbalance between risk and reward. The mangled car is brought back to the track, then picked over like carrion as racing mechanics look to keep two other cars going to set records. Battered and cannibalized, the car is long thought to have been lost to the desert and to time.

But that's not the case. The Oldsmobile Aerotech was built to go the distance.

QUAD 4 HERO

Those who set land speed records can be roughly separated into two camps: the heroes and the forgotten. To achieve the fastest speed on a lap or over a flying mile is to have your name written in the history books—if only until the next record holder comes along. But the drivers who set endurance speed records, even those that last decades, don't usually make headlines. Their job is dangerous but also boring, more grueling slog than exhilarating sprint, a marathon effort where at any moment you can find yourself spun off the track into darkness, cacti, and rattlesnakes.