On December 17, 1979, Hollywood stuntman Stan Barrett blasts across a dry lakebed at California's Edwards Air Force Base in a rocket- and missile-powered car, becoming the first man to travel faster than the speed of sound on land. He did not set an official record, however. The radar scanner was acting up, and so Barrett's top speed--739.666 miles per hour by the most reliable measure--was only an estimate. Also, he only drove his rocket car across the lakebed once, not twice as official record guidelines require. And, none of the spectators heard a sonic boom as Barrett zoomed across the course.

Barrett was a 36-year-old stuntman and ex-lightweight Golden Glove champ who had been introduced to auto racing by Paul Newman in 1971. (He was the actor's stunt double for the film "Sometimes a Great Notion.") Barrett's car, the $800,000 Budweiser Rocket, was owned by the movie director Hal Needham, a former racer himself who had broken a nine-year-old world land-speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats the previous September. The car had a 48,000-horsepower rocket engine and, to give it a little extra kick, a 12,000-horsepower Sidewinder missile.



This Day in History December 17th: Stuntman Stan Barrett breaks the sound barrier

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