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Bluebird and the dead lake : the classic account of how Donald Campbell broke the world land speed record / John Pearson ; with an introduction by Richard Williams.

by Pearson, John, 1930-

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Campbell, Donald, 1921-1967.

Automobiles, Racing -- Speed records -- Australia.

Automobiles, Racing -- History.

Speed records -- History.

Extreme sports -- Biography.

9781781311721 (pbk.)

1781311722 (pbk.)

192 p., [4] p. of plates : ill., ports. ; 21 cm.

In 1964, in Australia's remote outback, on the dazzling saltpan of Lake Eyre, Donald Campbell set out to drive his Bluebird car at over 400 miles an hour - faster than any man in history. Lake Eyre, in South Australia, some 700 km north of Adelaide, is the lowest natural point in Australia, at approximately 15 meters below sea level, and, on the rare occasions that it fills, the largest lake in Australia. For Donald Campbell, things went wrong from the start: unseasonal rains, a sodden lake bed in which every high-speed run slewed dangerously, money running short - even an Aboriginal curse. With death shimmering on the horizon before him, the lonely Campbell tried to hold his nerve until he broke the record. Campbell would lose his life eventually on Coniston Water, with over thirty years passing before his body was recovered in 2001, but this strangest - and greatest - of all his world record attempts was witnessed by a young reporter. John Pearson's book about Donald Campbell is a portrait of a modern tragic hero, fighting a battle with inhospitable elements and the outer limits of technology - and, above all, with himself.

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