Matt Farah just showed up to Bonneville and used VWs own L SR Jetta and went 1 MPH then they did.
Earlier this week, Volkswagen hit the salt flats of Bonneville and set a very specific land speed record in a highly modified VW Jetta to the tune of 210 MPH and some change. I don’t know if VW expected The Smoking Tire’s Matt Farah to go faster than they did but when he went out onto the course, he didn’t just crest 200 MPH, he bested their record by going one mph faster to 211 MPH. Unfortunately, he didn’t actually BREAK their record. Here’s why.
But before that, check out his posts on Instagram!
View this post on Instagram
Lol. In a Jetta. Bonneville Rules. Story and video coming to @roadandtrack next week!
I reached out to Matt via Twitter, well, more like I @’d him and he confirmed that this 211 MPH run, while faster than VW, wasn’t good enough for the record books. Breaking records requires that you follow very specific rules. Since Matt didn’t run during a competition, there was no “Event fuel” or fuel that meets Southern California Timing Association’s requirements.
Although SCTA doesn’t have its manual online, thanks to the Aussies who follow simliar, if not the same rules, their fuel requirements I reckon are the same.
“The SCTA/DLRA defines gasoline to contain no nitrogen bearing compounds, no propylene oxide, no ethylene
oxide, and no more than 10% methanol. The contest board may choose any test or combination of tests
to assure that liquid fuels used in GASOLINE classes comply with these specifications.”
It goes on further from there, but you get the picture.
Matt used VP racing fuels in his run, and, according to him, VP’s fuel, while the same octane as the fuel VW used, makes more power and thus, he was able to eke out one more MPH.
There is a certain brand of fuel that VW had to run in competition, I don’t remember what it was. For my test they used VP Racing fuel. Both brands were C16. VP made more power, so the car goes faster.
— Matt Farah (@TheSmokingTire) September 22, 2018
I don’t know how VW’s supposed to feel about all this. Perhaps they feel like they could’ve gone faster with Matt behind the wheel. Probably not.
Matt Farah’s driven literally thousands of cars in his lifetime and is known to be a pretty competent driver so his run in this Jetta isn’t all that amazing, although highly unexpected!
Matt did mention his words and video would soon hit Road & Track soon.
Can’t wait to read that.
