Record Breaking Places

Malcolm Campbell visited many places after he set a new world land speed record at Daytona in 1928 searching for a suitable venue for attempts. In 1929 he subsequently selected Verneuk for attempts in 'Bluebird' as reports were favourable and it was within the British Empire. This was despite the fact that the power of the engine would be considerably reduced due to the high altitude, which is bad for carburation.

Verneuk Pan was a very remote place in 1929 being 50 miles from the nearest civilisation at Bradvlei and 80 miles from the nearest railhead at Zak River or Sakrivier. There were also no roads, just a wide expanse of scrub country. 'Bluebird' and all provisions were driven over land from Cape Town with the car itself in a crate on the back of a six-wheeled truck.

The lake bed in 1929 had a hard-baked surface with fine cracks. It was littered with black pebbles and there were also the occasional thin bushes growing in patches. All these would need to be cleared. Even worse were outcrops of shale with sharp pinnacles sticking up out of the mud at 200 to 800 yard intervals which if not removed would tear the tyres to shreds.

There were few local natives to carryout the removal and many were brought from Cape Town but it was difficult work in the heat of the sun. All drinking water had to be brought from a natural water hole some 5 miles away. Eventually the Provincial Roads Department were employed to scrape the surface free of the shale. They then covered a central 50-foot wide section with a mixture of mud and water for some 12 miles to create a surface on which to drive.

Verneuk had been a very dry location with less than 1/2 inch of rainfall falling in the previous 4 years to 1929. However it wasn't long before torrential rain fell, the first for 20 years, and the lake bed was covered with 6 inches of water cutting the team off for a week.

Campbell returned to Cape Town while the lake bed dried and here he learnt that Segrave had raised the record to 231.44mph at Daytona in 'Golden Arrow'. Campbell needed to return to England with something for all the cost and effort that had been expended by himself and his team so he returned to Verneuk. Despite Dunlop pointing out that the tyres were only designed to run at maximum speed for a mile Campbell went on to set a new 5 mile record at 212mph which was some 72mph above the record at that time.