The Durable Endurance Man

"Ab" (David Abbott) Jenkins holds more auto distance-speed records than any other living man, possibly because he has been at it for 35 years. At 73, he holds the record for 1,000 miles (at 172.8 m.p.h.) ; 3,000 miles (at 165 m.p.h.); for 24 hours (at 161.84 m.p.h.), among others. Last week old Ab Jenkins climbed behind the wheel again in a Class C stock car 24-hour endurance trial at Utah's famed Bonneville Salt Flats.

The windows in Jenkins' car, a borrowed two-door Pontiac sedan, were rolled up as he pounded around the circular ten-mile track, and the temperature inside the car rose to a stifling 120DEG. Jenkins gave no sign of needing a relief driver, but after 9 1/2 hours, his nervous wife insisted that he turn the wheel over to their 36-year-old son Marvin. Ab jauntily downed two glasses of milk, was soon back at the wheel, in all drove for 16 of the 24 hours. Despite a broken patch of track which caused the car to swerve each time around and cost him minutes, Ab got himself another world's record: 2.841 miles at an average speed of 118.37 m.p.h. Then Ab drove the 112 miles back to Salt Lake City without incident. Jenkins, onetime mayor of Salt Lake City, also claims to be the world's safest driver.

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