An End to Infinity

It had been a bad season for racers at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats, and the autumn rains were less than a month away.

Officials were just about ready to call it quits for the year when Glenn Leasher, a 26-year-old dragster from Burlingame, Calif., showed up with an improbable creation called Infinity. Leasher and three partners pooled $12,000 to buy a surplus General Electric J47 jet engine complete with afterburner, the same power plant used in the F-86 Sabre jet of Korean war fame. The young dragster encased his engine in a 400-lb. aluminum body mounted on four wheels, added a pair of eight-foot parachutes for more braking power, and announced himself ready to beat the record. "If this thing ever takes off, it'll never come down," he said.

Back home on California dragstrips, Leasher had often exceeded 180 m.p.h. in piston-engined cars. But this was something else again. On the first test run, the massive jet blasted the car to 330 m.p.h.

After a second run through the measured mile at a relatively conservative 287 m.p.h., he came back to the pits to tell his crew that "everything is perfect--great."; His third run was announced as another test. But those who were watching said that Leasher let the engine build up to full power, and for good measure, some said, lit the afterburner. When he entered the measured mile, timers guessed his speed at well over 400 m.p.h. It could have been as high as 475.

As the car flashed down the track, it suddenly blew apart in a ball of flame.

Glenn Leasher and his Infinity were scattered over a mile of salt. Only the monstrous engine was found in one piece.

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