slmdLS1
09-18-2003, 12:21 PM
PINELLAS PARK -- Luxury car aficionados will not find anything to like in this limousine.
It's 30 feet long, but there's no room to stretch out and relax. It offers no television, no wet bar. Not even doors.
This limo has a driver, but in 2,000 trips, Jim "Jet" Neilson has yet to transport a passenger.
But he can get from place to place in a hurry.
Powered by an 18,000 horsepower Westinghouse J-34 fighter jet engine, Neilson and his limo are expected to take some record-setting rides today at Sunshine Dragstrip. In about two seconds, the first jet-powered car to visit the quarter-mile strip is expected to break the track record of 180 mph.
"I'll guarantee we'll run over 200 here, probably 250," said Neilson, whose car has hit 391 mph. "I don't want to just break it, I want to annihilate it. It'll be wild, man."
Neilson's vehicle is one-of-a-kind, a $250,000 Mercedes 500SEC equipped more for an airport runway than a parking lot. While working for a more traditional limousine service in California, the one-time stuntman and former professional NHRA Funny Car racer got the idea for his car, bought the engine from the military and, since 1992, has traveled around the world with the car guzzling 60,000 gallons of fuel.
The 391 mph over 1,800 feet at a Las Vegas freeway in 1999 is an urban land speed record, Neilson said, though it doesn't have Guinness-level certification. Neilson is hoping to top 400 next year. In the meantime, Neilson, 47, travels as part driver and part carnival barker, showing off "something just unique and different."
"I'm basically still a stuntman, the way I look at it," Neilson said. "I wouldn't be happy unless I'm going 400 mph with my hair on fire. I'll do it until the day I die."
Last weekend the Palm Beach resident brought the limo to Bradenton Speedway, and caught the eye of Sunshine Dragstrip owner Todd Dickinson.
"We just had to have him," Dickinson said. "This area doesn't get to see a jet car that often."
Neilson will withstand five G's of force upon acceleration and 10 G's of negative force when his 16-foot parachutes deploy. (The human body can sustain such positive G forces without severe consequences, but with just two or three negative G's the blood vessels in the eye begin to rupture as blood is pushed into the head.)
The strip stops just short of Ulmerton Road; the daredevil in Neilson falls somewhat short of promising the car will.
"I'm hoping to stop," he said with a smile. "I've got two seconds to get my emergency parachute out, or I'll be in another zip code. I'll be at the airport."
Just the place for a jet.
Webpage (http://www.jetlimoracing.com/index2.htm)
http://www.jetlimoracing.com/VMP_Photo.jpg
It's 30 feet long, but there's no room to stretch out and relax. It offers no television, no wet bar. Not even doors.
This limo has a driver, but in 2,000 trips, Jim "Jet" Neilson has yet to transport a passenger.
But he can get from place to place in a hurry.
Powered by an 18,000 horsepower Westinghouse J-34 fighter jet engine, Neilson and his limo are expected to take some record-setting rides today at Sunshine Dragstrip. In about two seconds, the first jet-powered car to visit the quarter-mile strip is expected to break the track record of 180 mph.
"I'll guarantee we'll run over 200 here, probably 250," said Neilson, whose car has hit 391 mph. "I don't want to just break it, I want to annihilate it. It'll be wild, man."
Neilson's vehicle is one-of-a-kind, a $250,000 Mercedes 500SEC equipped more for an airport runway than a parking lot. While working for a more traditional limousine service in California, the one-time stuntman and former professional NHRA Funny Car racer got the idea for his car, bought the engine from the military and, since 1992, has traveled around the world with the car guzzling 60,000 gallons of fuel.
The 391 mph over 1,800 feet at a Las Vegas freeway in 1999 is an urban land speed record, Neilson said, though it doesn't have Guinness-level certification. Neilson is hoping to top 400 next year. In the meantime, Neilson, 47, travels as part driver and part carnival barker, showing off "something just unique and different."
"I'm basically still a stuntman, the way I look at it," Neilson said. "I wouldn't be happy unless I'm going 400 mph with my hair on fire. I'll do it until the day I die."
Last weekend the Palm Beach resident brought the limo to Bradenton Speedway, and caught the eye of Sunshine Dragstrip owner Todd Dickinson.
"We just had to have him," Dickinson said. "This area doesn't get to see a jet car that often."
Neilson will withstand five G's of force upon acceleration and 10 G's of negative force when his 16-foot parachutes deploy. (The human body can sustain such positive G forces without severe consequences, but with just two or three negative G's the blood vessels in the eye begin to rupture as blood is pushed into the head.)
The strip stops just short of Ulmerton Road; the daredevil in Neilson falls somewhat short of promising the car will.
"I'm hoping to stop," he said with a smile. "I've got two seconds to get my emergency parachute out, or I'll be in another zip code. I'll be at the airport."
Just the place for a jet.
Webpage (http://www.jetlimoracing.com/index2.htm)
http://www.jetlimoracing.com/VMP_Photo.jpg