Earlier in the week we showed you a brief glimpse of legendary showman Captain Jack McClure’s long-awaited return to the cockpit of his famed rocket-powered go kart, which hadn’t been down a dragstrip under his guidance in more than 40 years. Well now we can show you more than just a glimpse, as new footage has been released from onboard the insane little kart as McClure, now 88 years young and still as brave as he ever was, took to the South Goergia Motorsports Park over the weekend during the Manufacturers Cup motorcycle drag racing event.
As alluded to in our previous story, McClure, who campaigned this very kart from 1970 through 1973 before selling it to start a new business venture, received permission to make runs at a sanctioned facility for the very first time. McClure had already made test hits in the kart on closed roadways after it’s reconstruction by friend Ky Michaelson, so now it was a matter of seeing what it could do on a closed race course with a timing system to deliver the numbers.
This kart, if you can believe it, actually went quicker than six seconds in the quarter-mile back in its heyday, at well over 200 mph — which gives you a sense of just how brave a soul Jack really was and still is. Unfortunately, the track and the Manufacturers Cup staff nly gave allowance to do eighth-mile spurts, but McClure took what was given to him and ran with it, making a best pass of 4.73 at just 136 mph, indicating he indeed lifted early.
On that run, however, he went a pretty darned impressive 1.05 to the sixty-foot clocks, which is flat moving for any sort of vehicle. But as quick as that is, a rocket car only gets quicker the longer it’s lit, and if McClure were ever given clearance to run it to the signs, it’d be a show worth any price of admission.
On the previous runs, as planned, McClure crept up on the terminal speed, going 6.03 at 81 mph on the first run and 5.63 at 103 on the second, before making the four-second hit. With GoPro’s mounted facing front and rear, a pair of runs were captured from McClure’s vantage point looking down the SGMP strip, with one final clip at the end looking out behind the kart, which really gives you a sense of how quick this thing rockets (pun intended) off the starting line.