RANDY OLSON SETS WORLD SPEED RECORD OF 119.60 MPH ON ROCKETMAN'S ROCKET POWERED STREET LUGE!
Street Luges have been around since the early 70's when the California skate board craze kicked in. It wasn't long after that the the skateboarders started making street luges out of plywood and using the standard wheels and trucks, with stream lined ferrings. In October of 1976 I supplied rockets for Sam Puccio, Jr. His street luge was only 53" long by 7" wide. It still reached speeds of 75 mph. The big drawback then were the wheels and bearings that would not hold up to the high rpm and heat. Now-a-days there are many companies that offer high speed wheels and bearings. With this advancement, downhill speeds have been approaching 90 mph without rockets. The Guinness World Record for the rocket powered street luge is under 100 mph. After surfing the web and looking at street luges I found the majority of the street luges use the same basic design. I saw nothing really innovative that would ultimately increase the speed. I took a close look at the current down hill luge racers luge and compared it with the current rocket powered luge record holder. There was very little difference between the two except that it had 24 small rocket motors on the rear end. With this addition of the rocket engines, the speed was very minimal compared to a standard non-propelled street luge. I decided if I was going to build a street luge that I would build a luge that would accommodate large rocket motors. The main motor would have more thrust than all of the current record holder's motors combined. That combined with 12 J-350s would easily break the current record. I decided to use larger wheels so I could accommodate larger bearings and a bigger axle. I also machined my own trucks out of a piece of 6066-T6 aluminum billet. Another one of my main concerns was the lack of breaking that the standard street luge has. To me it sounds primitive to use your shoes to stop a vehicle at over 100 mph. I invented my own braking system so you would not have to take your feet off of the pedals to stop. One of my other concerns was that with the luge exceeding 100 mph it potentially could fly. I've had a lot of experience with aerodynamics and wind tunnel testing. I built this luge to be aerodynamically stable and it will hug the ground. Saturday, September 29, 2001 we made our first 2nd high speed run. We used 1 K-550 and 12 J-350s. We fired the K-550 first and the 12 J-350s all at once. In Minnesota we do not have very steep hills so we had to settle for an initial coast speed of 56 mph. and then fire the first rocket. Approx 10 seconds later we fired the 2nd set. The official speed was 119.60 mph. The run was timed with a set of Chrondek clocks. The speed traps were 120' apart. The luge was driven by Randy Olson a long time friend of mine. This run will go down in the record books as being the first to run over 100 mph in a rocket powered street luge. I have already began to modify the Luge, where the primary engine will be a long burn L-600 and 10 K-550s. This will easily put our speed over 150 mph. Stay tuned for our next record making run!
Rear power plant (click image to see larger photo)	Innovative skid plate braking system (click image to see larger photo)