This week Jessi Combs, the “fastest woman on four wheels,” car fabricator and TV host of Mythbusters, died in what’s been described as a “horrific accident.” With the afterburners in full thrust, Jessi Combs was driving her red and blue North American Eagle—which was really an F-104 fighter jet without wings—on a dry lakebed in the Alvord Desert in southeastern Oregon. Jessi was trying to break her own supersonic land world speed record of 398 miles per hour set in 2013. Although she’s reached a top speed of 483 miles per hour, it wasn’t in an official attempt to break a world record.
Jessi’s death reminded me of my own thoughts about breaking a world land speed record and the realization I could no longer trust my husband.