Jack and his kart could beat Top Fuel dragsters and went 5.89 in the quarter-mile at 228 miles per hour back in 1973
Jack McClure – aka Captain Jack McClure – has skimmed across dragstrips at staggering speeds and sailed into high political adventure at sea. He was a moonshine-runnin’ rebel with a rival to some of NASCAR’s pioneers back in the Southeast hollers and hills. He has been a stunt driver with the Joie Chitwood Thrill Show, a boat skipper whose craft was seized during the 1980 Marielito boatlift from Cuba, and a plucky participant in the 1967 Daytona 24 Hour race. (He was a non-finisher in the endurance race, along with such notables as the Phil Hill, Lloyd Ruby/Dennis Hulme/Mario Andretti team, the A.J. Foyt/Dan Gurney/Bruce McLaren team, Mark Donohue and Peter Revson, ad Bobby Allison.)
He (at first unwittingly) risked blowing himself to smithereens in a Turbonique-branded racing kart with twin T-16 rocket engines – while the manufacturer hid behind a railroad car. (At the first test-firing of those go-kart engines, McClure told close friend Ky Michaelson that he had asked Turbonique owner Gene Middlebrooks why he was hunkering down yards away. Replied Middlebrooks, “because I have a wife and two kids.”) … More