5 Minutes with Danny Thompson – Setting Land Speed Records and Racing History
Danny Thompson has been a racer all his life, driving quarter midgets, sprint cars, sports cars, off-road rigs, and for the last couple decades, land speed racers. If you don’t immediately recognize his name, you likely know of his father, Mickey.
Danny made a name for himself as a racer as well as in the business side of motorsports, but for the last couple decades his passion has been about going fast. Very fast. He finished the work that he and his dad planned when he dusted off the 50-year-old Challenger II and proceeded to set a new record of 448mph. Since then, Danny has piloted Mustangs and set records in the Ferguson Racing streamliner at Bonneville. We were lucky to catch Danny at a slower time to chat for a few minutes.
GG: You’ve raced just about anything with wheels – do you have a favorite motorsport to compete in?
Danny Thompson: By far, land speed racing at Bonneville. It is so incredibly hard out there and everything I’ve incurred in all those different forms of motorsports over the years, well, none of it counts at Bonneville. You get there and you start over, you learn, and you respect the place because it will bite you…and I’ve been bitten pretty hard out there. I went through the 5-mile traps in a Mustang at 247mph upside down after flying through the air for 1,100 feet and rolling seven times!
GG: Congrats for earning the Hot Rod Magazine Trophy at SpeedWeek this year! What does it mean to have your name with your dad’s on such an historic trophy?
Danny Thompson: It’s awesome. The Hot Rod Trophy has been awarded to the fastest pass at SpeedWeek since 1949! My dad’s name was added to the trophy in 1959 and ’60. We came real close the last few years, we were getting records in our classes, but George Poteet would come out just a bit faster on the top end. But it means a ton to have my name on it with so many other heroes on there. It’s a privilege to be on there, but mostly with my dad on there.
GG: In 2018 you ran your dad’s old car, Challenger II, and obliterated his highest speed by over 40 mph with a two-way average of 448 mph. What do you think he would have said about that?
Danny Thompson: He probably would have something like, ‘you probably could have made 450 if you would have added more nitro”…or something like that! He and I were always competitive like that. He went 406.6 in 1960, but broke on the return run so he didn’t get the record. To finish what he started, that was pretty darn cool, especially in the same car 50 years later.
A funny story is that Dad ran 406.6 in Challenger I, then when I set the first record in Challenger II it was 406.7! And this year, when we set a new record with the Ferguson streamliner, we went 406.1 – That 406 is a magic number for the family!
GG: Who were your motorsports heroes?
Danny Thompson: Certainly, my biggest hero was my dad. Next would be Danny Ongais, who drove for my dad in Funny Cars and dragsters. He also drove for Parnelli Jones, drove Indy cars, and he won the 24 Hours of Daytona when I was working for him as a fabricator. Other favorites would be Dan Gurney and Mario Andretti.
GG: You took a break from racing in the early-’90s when you and your wife, Valerie, moved to Colorado to raise your son. What got the racing juices flowing again?
Danny Thompson: A trip to Bonneville planted the seed to go racing again. It led to me driving a car for Don Ferguson, who I currently drive for, and that pretty much got the racing juices flowing again. Then I got to drive one of my dad’s old cars, the Pumpkin Seed, which got me into the 200mph Club. Then came the Mustang project with Brent Hajek where we set a record for the world’s fastest production Mustang at 258mph.
All this time I had Challenger II in my shop…it took 76 steps to walk around that car and I put on a lot of miles walking around it. We finally made the decision to update the car and get back on the salt. I thought it was going to be easy, but it was a way bigger project than I anticipated, and things are never easy at Bonneville.
GG: The 2025 SpeedWeek event was marred by the Speed Demon crash and the death of driver Chris Raschke. What goes through your head as you strap into the car the rest of the week?
Danny Thompson: I don’t want to sound cold, but you can’t let anything get into your head when you’re in the car. If you’re not paying 100-percent attention and something does happen when you’re moving basically two football fields a second, there can be nothing else in your mind except driving. You feel bad for the team, for everyone involved, but when you’re racing, none of that can be on your mind.
GG: What advice would you offer to someone planning to drive at Bonneville for the first time?
Danny Thompson: First off, you need to go out there and not race, just go hang out. Find someone to help or work with, just get a feel for the place, the salt, go to the starting line, go to impound. Learn about the track, the wind, how slippery it is – it’s like driving on snow and the track conditions change as you go down the course!
For instance, we had a storybook finish this year with the streamliner, but the year before, we never made it to the 5-mile mark – in two events with the same basic combination! Just when you think you have Bonneville figured out, she’ll slap you upside the face.
GG: We always see you at the Grand National Roadster Show – do you have a street rod in the garage?
Thompson: I do not actually. And what’s funny is that I went for a ride in one of Ferguson’s hot rods over the summer and I thought wow, this is actually my first ride in a hot rod. It would be fun to own one, but it’s always been about the racing for me.
GG: With two new records plus the Hot Rod Trophy this year, what is the 2026 racing plan?
Danny Thompson: For 2026, we’ll be back on the salt with a plan of attack. I currently have the AA Fuel Streamliner record at 448. We have Fuel Streamliner records with Ferguson Racing in the A-, B-, and C-engine classes, so next year we’ll have a D- class engine to go after the alphabet of records. We are two wheels on the cushion all the time – nothing is slowing down!
Photos: Marc Gewertz, Danny Thompson Collection
