In 1960, famed driver Mickey Thompson was at the Bonneville Salt Flats and had a one-way speed of 406.60 MPH in Challenger 1. In 1968, he made another attempt at the land speed record with Challenger II, but a rainstorm turned the flats into a lake, and that was that.

Mickey Thompson retired in 1988, but partnered with Danny to make another attempt that the land speed record. Unfortunately, the elder Thompson and his wife were murdered before that attempt was made, and Challenger II was put into storage.

Fifty years after that run 406 MPH run, Thompson’s son, Danny, has taken Challenger II out of storage and he has been restoring the car in preparation for another run at Bonneville this year. In the video above, we see the start up of Challenger II, and to get that beast fired up it took a starter that can crank over the high-power engines.

Thompson relies on Powermaster starters to get the motors cranked on Challenger II. Powermaster’s High-Speed starter is that noise you hear just before the streamliner fires the cylinders, and you can tell that the high-power twin Hemi engines.

After the engine test, all sounded well and Thompson and his crew seem to be well on their way to getting back out to Bonneville to lay his father’s business to rest. To accomplish that, he feels that he must take his father’s car out to Bonneville again – and to break the world land speed record. You can find out more about Challenger II on the ThompsonLSR website.

Of course, you don’t need to have a land speed car in your stable to summons the the cranking duties of a Powermaster starter. Just head over to the Powermaster website and check out their performance starters for street, strip, and performance engines.