Hollywood stunt driver Brent Fletcher and Hot Wheels recently set a new world record for the longest corkscrew jump.
Just a few months ago, E3 Spark Plugs brought you the story of XGames champs Tanner Foust and Greg Tracy setting new world records by successfully completing a 60-foot-tall Hot Wheels Double Loop Dare at the XGames Los Angeles. Now, those famous bright orange tracks have inspired a new world record – this time for the longest corkscrew jump ever recorded.
Veteran stunt driver Brent Fletcher, whose work you’ve seen in The Town, Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Fast Five, set the new record. He successfully landed the 92-foot jump in a specially designed, 2,600-pound off-road buggy, launching from an angled ramp hit at precisely 54 miles per hour and completing a full in-flight rotation at 230 degrees per second before setting his rear wheels on the exit track.
“It was such a fine line, that was the biggest concern,” Fletcher told reporters of the jump at the Hot Wheels Test Facility. “So many variables were working against us. A half-mile an hour makes a big difference of under- or over-rotating.”
The previous distance record for a corkscrew jump was 74 feet, completed for an episode of the BBC show Top Gear. And the original stunt was featured in the 1974 James Bond flick, The Man with the Golden Gun. Roger Moore (ok, actually his British stunt double Bumps Williard) rocked the 360-degree spiral over a canal in an AMC Hornet in just one take.
So which one would you rather have experienced from the passenger seat: Fletcher’s 92-foot Hot Wheels jump or James Bond’s canal jump? Post your thoughts on the E3 Spark Plugs Facebook fan page.
