Ed Renck has established a trend of breaking world records at the Bonneville (Utah) Salt Flats.

That trend continued this past fall.

On Sept. 30, at the 2021 Bonneville World Finals, Renck set the world record again in the C Gas Roadster Class with a speed of 258.803. That bettered the mark of 258.257 mph he established on Oct. 1, 2020 in Bonneville.

“It’s really cool to set this record again,” said Renck, 79.

Renck, a former NHRA drag racer in Pro Comp and Top Fuel, was piloting a 1928 Ford Roadster-bodied machine. It has a 129-inch wheelbase. The engine is a 361-cubic-inch small-block Chevy SV2.

“We will see if we can make it go any faster,” Renck said. “It might be able to go 260 mph.”

Renck, who is from Pueblo, Colo., initially held the C Gas Roadster record in 2016 (236.162 mph) and 2017 (236.99 mph) and regained it back in 2019 at (255.624) and has kept it through 2021.

Renck once again credited his crew – the same he had in 2019 – of his cousin, Carl Spencer, and brothers, Jeff Kosley and Curtis Kosley for his most recent performance.

Renck said he plans to compete again in his world-record breaking roadster at the Utah Salt Flats Racing Association World of Speed 2022 event in Bonneville, Sept. 7-12. He then will return to the World Finals in Bonneville, Sept. 27-30.

Renck, a native of Pueblo, Colo., was inducted into the Greater Pueblo Sports Association Hall of Fame in 2008. He also was inducted in the Colorado Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2017.

Prior to trying his hand at the Salt Flats, Renck had an impressive drag racing resume, winning more than 45 races all over the country from 1967-83. 

He won NHRA’s Division V Top Fuel Championship in 1970 and was second in Division V in the same class in 1972 and 1978.

Additionally, Renck qualified No. 1 at NHRA’s 1972 World Finals in Ontario, Calif., in Top Fuel.

By 1976, he changed classes to Pro Comp and captured the Division V Championship and was named Division V “Driver of the Year.”