Ab Jenkins

Ab Jenkins
The Mormon Meteor, at the 2007 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance
Born	David Abbott Jenkins January 25, 1883 Spanish Fork, Utah
Died	August 9, 1956 (aged 73) Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Cause of death	Heart Attack
Resting place	Wasatch Lawn Memorial Park, Salt Lake City, Utah
Employer	self-employed building contractor turned professional auto racer
Known for	set numerous World land speed records, 15 of which remain current, mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah 1940-1944. when he died, at age 73, in 1956, he had established more world's automobile records than any man in history.
Home town	Salt Lake City
Spouse(s)	Evelyn Thorstenberg Jenkins
Children	Marvin Edward Jenkins, Edna (Anderson), Ruth (Player)

David Abbott "Ab" Jenkins (January 25, 1883 – August 9, 1956) was the 24th mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah from 1940 to 1944 and was a professional race car driver. Jenkins' interest in motorsports began with racing motorcycles on dirt tracks and cross country. He then became interested in land speed records at the Bonneville Salt Flats. He was instrumental in establishing Bonneville as a location for such events, and in attracting overseas drivers such as George Eyston and Sir Malcolm Campbell to compete there.

He drove the Duesenberg "Mormon Meteor" to a 24-hour average land speed record of 135 miles per hour (217 km/h) in 1935. In 1940 Jenkins set the 24-hour record of a 161.180 mph (259.394 km/h) average that lasted for 50 years (until 1990).

He died on a visit to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Often called "The World's Safest Speedster," Jenkins was the father of salt racing. In 50 years of driving, he amassed nearly 3 million miles without an accident, which included 42 coast-to-coast trips across the continental US. Two of them were speed runs, however after 1931 he confined his efforts strictly to the track.

Born in 1883, Jenkins, a Utah building contractor, got his start driving a Studebaker in 1925 when he raced a Union Pacific train from Salt Lake City to Wendover beating the smoke-belcher by five minutes. Next, in 1926, starting from New York City, he drove a Studebaker touring sedan to San Francisco in 86 hours, 20 minutes again besting the train by 14 hours. Records were set in Pierce-Arrows as well as a 68 mph salt flats run on an Allis-Chalmers farm tractor that he remarked was "like riding a frightened bison" before building a series of purpose-built salt flats cars.

In 1925, Jenkins was hired by Pierce-Arrow to soup up their newly introduced V12 engine which produced a disappointing level of performance. He managed to coax 175 hp out of the engine, driving a Pierce-Arrow along the Utah salt flats at over 100 mph in a 24-hour journey along a 10-mile course. The total amount of miles achieved during the run was 2,710. The following year, he set out to break that record by driving 25 hours and 30 minutes at around 117 mph and making a total of 3000 miles.

As the 1930s began and speed records were being broken regularly, the Bonneville Salt Flats was found to be preferable to the sands of Daytona Beach or the Monthlhery, France track. By 1935, the course was attracting international attention and in July of that year, Jenkins provided accommodations to British driver John Cobb and even relinquished his spot on the flats to him. Cobb succeeded in breaking Jenkins's records during the run.