Guinness World Records has posthumously awarded Jessi Combs the fastest land speed mark by a woman following her death during an attempt to break it last year.
The automotive TV personality was driving the jet-powered North American Eagle across Oregon’s Alvord Desert on Aug. 27, 2019, when the vehicle hit a rock and broke a wheel at 550 mph, causing it to lose control and burst into flames as it crashed.
Combs had just completed the second of two runs in opposite directions required for the official record, which Guinness has verified at 522.783 mph.
It marks the first time a new record has been set since Kitty O’Neil hit 512 mph at the same location in 1976.
