As a founding member of the Igniters Auto Club of Chicago in 1951, Keller, along with his eighth grade classmates, had a passion for hotrodding. Both drag racing and the fantastic speeds at the Bonneville Salt Flats filled his youthful dreams of building and racing fast cars in the 1950s. Inspired by working with "Big Daddy" Don Garlits, Keller briefly raced at the drag strips in his Cadillac-powered 1939 Ford. NASA-sponsored contract research projects at the IIT Research Institute brought him to the Marshall Space Flight Center at Huntsville, Alabama where he worked on rocket propellant monitoring hardware for the Saturn I and Saturn V booster test programs. Later, working in research at the Institute of Gas Technology on catalysis in natural gas combustion led to gas industry sponsorship of The Blue Flame land speed record vehicle.
As a partner in Reaction Dynamics, he helped to design and build the X-1 rocket-powered dragster, the prototype of the Bonneville streamliner, and the Blue Flame. The Blue Flame was their first attempt to run on the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1970. Their successful initial land speed venture resulted in Gary Gabelich setting the world land speed record, 630.388 miles per hour (1,014.656 kilometers per hour) over the kilometer distance with a flying start. It was also the first world land speed record over 1,000 kilometers per hour. This record was not broken until 1997. The following year (1971) he designed and built the Honda Hawk motorcycle streamliner, ridden by Jon McKibben to 286.556 miles per hour over one mile distance. This was not backed up by a return run, however.
In 1972, Keller was the rocket engineer for the Pollution Packer dragster at Bonneville. Dave Anderson set numerous world acceleration records over the ¼-mile, 500 meters, and the standing start kilometer at 234.775 miles per hour, the average speed over the distance. Back at the Salt Flats in 1974, he designed and built the Pollution Packer Bonneville Dragster, driven by Vern Anderson to new world acceleration records in the 1/4-mile and 500 meters. The latter distance average speed was 203.506 mile per hour. This was, again, a rocket-powered vehicle with a unique monocoque chassis structure.
Following these projects, he has designed and built the rocket propulsion systems and chassis for several rocket-powered dragsters; Lew Arrington's "Captain America", John Luna's "Moonshot", and Sammy Miller's "Vanishing Point" to name a few. These rocket-powered "exhibition" cars were very fast and popular attractions at drags strips across the country for several years. At the same time he has continued on with a successful engineering career in the medical device industry from the 1980s until now.
(This biography was provided by Richard A. Keller, III.)
The Richard A. Keller, III papers (1957-2011) consist of articles, brochures, and news clippings regarding Keller's development of rocket-powered cars. The collection contains materials regarding speed racing and various vehicles developed by Keller such as The Blue Flame, X-1, Pollution Packer, and others.
Twenty-four hour advanced notice encouraged. Materials must be used on-site. Access to parts of this collection may be restricted under provisions of state or federal law.
The library does not claim to control copyright for all materials in the collection. An individual depicted in a reproduction has privacy rights as outlined in Title 45 CFR, part 46 (Protection of Human Subjects). For further information, please review the J. Willard Marriott Library’s
Collection Name, Collection Number, Box Number, Folder Number. Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, The University of Utah.
Donated by Richard A. Keller, III in 2012.
Processed by Betsey Welland in 2012.
Photographs (P1801) and audio-visual (A0019) materials were transferred to the Multimedia Division of Special Collections.
This folder consists of 9 CDs and a USB flash drive that contain a compilation of publications and photographs regarding the history of the Blue Flame by Richard A. Keller. Also included is a complete index and certificate of registration with the United States Copyright Office.
This folder consists of 16 CDs and a USB flash drive that contain a compilation of publications and photographs regarding the history of Space Age Speedster by Richard A. Keller. Also included is a complete index and certificate of registration with the United States Copyright Office.