John Baechtel owns Landspeed Media Group, a publishing firm that operates automotive technical and enthusiasts web sites including HotRodEngineTech.com. He also operates his motorsports consulting business and his Landspeed Restorations business which preserves and restores historic race cars. John is a 40 year industry veteran, an automotive performance consultant, publisher, author, and has written over 1,300 articles, along with over a dozen performance books.

Baechtel served as technical editor of Car Craft Magazine in the seventies, executive editor of Hot Rod Magazine throughout the eighties and then editor of Car Craft again in the nineties. He spent 17 years at the world’s premier performance magazines, supervising and building an endless stream of high performance projects.

He was a GM motorsports consultant for ten years and then opened a race engine testing facility for over a dozen years before retiring early to write technical and historical automotive books and manage a growing group of automotive high-performance enthusiast websites.

He also spearheaded the restoration of the Summers Brothers Goldenrod land speed record holder for the Henry Ford Museum. And finally he has also assumed the duties of Public Relations Director and Event Coordinator for Mike Cook’s Bonneville Shootout, the official FIA/FIM international world speed record event held annually on the Bonneville Salt Flats.

He is a Bonneville racing veteran, 200 MPH Club Member, International FIA speed record holder and avid collector of land speed record memorabilia and LSR model cars. He builds his own race engines and is the author of multiple technical books on engine building and race car construction. He enjoys researching and collecting vintage engines and speed equipment.