Whanganui Year in Review, March 2020: Speed record, lockdown, and our first Covid cases 30 Dec, 2020 03:30 PM 4 minutes to read March 7 Records were broken on March 7 this year, when air force technician Sergeant Dean Hart smashed the New Zealand land speed record, clocking up an average speed of 363 kilometres an hour over the space of a mile at Ohakea Air Base. The speed beat the previous record of 355km/h. During the ride, Hart reached a top speed of 458.2km/h - so fast that his helmet began to lift from the top of his head. The record was broken in a car that took 10 years to build, with a 60-year-old Rolls Royce Viper 535 engine powering the 30-year-old chassis.