Mexico Sets Mariachi Record

The country of Mexico, and the city of Guadalajara, are the proud owners of a new world record. The world record is for the biggest mariachi band. At the International Mariachi Festival last Sunday, 549 musicians got together and played several songs including "Cielito Lindo" and "Guadalajara".

A representative of the Guinness Book of World Records (Stuart Claxton) was on hand for the event and made the world record official. The previous record was established in San Antonio in 2007 with 520 musicians.

I'm glad the record is now in Guadalajara, Mexico. It just seems right that the record should be held in the birthplace of mariachi music.

I realize this story is not an earth-shattering news event, but I happen to like mariachi music. It's hard to be unhappy when a mariachi band is playing.

New Record For Wind-Powered Car

Who would have thought a 30 mile-per-hour wind (and only that) could power a land vehicle to over 126 miles-per-hour? But that's just what happened last Thursday, when the Greenbird (pictured above) set a new world record of 126.1 mph on the dry lake-bed of Lake Ivanpah in California.

It's builder and driver is British engineer Richard Jenkins, and this was his fifth try at breaking the record. Greenbird is built of a carbon composite and is powered by a hard flat sail. The vehicle is so efficient it can travel at 3 to 5 times the actual wind speed.

The old record was 116 mph, set in March of 1999 by American Bob Schumacher in his wind-powered vehicle called Iron Duck.