It doesn’t always take long to be the best. It took Steve Trafton about 1 minute and 12 seconds.

“The whole experience was quite enjoyable,” he said Thursday. “Of course, I happened to be the one lucky enough to be sitting in the car.”

Trafton, a South Whidbey resident and longtime sports-car enthusiast and Ferrari collector, set the land-speed record for cars in his class at Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah a week ago.

He drove his bright-red 1985 Ferrari 288 GTO to a two-run average speed of 275.401 miles per hour on Friday and Saturday at the legendary United States proving ground for the world’s quickest cars.

The record runs took place Friday and Saturday, Oct. 8-9.

Trafton bested the previous record in his class by more than three miles per hour, set in 2008 by a Tucson, Ariz. driver in a highly modified Berkeley, a British-made sports car.

“That was a streamlined, aerodynamically engineered car,” he said of the previous record holder.

“Ours is stock body. It not only holds the world speed record for its class, it’s the world’s fastest Ferrari and the world’s fastest sports car,” he said.

Cars in the AA/Blown Fuel Modified Sport class all have modified engines of 500 cubic inches or greater. Trafton’s Ferrari features a 540-cubic-inch big-block Chevy engine with twin turbochargers that develop between 2,000 and 2,500 horsepower, he said.

His quest for the record began during Bonneville Speedway’s annual Speed Week in August 2008. Trafton’s car, with another driver, reached a speed of 266 miles per hour in its first qualifying run, but the engine blew during the second required run the next day.

“We brought the car back home and put a bigger engine in it,” Trafton said.

He and his team returned to Bonneville with the car in 2009, where they concentrated on qualifying Trafton as a driver.

He started out with a run of 125 mph, and increased that speed by 25-mph increments in successive runs until he reached 250 mph, one of the few drivers to fully qualify in a single season, he said.

“After that, you’re licensed to go as fast as you want to go,” he said.

This year, Trafton, the team and the car went back to Utah, “soley to try to break the world record,” he said.

Since 1914, when Teddy Tezlaff set a speed record of 141.73 mph in a Blitzen Benz, hundreds of records have been set and broken in a variety of automotive and motorcycle classes at Bonneville Salt Flats.

By 1949, it was the standard course for world land-speed records, including the breaking of the 300-, 400-, 500- and 600-mph barriers.

Trafton’s name now goes on the long list of celebrity speed demons that includes Craig Breedlove, Art Arfons and Gary Gabolich.

Trafton said Bonneville’s eight-mile track across the salt flats is divided into mile segments.

Speeds are recorded between miles two and three, three and four, and four and five. The rest of the track is for gathering speed and slowing down, with the help of two drag chutes.

“The chutes slow you down to about 125 mph, then you can put on the brakes,” he said.

Trafton said the weather was mixed rain and sun on Friday, making the salt surface damp.

“It was very slippery,” Trafton said. “I was fortunate to be able to control the car without spinning.”

That first run was clocked at more than 276 mph.

Conditions were ideal for the following day’s run, he said. He clocked faster than 275 mph, his two-day average, setting the new speed record.

He said he had been traveling so fast, he had to wait several minutes at the end of the run for his crew to catch up to him in the chase vehicle before he could find out if the record was his.

“They were honking the horn and leaning out the windows and waving,” Trafton said. “It was a very happy moment.”

He said he was far too busy during the run to be nervous.

“You may have an occasion to think twice before you get started,” he said, “but once you get strapped in, you’re focused on getting the car to perform.

“You recognize the danger,” he added, “but you also recognize the car is safe.”

Trafton attributes his success at Bonneville to the more than 100 people who helped him the past three years to get him and his Ferarri ready for the record attempt.

He especially thanked his crew, including islanders Matt Armstrong, Rick Brown, Al Carpenter and Katherine Lawrence, all members along with Trafton of the Whidbey Island European Sports Car Club.

He also tipped his crash helmet to car builder Bob Norwood and crew chief Tim Taylor, of Dallas, Texas.

“Everybody was able to contribute. That’s the thing I enjoyed the most.”

Trafton, 64, is a retired investment banker who has lived on Whidbey since 1994. He has two grown sons, one studying at Edinburgh University in Scotland, the other a filmmaker in New York City.

His current car collection includes six Ferraris from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s and a 1957 Morgan racer. But he drives a 2010 Dodge pickup truck when he goes to the store.

He said he’s never gotten a speeding ticket on the island.

“I have a Bonneville driver’s license that allows me to go over 300 miles per hour,” Trafton said. “But I’m not sure the Island County Sheriff would accept that.”

Trafton plans to retire his Ferrari 288 from further speed-record attempts, and intends to concentrate on his love for extreme kayaking and mountaineering.

He said he’s been to the highest point in each of the 50 states. Between 2002 and 2005, he hiked in segments 1,234 miles across the entire Alps mountain range, from France, through Switzerland, across Austria and northern Italy to the Slovenia border.

From 2008 through this year, he and his crew member Katherine Lawrence walked and kayaked in segments 4,752 miles across the U.S., from Oak Harbor to Washington, D.C.

“I’ve got a lot more mountains to climb,” he said.

Will he go after another automotive speed record, say 280 mph?

“I just may,” he said wistfully. “Something like that may happen.”

Trafton will show off his record-breaking Ferrari today from 9 a.m. to noon at Gerry’s Kitchen, 1675 Main St. in Freeland.