Ed Shadle never sleeps too soundly.

Ideas are always popping into his head, rousing him from bed at all hours of the night and forcing him to jot them down and hammer out a plan for the day.

"My mind is always running," said Shadle, who lives in Spanaway. "I'm always thinking about things I have to get done."

The impetus of this unrest is rooted in the relentless pursuit to break the land speed record of 763 miles per hour, set in 1997 by Britain's Andy Green at Black Rock Desert, Nev.

Shadle, a 68-year-old former Air Force maintainer and retired IBM engineer, is part owner and driver of the North American Eagle, a modified F-104 Starfighter.

"I wanted to be able to do something that is so difficult most people stay away from the idea," Shadle said. "At this age, you have to keep challenging yourself or you'll get old."

The 13,000-pound vehicle is powered by a General Electric turbojet engine, which runs on kerosene and generates more than 42,000 horsepower. At idle, the engine consumes nearly 40 gallons of fuel per minute.

The vehicle rolls on custom aluminum wheels and features a state-of-the-art magnetic braking system in addition to a dual parachute deployment system. But the transformation from retired warbird to the North American Eagle has been a process.

Shadle and co-owner Keith Zanghi found the F-104 fuselage in 1999 after nearly a year of searching - without much help from the Internet.

"It took a lot of phone calls," Shadle said.

The two purchased the fuselage for $25,000 and started modifying it.

"It was a piece of junk," he said. "It took us three years to get the fuselage back to shape."

Through many connections in the aviation and other high-tech industries, Shadle and Zanghi assembled a team of nearly 50 volunteers to help them transform the warbird into what it is today.

"Since we both had a history of working on big corporate projects, we knew we could gather the people around us to figure it out," said Zanghi, who works at the Boeing plant in Frederickson. "We've got every discipline it takes to build an airplane - from school teachers to mechanical engineers to welders. It takes a lot of disciplines to do this."

The team gathers every Saturday for work parties and even convoys together when it comes time to drive south to California or Nevada to make a test run.

"It looks like the circus leaving town," Shadle said.

The North American Eagle has conducted more than 25 test runs to date. The fastest it's gone so far has been approximately 400 mph in June of 2008. While there is still considerable progress to be made in breaking the record, the team isn't fazed.

"With about 30 runs under our belt, each time we've learned so much," Zanghi said. "There are no show stoppers right now. Nothing is really stopping us from breaking the record."

While the entire team wants to see the record back in American hands, slow and steady is the name of the game. Engineers have told Shadle the North American Eagle is capable of 835 mph.

"It'll do 600 mph no sweat. The challenge is aerodynamics," he said. "We have to make sure the aerodynamics are there. It just takes testing. We have to make sure we do it right and be safe."

The team has plans to make another test run in a dry lakebed in southern California in May, and then try to set the record on July 4, Zanghi said.

Maybe then Shadle can finally get a good night's sleep.