Jessi Combs mattered because she could do both sides of the job: build the machine and drive it hard. We knew her as a master fabricator with real mechanical ability, not just a personality in front of a camera. She also pushed into a male-dominated world and kept raising the bar, all the way to a 522.783 mph world record in 2019. That combination of skill, courage, and commitment is why her story still hits home with anyone who works with their hands. The Fastest Woman on Earth gives that story the weight it deserves.
Gale Banks opens by reflecting on Jesse Combs, who died in 2019 and is now the subject of the documentary The Fastest Woman on Earth. He explains that the film centers on her land-speed-record effort and the events surrounding it. In 2019, Combs set a women's world land speed record at 522.783 miles per hour. Two days later, she was killed while attempting to surpass her own mark.
Banks describes the documentary as a long-overdue telling of her story. He notes that it was produced by two-time Academy Award-winning producers Simon and Jonathan Chin and says the finished film is powerful and worth watching. His remarks frame the documentary not simply as a record-racing story, but as a portrait of Combs' ambition, skill, and determination.
Banks says he first met Jesse Combs at WyoTech, the Wyoming trade school, roughly two decades earlier. That early connection established his long view of her development as a builder and fabricator. He also mentions a much more recent appearance with her on a SEMA education panel, where the topic of mentorship came up.
That discussion led Banks to emphasize how important mentorship is in a technical career. Combs herself acknowledged that she had not fully appreciated the role mentorship played in her life until much later. She described Banks as a significant mentor and credited him with helping shape her technical growth. The exchange presents their relationship as one built on shared work, professional respect, and hands-on engineering experience.
Combs points to one of her early projects with Banks as a defining experience: helping build one of the first twin-turbo Duramax engines. She recalls thinking it was the coolest thing she had ever done and says she learned a great deal from him through that work. The reference places her squarely in serious diesel performance and fabrication work at a time when such builds were still relatively novel.
Banks briefly alludes to related projects from that era, including the Humvee and the Suburban Gorilla, reinforcing the environment in which Combs was learning. The important point is not nostalgia, but the level of technical exposure she had early on. Her comments make clear that she was not a peripheral participant; she was absorbing advanced fabrication and performance-engineering knowledge directly through ambitious builds.
Banks describes Combs as a master fabricator with obvious talent and says her abilities were unmistakable on the set of her television show. He recalls her evaluating a vehicle package and recognizing both its scale and its potential. With a Duramax engine installed, the next step was to lay out a twin-turbo system and verify that everything would fit under the hood before fabrication proceeded.
That brief recollection highlights the kind of work she was comfortable doing: packaging, system layout, and fabrication planning around a diesel performance platform. Rather than presenting her as a television personality who happened to be around builds, Banks emphasizes that her technical competence was visible in the actual work. In his telling, her fabrication skill and mechanical judgment were central to who she was.
The documentary footage and commentary presented here portray Combs as someone who set ambitious goals from the beginning. People around her describe her as fearless, especially when she was operating in an environment she understood. In those moments, her confidence was unmistakable.
At the same time, the film acknowledges that she worked in a male-dominated world and felt pressure to prove herself repeatedly. Combs states that she had beaten hundreds of men, but still believed she had to push harder and do things bigger and better. That mindset helps explain why she was drawn to increasingly extreme challenges. Her answer to the question of what made her happy was simple and expansive: changing the world.
A central thread in the recap is Combs' pursuit of the women's four-wheel land speed record. The film references the legacy of the previous record holder and includes Combs receiving a blessing to attempt to break that record. This places her effort within a lineage of women who pursued speed on the salt and desert, while also underscoring the seriousness of the undertaking.
Her 2019 run reached 522.783 miles per hour, establishing the record. Banks presents that number plainly, allowing the magnitude of the achievement to speak for itself. The documentary then follows the immediate aftermath, when Combs returned to try to go even faster. Two days after setting the record, she died during that attempt to improve on her own performance.
Combs' own words in the film reveal how clearly she understood the risks involved. She says she was not afraid of dying, but also not ready to die. That distinction captures the mindset of someone who accepted danger without romanticizing it. The documentary also connects that acceptance of risk to the personal sacrifices required by a life built around extreme achievement.
She explains that if a person is chasing adventure at that level, relationships may have to be sacrificed, and she says plainly that she could not have a family while also trying to break a world land speed record. She adds that the life is not as glamorous as it appears from the outside. For Combs, the pursuit was not casual or symbolic; it was consuming, costly, and deeply tied to her sense of purpose. She says it was what she was born for.
As the effort intensified, the team's work moved beyond development and into official record territory. The film makes the distinction explicit: they were no longer testing, they were running for records. That shift matters because it marks the point where engineering preparation, driver confidence, and execution all converge under maximum consequence.
Combs says what kept her going was knowing that she had what it took. She also explains that the moment she started doubting herself would be the moment something went wrong, so she had to trust herself completely. Those remarks show how central confidence was to her process. In a vehicle operating at more than 500 miles per hour, hesitation is not merely emotional; it can become operationally dangerous. Her philosophy was to meet that reality with total commitment.
The closing sentiment is that Combs' life represented a deliberate choice to live courageously rather than fearfully. The documentary presents her as someone who believed a person does not have to live in fear, but can instead live with courage and a sense of freedom. That idea serves as the emotional conclusion to Banks' introduction and to the portrait of Combs that follows.
Banks' endorsement of The Fastest Woman on Earth is rooted in both personal history and professional respect. He knew her as a student, collaborator, fabricator, and record seeker. His recap of her achievements and character makes clear why he believes the film matters: it finally gives proper shape to the story of a builder and racer whose talent, ambition, and resolve left a lasting mark.