(Five times record holder Craig Breedlove with his team and Spirit of America car. Photo: Robin Richardson)

In an interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal, Craig Breedlove announced that he would shortly be making his official attack on Richard Noble's existing LSR, or the 'English Record' as Breedlove refers to it. Having had a 2 year start on the ThrustSSC team - the two combatants are now running neck and neck in their bids to outsmart each other - Breedlove now intends to take full advantage of his proximity to Black Rock to try to pull ahead once again. But before getting to Black Rock, he had to overcome environmental objections to the use of the desert surface and take his car to Bonneville for initial test runs.

To show just how much work has been put in by the Thrust team, at about the same time that Andy Green was pointing the menacing looking nose of SSC down the tarmac of Farnborough for his first run in the world's most powerful car, across the Atlantic at Bonneville Salt Flats, Breedlove was sitting literally in the nose of his altogether smaller, but no less potent challenger - Spirit of America. As Andy Green found out for the first time, and Breedlove for the umpteenth time in his 40 odd year LSR career, cars like this don't come straight off the trailer and into the record books. Both suffered exactly the kind of niggling problems that experienced record breakers expect. Full details of Thrust's first runs can be read elsewhere, but what of Breedlove's first attempts and his immediate plans following those runs.

It should come as no surprise to anybody that Craig Breedlove chose the World of Speed meet at Bonneville on September 24-28 to make the first tentative runs in the latest of his triumvirate of Spirit of America jet cars. No surprise that is to anybody except those with experience of trying to run solid wheeled jet cars on a slippery salt surface. The ravages of time and the affect of constant potash extraction have left the salt perilously thin over the muddy sub surface, a sharp contrast to the rock hard couple of foot thick salt first enjoyed by Breedlove in the fifites with a series of hopped up cars and belly tank lakesters before he graduated to the big time with his first super successful 3 wheeler Spirit of America in which he aced out Donald Campbell in controversial fashion before blasting the opposition to oblivion with runs that culminated in a 526mph record and short flight over a bank and into a lake when the parachutes failed - a recurring theme as you will read later.

(Spirit of America on the Bonneville Salt Flats in September 1996. Photo: Robin Richardson)

So given the condition of the salt and the experiences of Art Arfons, Richard Noble and Rosco McGlashan, who all found that solid wheels and salt lakes get on together like Liam and Noel Gallagher, why did he choose Bonneville instead of the alkali surface of Black Rock or Edwards Airforce Base. Well, that depends on who you listen to. For starters, the BLM were still listening to environmental objections to the use of Black Rock, objections given some credence by deaths that happened at the Burning Man Festival on the desert that attracted the sort of numbers some predict for the LSR attempts. Until those objections were resolved, nobody could use Black Rock.

It's known that Breedlove's deal with backers Shell contains a number of performance clauses linked to key events and dates in the project's evolution. It was Shell, insisted some, who dictated the use of Bonneville for the record attempts. One story even went so far as to suggest that failure to run by a specific date would result in the funding plug being pulled by the oil giant. One gentle initial run at 85mph with the engine at idle was sufficient to prove a number of things. As one of his team revealed, 'the engine's OK, the steering's OK, the ski brake works fine, but the salt is just so rough that we won't be running here again - it's Black Rock or nothing.' That information turned out to be only partly correct as you will read later.

As with his first SoA all those years ago at Bonneville, Craig had a problem with parachutes. This time it wasn't that they wouldn't work, but rather that they wouldn't fit in the first place. With the rumoured deadline looming, thus it was that the tickover run was made without chutes. This was not a major issue since the ski brake was going to have to work at speeds in excess of that anyway. So, taking advantage of 7.5 miles of the best salt that could be found, Breedlove began his quest to regain the LSR. While good enough for many lighter and lower powered cars, as predicted it was no good at all for Spirit of America. But that didn't stop it from looking good, even if that one run had packed so much slushy salt into the wheels and fairings that it would take many, many hours to clean it all out.

(Spirit of America on the Bonneville Salt Flats in September 1996. Photo: Robin Richardson)

When wheeled out into the bright Utah sunshine in mid afternoon for the photo shoot, it looked simply stunning. As with all of Breedlove's cars, the finish on the bodywork and the paint was superb. With its nose down stance and typical Breedlove spatted rears wheels, Spirit looks like 600mph standing still. While only 7 feet less inlength than Thrust SSC, it looks much shorter and certainly more fragile. Where Thrust looks big, brutal, mean and purposeful, Spirit looks delicate and elegant. More than one observer wondered, and worried, about how safe the driver would be in the up front cockpit section in the event of a crash. Let's hope we never have to find out.

Later on in the week, things really began to look up when Craig posted a 360mph run, not too shabby considering the conditions and the newness of the car. but there was a price to pay and that price was wheel bearing damage caused by slushy salt. 'We had a lot of trouble with the salt,' Breedlove said. 'It's mashed potato consistency. We had bearing damage.' Over in England, SSC had been making similar progress with Andy and the team proving that Thrust runs reliably, and quickly, and is now ready for shipping to Jordan. Clearly Craig needed somewhere else to run and that's exactly what he's now got.

For reasons that are still unclear, the BLM made Black Rock available for use until November 15 with a similar permit for next year from September 16 to November 15. Craig is confident that he can get that changed to give him an earlier start in '97. While too late for the Thrust team for this year, it is only a matter of hours along the I-80 from Breedlove's base, so it was no surprise when he turned up at Gerlach on Tuesday 15 to check out conditions. He didn't bring his car with him, but after confirming that things looked OK providing that the weather holds out, he announced that he would be back with Spirit of America and the team on Saturday 19 for first runs on Monday 21. Breedlove says he'll probably reach 400mph on Monday before upping the speed on Tuesday prior to an official attempt on Richard Noble's current 633.468mph record on Wednesday. 'We'll run three days. We're just praying the weather window will hold for us,' said Breedlove. Incredibly, given the conditions, main sponsors Shell have insisted that Craig takes the car to Las Vegas after Wednesday for a trade show. Whether he goes as the new Land Speed Record holder is another matter. Assuming the desert is still OK after doing the showbiz bit, he'll be back on November 1 until either the weather or the permit runs out.

I was at Bonneville and Black Rock myself two weeks ago for a quick squint at conditions, and although some sections of the desert are still spongy and in some places downright wet, there is no doubt that sufficient space could be found for a crack at the record with a fully sorted car. Quite what Breedlove will do about clearing the course in the time available is unclear. Even on a short section, I picked up any number of small black pebbles washed up from the winter rains, and even a couple of spent bullets to go with them. The Thrust team were meticulous in clearing their record course from this type of debris before their runs in 1982 and 1983 and it's hoped that the SoA team does the same.

So, the race really is on now. Breedlove is at Black Rock from 21 October while Thrust SSC travels to Jordan on 26 October with it's course already prepared. Over in Australia, Rosco McGlashan is sitting waiting with his new car and says he will be at Lake Gairdner from November 1. Whether it turns out to be too little, too late rather depends on what happens in Jordan and the USA over the next couple of weeks. We'll keep you posted.

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