After both teams experienced problems with their cars during Monday's runs - ThrustSSC had a drained battery while Spirit of America suffered serious engine damage after ingesting foreign objects - it was decided to stand down on Tuesday to fix a few other minor problems too. The time off running wasn't without incident, though...
The first occurrence happened, unknown to the two Land Speed Record teams, on Sunday night. Off at the North end of the desert, Tom and Hal - two Americans exploring the countryside - and their coyote cross-breed, Freckles, were driving their Chevy Blazer off-road. Hitting one of the patches of soft mud that are such a threat out here, the truck sank up to its differentials and stuck fast. A night of trying to jack the wheels out proved fruitless, and so they decided to walk out and seek help.
They set off around 0800: two towns were marked on the map - one of them being Gerlach where the teams are staying. The other was marginally closer, so was picked. On arrival they found a ghost town, and had no choice but to begin the long walk back the way they had come towards Gerlach...
Their first contact was when a team member drove past after Monday morning's runs - people aren't that rare around here, and he gave the usual friendly wave. Eventually they were stopped by SoA's Dick Myers some 3 or 4 miles from their Pits - but at the time that team were deeply embroiled in their own difficulties with their car and were unable to help with other than water. ThrustSSC could help though - and after the flood during the Jordan1 campaign, we had some experience of this sort of situation!
A Supacat with its front-mounted winch was dispatched with Chris Cowell and Leigh Remfry. After a long search, the stricken vehicle was found - although it proved so difficult to find, consideration was given to launching one of the Pegasus microlights. With the 'Cat's superb traction, low ground loading and powerful winch, the truck was soon freed.
SoA loaded their car into their superb custom transporter for the long journey back to their base in Rio Vista, California, in order to change their 'fodded' engine for the spare. The first we knew of any problems was when 2 of their team members appeared at about 2315hrs in the Black Rock Saloon in Gerlach: the transporter had overshot Access 1 onto the desert and was stuck in mud - could Thrust help? Brian Palmer, Pete Ross, Chris Cowell, Jack Franck, Leigh Remfry and Adam Northcote-Wright set out to assess the situation. A rescue was feasible with the equipment on hand, and 'Cat 1', 'Cat2' and the Merlo were brought up.
The two 'Cats took up station in front of the bogged-down Kenworth tractor unit, while the Merlo, with a wooden board on the 'long' forks to protect the trailer, took some weight off the rear. Strops were run from the Supacats, and with a good pull the truck was freed and on its way home. Apparently the poor driver had been summoned at short notice and flown into the desert - he was having a hard day!
That would have been the end of it, but for the BBC crew who had been filming the whole rescue. They got stuck too, as did a couple of the SoA cars. More work...
The first that most of us knew of this was the next morning - when the sign outside the Black Rock Saloon had changed. On one side it read: "1997 Scores: Americans 328 British 147" (we've reached 148, but they only have one '8', what are they going to do when we get over 799mph?). On the other was "SSC saves SoA. Film at 11. www.usa.mud.com"!
Yesterday was comparatively incident free. The Web Site soared to 190,000 accesses while the team got on with work on the car and track preparation. Jack Franck (callsign "Trackmaster") took his team out white-lining, and all day he and "Staker" exchanged radio calls as they aligned the truck carrying the gypsum and water tank. Mike Hearn (callsign "Fodmeister") and his team went out onto the playa to pick up the stones and shell casings - the Black Rock has been used as an artillery range in the past. Progress was reported as very good.
In the evening we had a special treat - the SoA security is being handled by volunteers from the American car clubs, in much the same way as the Mach 1 Club are looking after the SSC team. Members of the Gold Coast Roadster and Racing Club contacted us - they would like to cook us a Mexican meal on the desert, with beer thrown in - were we interested? It turned out to be a fantastic event, with the most superb homemade tamales. The beer turned out to be a huge barrel filled with ice, bottles and cans. Many, many thanks to Aage Block, Richard Parks and David Marquez.
Today we go for three more runs - more news later...
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