I always knew that January was going to be one Hell of a month. In the UK the economy appears to be slowing down - and yet we have go for the big push to complete Thrust SSC and our business is desperately sensitive to the UK economics - given even a slight slow down, would be sponsors financial directors get nervous and ask the rest of the board: 'Should we really be spending this money on Thrust?' James has had to find and take on additional staff at GForce and we are now into a huge 600 manhour/week push to get the car complete. Mike Horne's huge pattern making and composite programme is producing some of the best carbon fibre composite work I have ever seen - there is no doubt that ThrustSSC is going to be wonderful example of craftsmanship when we roll her out - its going to be pity that we have to paint her!

My objectives for the month have been threefold - to secure our first desert development site, to bring in enough money to keep us going - and to meet with Craig Breedlove to agree the terms of the 1996 head to head between the two teams. In view of the pace of activity and the extraordinary things that are happening, we felt it important to institute a news black out so that everything can be announced at the roll-out. Since 20-30,000 read this every week and many of them are journalists, you have to understand that I can only give you an outline idea of what's happening and you have to read between the lines!

It does look as though we have a desert for trials - a wonderful opportunity has come up and earlier in the month Andrew Noble (brother and now desert playa specialist extraordinary) and I found ourselves on a desert with far better surface conditions than Black Rock - these deserts are seldom perfect - there's always a substantial downside but this one looks really good. There are one or two details that have to be addressed and we have to have another check when it dries again after the spring flooding - but so far so good.

Back in UK the financial nightmare continues - but this time you can feel something different - people are aware that this is all going to happen this year and there is a new vital urgency and expectancy. There is one major deal coming up where we set out to sign that companies major target customers before they did - its a pretty original way of going about things and the it's resulted in the start of a fantastically strong and very special relationship - again I hope I can tell you more about this one next month. As I write this there are another three deals going through this week and whilst the tension is as usual great, I am finding that because people now can see that we have a real chance - the tension is being replaced by a strong solid confidence - which is tremendously encouraging.

Towards the end of the month I flew to San Francisco to spend a few days with Craig Breedlove- whist we are good friends, the reality is that we both intend to get to Mach 1 first and absolutely nothing is given away. The Spirit is nearly finished, its built to a very high standard and Craig has a team of 11 in place, with almost everything being done on site in Rio Vista including the composites. I very much enjoyed my time with them and we happily swapped experiences, but I came away knowing very little more about the car! Craig is financially home - having completed a huge deal with Shell which is valued at nearly 20M and includes Shell televison advertising and promotions on 10,000 retail sites - all he has to do is to complete the car and begin testing at Edwards AFB. As an introduction to this, Craig has a substantial exhibition on at the Peteresen Automotive Museum in Beverly Hills - the first thing you see is Sonic 1 in the multi story car park! Upstairs they have made a feature of Craigs beautifully built mockup and there is a major video running which takes you through the SoA development. I joined the crowd watching the video only to overhear a couple of Americans: 'Say - who is this Richard Noble?'

Next door to the mockup is Mickey Thompson's 4 engined Challenger - to see this is to appreciate what a tough and courageous challenger Mickey was and now I can quite understand how he put the wind up Campbell!

Back with Breedlove, we wrote and signed a challenge agreement - and now the race is truly on. We made the arrangements and parted good friends - but now heavily committed competitors.

I have done business is many parts of the World before but seldom in America - one would-be sponsor got all excited and made the wonderful comment: 'I think we'd like to go ahead and propose this niche promotion - can you quote us for 1 million ThrustSSC models?'!

The difference is very marked - the Americans intend to make money out of the Thrust promotions - many of the British companies we meet tend see it only as an expense, which as I keep trying to explain is absolutely wrong!!

Back in UK we have been offered a superb site for testing which also includes our own hangar and offices - for once we will have everyone under the same roof. We are making an appeal to the Mach 1 Club for painters!

Robin is just introducing a new scheme for the Mach 1 members to paint their names on the inside of the ThrustSSC cowlings - just as Lindbergh's team did with the Spirit of St Louis.

So now we are into February: are we going to be able to keep the pressure up? Is the build schedule going to hold? Are we going to run out of money? When are we going to roll out - and what are the arrangements?

More next month...

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