How wrong can you get?

There we were chasing the corporates for major funding and, as we were to discover, the answer never really lay in that direction at all. Looking back over the last year or so of the project we knew that the percentage funding coming from the Mach 1 Club and public sales was on the increase, but then that could be put down to the increased awareness of the project. I always believed that the major funding would come in from the corporates right at the end when we had proved ourselves in Jordan. I was seriously wrong.

Peter Ross faithfully put up a daily notice in our P8 Shed in Farnborough showing the level of funding. As Press Day approached we were at 27% and our credibility was at an all time low.

Chris Cowell, our great engine man, had some comforting words: "We've got tremendous confidence in you Richard - we know you'll get it!". It was meant kindly but at 27%, unless something changed very quickly we both knew we were in serious trouble.

At the Press Conference I made it clear we were in trouble - it seemed almost the wrong time to do this, the weather was hot and cloudless, there was a holiday atmosphere among the media, and in an hour or so Andy would be belting ThrustSSC down the runway a 200mph to give them something to report.

So I let them have it: "Unless something happens fast, this project is in serious trouble. We don't have the funding to get to Black Rock and if we don't go, Breedlove will be so far ahead of us that there will be no justification to keep the organisation together for another year. So either we go, or ThrustSSC is bound for the scrapyard or a museum - I doubt whether the museums will want the car, it doesn't hold any records and it will be an icon of financial failure."

In every press and television interview I gave stressed the financial problems and our state of concern - but none of the daily media took the slightest notice - the coverage was all complacent reporting about how we were due to go to the US at the end of the month and wasn't it exciting. A huge opportunity had been lost and now we were deeper into the hole without a ladder.

The Chief of Air Staff came to meet the RAF team members and then bowled into my office: "I am sorry, Richard, there is absolutely nothing that the RAF can do to help you - I have tried everything. I can however make sure that that all the RAF people are made available for you on an unpaid leave basis - you will have to pay them." Sir Richard Johns is a great man - he had fought sincerely hard but the British system had won the day. He was as disappointed as I felt. Great to be sure of having the RAF people but now the budget would have to climb again - and Peter Ross's daily notice would show a net fall in %. We were going backwards.

There was concern at HeavyLift:
"Richard, how are we doing on budget?" asked Graham Pearce, the Commercial Director who had fought hard for the project for years.
"Under 30%," I explained.
"Richard this is going to happen?"
"Yes, it's going to happen, Graham"
"Good, well I'll keep in touch."
There seemed no point in either of us taking the conversation any further.

We were looking for serious help quickly. Hugo Drayton's 3.5 page supplement in the Daily Telegraph going to 1.3 million readers should do the trick. Orders flooded in for the Lledo models and only a few for membership of the Mach 1 Club. Quickly we sent the models back with Sally, Ninetta, Suzy and John Lovatt and the Mach 1 members working nights to get the models into the post. Each box carried a "Join the Mach 1 Club" application - and they started coming back immediately, so something was happening - but this is trading and only the profit contribution can be added to the funding. 1% of funding is £6,000 and that is the profit on an awful lot of models.

At this time an awful realisation was beginning to dawn. It was quite clear that the corporates were never going to come. Deal upon deal on which we had placed so much trust, just crumbled to ashes. We were offering to brand ThrustSSC and the Antonov - but no one was interested. BP sent us a complacent document telling us how much they were doing in the community. BP Shareholders started to write to the chairman - but to no avail. It was becoming clear that the "British" part of "BP" is largely irrelevant. Remember the car manufacturers who seemed so keen to replace Rover? Well one by one they backed out. We were now starting to see a disturbing trend - sell the idea in London and the British executives get seriously excited. This is not a charity type situation - this is a global promotion of enormous power and ideally suited to corporates with global brands. Thrust is emphatically not one of those good things to do - it is a huge global promotion and promotions bring the promoters and sponsors new business at higher margins - it is as simple as that. So it's a brilliant value promotion - not a donation to a good cause. And the trend was simply this - the British companies get really excited and refer the deal to the corporate head office, usually in the US, where it is shot down almost as a formality.

A few days later I was at Saatchis - to see what they thought. "Richard, you are so far ahead of the industry with your promotion that it is almost unbelievable. We want to help and we'll rustle up money from our clients".

Around this time Clive Rigby was on the phone from Hong Kong - Clive is a stockbroker and fanatically keen model collector.
"Richard, have the 1/43 scale model rights been taken up?"
"Just about to be, Clive!
We struck a deal - Clive got the rights for a huge advance in royalties and expert model maker John Shenton got started on the master. Models will be available in October.

But there was some tremendous news on the horizon. Digital, who had been so far sighted at the start of all this, had decided to go big time. As a result of Jeremy Davey's efforts a huge amount of capacity in Reading was to be turned over to Thrust. This would give the project the almost unimaginable Internet capacity of well over a million hits a day!!!

We now had a promotional capacity which could make this into the greatest electronic promotion of our time - six weeks in which to build up a multi-million hits a day following! Hitting the same huge numbers of influential people day after day around the World! Nothing would be the same after this - this would be a true watershed for electronic trading and promotion. And still the corporates stayed away. It was now clear that these huge companies tend to lack and recognise the entrepreneurial skills that are so necessary for the small companies like ours to survive. Put yourself in the position of Marketing Director of the XYZ Oil Company - wouldn't you be fighting like Hell to get this deal? I know I would! And I guess that it is quite clear now that these huge companies are going to have to change very fast - and people are going to have to be fired for NOT taking opportunities rather than the current situation where nobody ever gets fired for turning a promotion away. Still all that is none of our business - we are about finding another 70% in under 30 days.

To make money seriously, you have to minimum cost - and that means ever cheerful Mach 1 members to do the despatching of goods - and selling either air, water or paper. Jeremy Davey had just got the electronic trading going on the Internet - so the time had come for the Black Rock Fuel Certificate. Jeremy dashed into my office - he'd finished his day's work for Sterling Software and was now into the nights work for Thrust. He'd been complaining about feeling tired - which was hardly surprising seeing what was going on. We had to link the fuel need to paper and sell the fuel certificates on the Web Site. Andy would be dragged in to sign vast numbers. 1 unit would be 25 Gallons for £12.50. And we would have to make it very clear to everyone that the project was truthfully at an end if they didn't buy.

Jeremy had the promotion up that night - and suddenly things started to happen. People from all around the world were buying our fuel for us. Not just in 25 gal units - but in 200 and 500 gallon lots. Most of the sales were going through the electronic trading, but some were flooding through the faxes, which happen to be in my home. Miranda, my daughter, called the office: "Daddy, something extraordinary is happening - the whole house is filling up with faxes and we are running out of boxes of fax paper!"

We had broken through.

And now we started to see a new phenomenon. People were starting to get angry that the corporates were not backing us. I started a scheme for the 200 odd product sponsors, where they could have their logo on ThrustSSC for Black Rock for £6,000 - this would be a steal because, although the logos are very small and on one side only, but the price would be within their capacity for an instant decision. Wrong again! The logos were being bought by the Mach 1 Members. Nigel Price sent us his savings for his new motorcycle. Ron West was there quickly with his new company based around his Gold membership number. Peter Liddell and Graham Whibley were there immediately.

Hugo and his team at the Telegraph were not pleased with the results of the supplement and rather than walk away with an indifferent "It didn't work did it?" they decided to stick with it. Day after day they put in huge articles about the project and its funding problems and published the Internet URL and the fax numbers (+44-1252-514068). It started as a trickle with people pledging £10 and then it grew rapidly as a huge raging torrent. I have never seen anything like this - huge bundles of letters, vast numbers of faxes. It came in through the Mach 1 Club post boxes - often with cheques for £1000, some for £5,000. It started to reach £20,000 a day. Many of cheques accompanied with letters from people angry that the corporates had failed us - some with just no letters at all. There was one cheque for £5,000 without any letter.

We are going to reply to every letter and we are going to reply to the people who sent us cheques without letters by mailing them at their banks. It is going to be a huge task but with the Mach 1 manpower we can do this. They have saved the project.

The phone rang: "This is Keith Shipton - we have your daughter Genny staying with our friends Mr and Mrs Malpas. We like to come and discuss a sponsorship for our company Chase Technology."

I explained that I'd lost complete track of my daughter and that if they were serious the best time would be to come now in order that we can agree the ad with the signwriters who were on site. They were in P8 Shed in 35 minutes and the deal was done in 20!

Peter Ball at Castrol rang from Finland: "Tim Stevenson our Chief Executive is seriously concerned about all this. He wants to be sure you get to Black Rock. Now just how much do you need?"

Well done, Castrol - the first sponsor into the project, a company with which we have had a tortuous relationship over the years has finally made it through to the end. They were prepared to stand up and be counted!

Brian Palmer banged on the office door. Brian runs all the transport and manages all the moves. This time he has no trucks because we don't have a truck deal - and we have forgotten to update Peter Ross % figures.
"Are we going then, Richard?"
"Yes, Brian - we were always going!"

Now we were into another series of problems. Not only had we to move to the US but also we had to move hangar from P8 Shed to a new site, X1 Shed in the DERA complex. And anyone who has been to P8 knows how much equipment is there. John Lovatt, Steve Georgii and the Mach 1 Clubbers had this under control - but it was to take the better part of 4 days of hard slog. We needed to move the Supacats and Jaguar to Stansted for loading on the Antonov - this coincided with a huge demand for transport throughout the UK and Bryan couldn't get a flatbed trailer. Across the runway at Farnborough was the British Army Exhibition, a huge military exhibition with every kind of tank and helicopter, military contractor and expensive exhibition stand.

By now having generated a well developed sense of identifying nationally funded assets being under used, Jeremy Davey was across the runway like a shot and returned with two army corporals, a QSM, and a vehicle the size of a tank transporter. The Army lent us the transporter for a day and they made three trips to Stansted. We would never have got away on time without them.

Meanwhile, back in P8, Glenn Taylor was making he progress with the Carnet for all this - a vast job which required constant contact with the US customs. A week earlier he had been sucking his teeth and making noises about there not being much time. We were now about to go - and although the carnet was not quite complete, and his time was down to hours Glenn was a changed man: "We're going to get there, Richard!"

The airlines had also not come good - and so we decided to buy tickets at the last moment. Martyn's plan calls for a team of 30, and so we managed to buy tickets for flying the team in three streams, in the Antonov, via San Francisco and a third stream via Dallas.

Looking back on it from the comfort of my room in the PepperMill Casino in Reno the whole thing has been quite incredible. The Antonov arrives in about 5 hours and if we had stayed with the coporates we would have failed. The carefully planned marketing failed because the corporates either had no money, no courage, didn't care or didn't want to understand the opportunity.

The project was saved by thousands of people from all over the World who bought vast quantities of fuel via the Internet and sent in money via the Telegraph. And our friends at Castrol who stood up to be counted.

It was a time when you could not allow any personal emotion - there was simply too much to do and we were getting used to constant failure. The last sixty days have been a complete blur when you seldom saw daylight. I suddenly realised that we really were going when I was able to leave Brian the huge fuel cheque for the Antonov and then raced into London to collect the travellers cheques.

But the day before there had been that terrible and unnecessary car crash in Paris and Britain only now realises just what a huge loss it has suffered. It's is an extraordinary country and its one where people really care and really stand up to be counted. It's really special and it makes you proud to belong.

Tomorrow we make the 100 mile road trip to Black Rock. We have been waiting 6 years for this day.

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