I seem to recall someone saying that "if land speed record breaking was easy, they would all be doing it."
Well, at four o'clock this morning, the first fence seemed a very attractive place to fall! After three and a half hours of sleep, I really couldn't see how I could ever have been stupid enough to commit myself to going to Black Rock.
Well, Anthony Edwards and I are in San Francisco now and I have to admit that the flight there was an experience I would not have missed. I was expecting to see a lot of Atlantic on the way there because I assumed, as I suspect most of us would, that the plane would simply follow a straight line drawn on the map. However, if you get out a globe, you will find that, in reality, the shortest route is up Scotland, across the edges of the polar ice cap and down through Canada and the West coast of America to San Francisco. On the way we were treated to such sights as the polar ice fields, the Rocky Mountains and the volcano, Mount Washington, that achieved some notoriety when it buried half the West Coast in mud and soot a few years ago.
Now all we have to do is to stay awake for an extra eight hours in the pathetic hope that this will bring our body clocks into line with local time. Tomorrow, we collect the R.V. (camping machine). They won't let you take it on the day you arrive. Funny, that…..
We spent the morning wandering around San Francisco, buying batteries and other useful things and then took a cab to the R.V. station. We had planned on collecting the R.V. at about twelve but, in the event, various things conspired to prevent us getting away from there until about three o'clock. Driving a strange vehicle in a strange country is interesting in itself. When it is also the size of a small house, handles like a drunken whale and, for good measure, your first trip in it is in busy traffic in the middle of a public transport strike….
It was about midnight and a couple of hours beyond Reno when something fell over in the back of the R.V. We found a convenient flat area at the side of the road and pulled over to investigate. Nothing serious, luckily. Having stopped, we decided that our attempt to avoid jet lag had failed dismally and that it would make sense to stay put until the morning. I think this was probably the right decision. Tony was out cold within seconds and, once I had evicted a couple of moths that had sneaked in past a dodgy fly screen, so was I.
"Er, Tony. Where exactly are we?"
"I'll have a look. Well, all I can see that way is straight road to the horizon and the other way, more straight road to the other horizon."
Time to get the GPS (satellite navigation gizmo) out. Much better. Now we know where we are. Trouble is, all we have done is confirm that we are in the middle of nowhere! To an accuracy of thirty five feet! Tony has concluded that we could well be on another planet, the landscape is so bleak.
There are some indications of life. I heard coyotes howling during the night and we can hear mooing coming from the far hillside. And we are parked under a power line!
We stopped off in the town of Empire - one shop and a mine - to do a bit of shopping and discovered that we must be in the right place as they were on first name terms with Richard Noble! Then on into Gerlach. Five bars, some houses, population of 350 and, strangely, no shop. Around the corner and there it was. The Black Rock Desert stretching into what seems like infinity. Ten minutes later, we arrived at access 1 and were told we couldn't go onto the desert as the car was due to do its third run of the day. However, if we drove on a bit we would we would get to the viewing area from where we could watch the run. The viewing area is actually a lay-by where the road rises up the hillside at the edge of the desert and affords a view over the full length of the course. After about an hour of false alarms - every car on the desert throws up a huge trail of dust - we finally saw the real thing. SSC throws up a cloud that is unmistakable as it is many times larger than anything else on the desert! It looked like it was going pretty fast from our viewpoint but what really brought it home was the way it made the pursuing Jaguar Firechase look like it was going backwards! For the record, the Jaguar was doing in excess of 100 m.p.h. and SSC was only doing 517!
Once the desert was declared clear, we drove down to the pits and, almost before we had turned the engine off, were issued with orange T-shirts and detailed as security, keeping people off the car and out of the main compound.
Tony managed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and found himself out on the desert fodding. I spent some time hunting around various trailers for some bits that the team had kindly shipped over for me, my boots being the first priority. My shoes had already turned white in the dust.
During the afternoon, we adapted one of the articulated trailers as an office for Ron Ayers. Not quite as plush as Farnborough as he has to make do with a large packing case as a desk!
There was a flurry of excitement during the afternoon as Craig Breedlove turned up and had a tour of the car - and got photographed by several of us!
I think we must have got used to the time difference as we managed to oversleep. We got to access 2 too late to be allowed onto the playa so Steve Georgii drafted us onto his security team there.
SSC managed a couple of runs to 570 and 624 m.p.h. and is looking very impressive.
The big news of the day was that Craig Breedlove and Spirit of America had pulled out. They had a meeting at two o'clock and announced that they had terminal financial problems and were being forced to give up. Not that anyone really believed them. We have seen it all before - but a bit closer to home! There was a strange feeling around the camp, not one of relief that the competition had gone but more that the wind had been taken from our sails.
Business as usual at the SSC camp this afternoon. More fodding!
A big day. The folks from Castrol were in town to see their investment in action. Unfortunately, the car decided not to co-operate and went into abort mode, stopping at mile 9.5. But at least they got to see it run, albeit slowly - by its standards!
Damien turned up. He found us in the Black Rock bar, surprisingly! Then we went off to the local Mexican hostelry for supper at the suggestion of Jeremy Davey. He entertained us and some of the S.O.A. people to his tales of how the web site came into being and went from strength to strength. I think that all the visitors we have had to the camp who are on the 'net have complemented us on having the best web site - anywhere! Jeremy is, at last, being paid back for all the hard work he has put into it.
It was a sunny but windy day on the playa. We went out fodding in the morning but had to give up as the wind strength was increasing and the dust was blowing everywhere (See picure right). Damien spent most of the day on compound security. Surprisingly, this turned out to be a bit of a lonely job as hardly anyone was foolish to venture out onto the playa in the dust storm. Hawkeye stopped all vehicle movements because of the risk of collisions and people getting lost so Tony and I parked the R.V. tail on to the wind to stop it shaking around, battened down the hatches and prepared to sit it out. About the only bit of excitement was when a loudspeaker came loose on the roof of the pit trailer and we had to climb up there to secure it. My hand held wind meter recorded gusts of 30 m.p.h. and I narrowly avoided getting blown off the back. For the record, the pit station anemometer recorded a peak of 43 m.p.h.. As you can imagine, the dust has seeped its way into everything!
Not as nasty as yesterday but still windy and, unusually, quite cold. We were posted as security at the pits today. Mr. Castrol Thailand and his wife turned up to see the car so we gave them a guided tour. It seems the Thailand office is not as well off as the London one as they had had to pay their own passage and stay with a friend down the road! Sadly, they had managed to time their visit on a day when the car was not running but I think they enjoyed their visit nonetheless. They departed with lots of thanks and handshaking and bowing. They also left us with a stack of Castrol goodies which we ensured we got first pick of . You don't get many things for nothing when Richard Noble is around and anyway, we needed some clean shirts! We went home after an 11.00 hour day. We decided this was enough!
It was Mike Hornes Birthday so we had a birthday party at the Black Rock. John Lovatt (pictured left) did a quite excellent Richard Noble impersonation and is now having to avoid him for fear of retaliation! The folks at the Black Rock had organised supper for everyone - a roast pig. Some songs were sung, with appropriately altered lyrics, and much beer was consumed. And in the middle of it all, our new lodger, Rob, turned up and probably wondered what he had walked into!
Oddly enough, we got up late! The first priority of the day was a shopping expedition to the "megastore" at Empire followed by breakfast in their car park.
S.O.A. ran in the morning but the but the afternoon run was aborted. This meant that we had a wasted afternoon on security at access2.
Jeremy Duck continued his parachuting lessons in the evening but his chute candled and he had a rather fast descent. Fortunately, he escaped, a little shaken, but essentially unscathed.
This area is an astronomers paradise. You can see an almost unbelievable number of stars in the clear Nevada sky and the full moon as it rose over the mountains that night was really spectacular.
The white lines had been blown away so a gang of us set out into the desert with a selection of rusty oil barrels, a huge tank of water and a stack of sacks of gypsum. I understand that gypsum is very good in gardens for loosening up clay based soil. Only that is not quite what we had in mind. And from first hand experience I can attest that the surface of the desert does not need gypsum to loosen it up! But more of that in a moment. We drove off to the start of the track and were dropped off at half mile intervals with only a rusty barrel for company. This is not a good time to discover that one has agoraphobia because the desert suddenly seems a very big place when you have been abandoned in the middle of it. And just when you are beginning to think you have been forgotten, someone drives a van straight at you! Fortunately they flash the lights just before you get mown down and you throw the barrel - and yourself - out of the way. It is the white line painting crew. They have a crude device on the back which mixes the gypsum and water and trickles it down onto the track to form the lines that Andy will follow in due course.
To pass the time before the other crew collected me to move me on to the next marker, I had a cast around for fod. The first time I got dropped off, I think I found one pebble. The second time was a bit more fruitful. A whole pocket full of stones and one live bullet. In years gone by, the desert was used as a gunnery range and there are still quite a few bits of decaying metal to be found. Theory has it that these are "historical artefacts" if they are more than forty years old and are supposed to be replaced!
We got called in by the pit station just before we had finished the track as a dust storm was brewing up at their end of the desert. We just made it back to the pits before the storm got into full swing and visibility came down to zero. We decided that there wasn't much point in hanging around to savour the delights of yet another dust storm and elected to go exploring instead.
Rumour has it that there are hot springs and geysers in the surrounding area so we headed off along the road that runs along the north shore of the desert in search of them. Some time later we had failed to find the geyser and found ourselves heading up into the hills. Looking back from a position a few hundred feet up above the valley floor, we could see a grassy plain and some way off in the distance a vast dust cloud rising several hundred feet into the air. The Black Rock Desert blowing away! We never did find the geyser, just a sign advising us to visit a local farm to gain access to it. As the fuel gauge was indicating nothing more than a bit of vapour, we decided to give it a miss on this occasion!
A quiet day on the desert so we went into Reno to get some money and do a bit of shopping. Once upon a time Empire had a hole in the wall machine but it got taken out as it wasn't used enough in the winter! Don't believe what you read. America doesn't survive on plastic alone! While we were there we took in the car museum and had a good look at "The Flying Caduceus" which was the first jet car built to try for the land speed record. Sadly it only managed to reach about 300 m.p.h. falling somewhat short of the designers hopes of passing 500 m.p.h.
We drove back to Gerlach with sinking hearts as the Sky Gods were working overtime. There was hail and rain and a spectacular thunderstorm was going on over the Black Rock region.
Much relief as the storm had not caused any problems with the playa. I went to access 2B with Tony. SSC was due to have a compressor wash in the afternoon and then do a couple of runs. In the event, things dragged on for so long that it was decided not to run the car as the second run would have been in the dark.
By way of a change we watched Rob Atkinson fixing one of the airstart units which had been proving less than reliable. It was with some amazement that we discovered that one of the main power leads from the alternator was missing, with obvious consequences - on hindsight! This done, it still wouldn't co-operate and we had to replace a sick switch on the control panel as well.
Just for a change we were put on access 2B. SSC ran but aborted at mile 2 due to a computer problem.
Back at the pits, we were elected to shovel the sand from around the airstart units where the sandstorms had deposited it as the units were getting hard to pull out! The little dune in question filled two trailers.
P.M. Access 2B again SSC had planned to do 2 runs. The first went OK but the second was aborted at the last minute due to a hydraulic problem. Something burst! This left the car at the wrong end of the desert and it took hours to drag it back to the pits . We gave up waiting at 8.15 as it was too cold and dark and we were getting bored! We ate in the Black Rock where Jeremy Davey entertained us with the latest internet tales.
We got to access 2b at 8.25 just in time to see S.O.A. heading North up the desert and then went to the pits from where we saw its return run ( both about 250 m.p.h.). Then it was out with Jayne for a fodding session until lunch time.
The afternoon was the turn of SSC and we got posted to access 3 to perform guard duty. We assumed that the word "access" implied, not to put too fine a point on it, an "access" to the desert and wasted some time driving up the "coastline" looking for one. In fact, access 3 is a point way out in the northern sector of the desert whose only claim to fame is that there is a triangulation point to mark it. To make things easier, we took one of the rear seats out of the minibus we had been loaned and put it in the shade next to it. As access 3 is so remote, we couldn't take the R.V. and its creature comforts as you need a car with a car radio to talk to the pits. The hand held ones don't have the power to transmit that far. "Black Adder" tried to sneak up on us at one point by creeping along the shoreline but was spotted well in advance, luckily!
It was such a hot day and there was so little happening in that corner of the playa that I dozed off for a moment, only to be rudely awakened as Tony and Damien had spotted a bandit heading towards us. We radioed it in and then I left the others alone in the middle of the desert with their seat and triangulation point whilst I shot off after the bandit. He turned out to be a local taking a short cut and was quite happy to be escorted off the playa. As it turned out, I needn't have bothered as the run was cancelled shortly afterwards due to "technical difficulties" and the impending shortage of daylight.
Access 2B - again! I watched the run from the comfort of the R.V. from where I could sit with my binoculars and scan the desert for "bandits" whilst Tony controlled the access. For company I had Linda, the wife of Jack the line painter. We couldn't let her onto the desert because a run was imminent so instead, we sat in comfort and put the world to rights! The actual run was OK but the abort system operated at the end and prevented a return run within the hour required for an L.S.R. The car did set a one way, hence unofficial, record of 687 m.p.h.
We must have been good as we were allocated to the Press Pen. I sat on top of the R.V. with Jack Noble (Richard's son) to watch the run and take some photographs, the extra height making quite a difference. In due course a cloud of dust started to build in the distance and shortly afterwards Thrust SSC emerged from the heat haze and rocketed past us at 693.570 m.p.h. There was a complete silence from the normally hard-nosed journalists whilst the magnitude of what they had just seen sank in. Then they all cheered! It is almost impossible to describe how fast SSC is. There just aren't any adjectives to describe it. You end up sounding like Baldrick from "Black Adder": "it's faster than something going very fast on very fast day." Quite awesome.
The only down point on the run was a double chute failure which meant that the car ended up overshooting mile 0 by 1.5 miles and heating the brakes up. Sadly, this meant that there would not be a return run and that Richard Nobles record would be safe for another day. It was suggested that Andy might have been attempting to park at the S.O.A. camp but he maintains that this was not his intention as they might have impounded the car!
It's hard to write anything exciting about a day spent fodding. One stone looks pretty much like the next one. The only real excitement comes when someone finds a bullet or a cartridge case. But for all that, a walk in the desert is quite pleasant - and there aren't any hills to worry about!
After the problems with the drogue chutes on the previous runs the team had produced some new strops. The breaking strain on these needed testing so we watched while the crew improvised a test rig. One end was attached to the MAN truck via a strain gauge and the other was hooked onto the Merlo. The strain was then slowly taken up until there was a horrible rending noise and the strop broke. The acid test would come tomorrow.
Damien was posted to access 3 with Radar. Chris, Tony and I were posted to access 6 which, were told, is somewhere on the far side of the desert opposite the pits. After driving almost as far as access 5, we decided that it must have been a small track through the dunes some way further back and duly took up station in front of that. We were pretty well convinced that we were wasting our time there as it was a miserable day. Overcast and patchy rain. I tried to make a bet with the others about the chances that the car would run but they wouldn't give me good enough odds, especially when the call came over the radio that the run had been delayed by two hours.
In the end, SSC was rolled out about two and a half hours late and positioned near our end of the track. In due course the engines were started and the car began to move. Very slowly. It took an absolute age to build up to the critical speed where Andy could safely open the throttles without the danger of the engines ingesting bits of the desert. Or, as one T.V. man was overheard telling his audience, "to prevent the engines taking in any air." My big mistake of the day was in not having my camera out for the first run because I assumed that we would only see the car travelling slowly. What I had not realised was how spectacular the reheat would be on a cool day with all the dust damped down by the rain.
The rest, as they say, is history. The USAC timers announced the time for the first pass and it was obvious that the record was within our grasp. The turnaround went to schedule and the car was sent on its return run. SSC was obviously going very fast. And then there was the endless wait for the car to be declared safe before the timekeepers from USAC could come on the air to announce the times. I may well have to edit the video tape I shot of the run as there were a few expletives uttered when they finally announced them. They were even faster than the first run. After all the frustrations of the previous days, the record had fallen! And by a huge margin.
We then leapt into the R.V. and raced past the Breedlove camp (strangely quiet) and on to the end of the track to provide some protection from the inevitable well wishers. Andy had a grin on his face that was to remain there for some time and the rest of the crew were positively euphoric! Even the B.B.C. film crew were joining in. SSC was then towed back to the pits with us driving alongside it for its protection - a bit like the fleet escorting Britannia into port. I don't think I need to describe the scenes back at the pits except to say that there was much cheering and drinking of champagne going on.
We finished the day by drinking rather too much in the Black Rock but were by no means the last to leave. Tony woke up at about five o'clock to hear a voice wishing someone a goodnight!
We had the day off. After a lie in we went off to the Empire megastore to get some essentials and then went exploring up the road marked "Planet End". Luckily, we didn't fall off the end of the world but instead, had a very pleasant drive in some countryside that was rather greener and less dusty than we have been accustomed to.
Tony and Chris went home. They left at a rather uncivilised hour so Damien and I waved them off from the comfort of our beds. SSC was down for maintenance so we started with a bit of a lie in, filled the R.V. L.P.G. tank and wandered down to the desert at about midday. S.O.A. had just done the first of four planned runs. However, the other three had been cancelled as it was reported that there was so much vibration that Craig couldn't see to drive it! We heard later on that this was due to a dust build up on the front wheels.
Damien spent the day on sentry duty at the pits where they had one extra special visitor, Art Arfons. Other visitors had come over from Bonneville where rain had stopped play. One was a speedliner, a car about the same size as a shoe box but about thirty feet long sporting a 300 cu. inch Chevrolet V8 engine. Someone cruelly pointed out that at 300 m.p.h. it was almost as fast as S.O.A. but we decided to ignore them. There was also a streamlined truck with a vast 16 cylinder marine diesel engine.
I spent most of the day hammering wooden pegs into the desert. Hundreds of them! Each thirteen mile track is marked at half mile intervals so that the white line painters know where to put their lines. I don't know how many miles I must have walked during the day but I was ready for my supper (and a small beer) at the end of it!
A day of rest, or, more accurately, a lie-in. Only we made the mistake of going onto the desert to see what was going on and got roped in to help with fodding.
It's a dirty, rotten, job but someone has to do it! Actually, I think fodding has a lot in common with the old joke about the man who was asked why he was banging his head against a brick wall. "Because it is so nice when I stop". So there we were, mad dogs and Englishmen, out in the mid-day sun. Only the mad dog had the sense to hide in the shade at the back the cab whilst the rest of us walked several miles in the blazing sun. And just for good measure, we did another few miles in the afternoon!
The cars are both out of action for maintenance, modifying etc. so I thought I would spend some time tidying up this piece before sending it off to Nick Chapman for the Mach 1 club pages.
Watch this space as, hopefully, things should start to get really exciting from here on!
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