Thanks to the fantastic support of sponsors, the Mach 1 Club and the people of Jordan, the second trip to Al Jafr proved exactly what we had all believed from the beginning - that ThrustSSC has what it takes to get the job done. Ken Norris, team manager during the later Thrust2 attempts and designer of Donald Campbell's Bluebird boat and car, was always an advocate of what he called the four M's of record breaking - the Machine, the Man, the Medium (track) and the Means. Get any of them wrong and you will probably not succeed. In latter years, Richard Noble has reinforced this approach and been even more specific about the importance of the last M. For Means read Money and lots of it!

The history of the LSR is littered with public and closet wannabes who think that having a grand idea or a radical approach that shifts the record breaking paradigm is enough. Surely, if the idea is right, then the support will naturally follow? Not so - in order to gain support you have to be prepared to put everything on the line to succeed in this the toughest of all branches of motor sport. You don't believe me? Talk to Richard Noble, Craig Breedlove or Rosco McGlashan about the personal and financial sacrifices they've made in order to turn their visions into reality rather purely academic diversions. And the same applies to the members of the teams and the people who support them. How many people are prepared to put their jobs, pensions, friends and everything they have worked for at risk for the right to claim a copy of a piece of paper with a timing slip on it? This really is a game where talk's cheap, but where the only people really worth listening to are those who act. It goes without saying that anybody who gets a project together and takes a crack at the LSR, commands the respect of every other record breaker, and the ThrustSSC project feels exactly that way about the current competitors who could yet thwart its ambitions. Colin Chapman of Lotus fame once said that if you're not winning you're not trying. The subtle difference with record breaking is that if you're not making mistakes you're not trying.

By definition, record breaking is about pushing all four M's to their absolute limit - going where nobody had gone before. And success lies in staying just this side of disaster. Bit by bit, month by month, the ThrustSSC project has moved forward making its fair share of mistakes along the way. But with your support and that of far sighted sponsors such as BTR, who are supporting this issue of Mach 1 News, we now find ourselves within reach of the ultimate goal. We know we can count on your continued support, just as you know that when that timing slip finally gets issued, you will have helped make it happen.

Robin Richardson

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