If you are one of those people who joined the Math 1 Club as a result of seeing the ThrustSSC Roadshow at a motoring or professional association event, or indeed if you have already been to one of the club events at Fontwell then you will know that these are occasions for the team to meet as many people as possible. Depending on the size of the event, you may also have been impressed by the full-size mock-up of ThrustSSC proudly displaying one of the actual Spey engines to be used in the completed car. But do you know just what is involved in putting one of these events together and who the people are who make it happen? Who better than the man behind the Roadshows, Mike Hearn, to give you the low-down.
Richard Noble describes the ThrustSSC Roadshows as one of our most important activities, and rightly so, since a major goal of the whole project is to make it as interactive as possible for the maximum number of people. The Roadshows are where the team gets to meet and interact with a whole variety of people who are there for just one reason - because they are genuinely interested in the project. The shows have the added benefit of being very enjoyable and earning valuable revenue for the project. The Roadshow concept grew out of two events in the project's history, the SMMT Motor Show at the NEC, Birmingham, and the announcement of Andy Green at Brooklands as the driver of ThrustSSC. For the Motor Show, Richard Noble commissioned special effects master Geoff Luff to build a fullsize mock-up of the car complete with one of the actual Spey engines to be used on the record attempt. Such was the success of its first appearance that we were soon besieged by show organisers who wanted Thrust as a major attraction for their events.
In cases where the mock-up is on show,
Plane Trucking loads the sections and the two
ton engine fitted to its special support cradle
on the back of a truck along with six large Lista
workbench/storage units that double as a sales
counter. With all the display and partitioning
panels that form the backdrop to the display
and all the merchandise, it makes a hefty load.
This takes some time to erect on-site since
video walls of varying sizes are usually
included, along with speakers and a mass of
cabling and power supplies, including those for
the sales tills. More recently all this has been
augmented by an Internet booth from Digital
that gives visitors without Internet access the
opportunity to 'surf around' the couple of
hundred pages on the Thrust WebServer.
Setting all this up isn't the matter of a moment
and so the team are often working late the
night before an event or early in the morning.
At the Silverstone Grand Prix, five o'clock
starts were the order of the day!
A typical evening Roadshow would not include the mock-up but involves almost as much effort to set up. What does an audience get? Well, an introduction sets the scene and tells them what's in store, typically beginning with a very brief resume of the LSR and some impressive statistics about the ThrustSSC itself. Richard Noble speaks frankly and in remarkable detail about his experiences driving Thrust 2 on Black Rock and also about the SSC project - how it began, current status and how it is being organised and marketed. An interesting element included in Richard's presentation concerns the other challengers to ThrustSSC from around the world and often includes "captured" film from projects such as those of Craig Breedlove or Rosco McGlashan.
Next up is the aerodynamic and mechanical engineering background presented and described in some detail by Ron Ayers and Glynne Bowsher. Despite the complexity of the subject, both have a knack of bringing to life the challenges they faced and the remarkable way in which they have dealt with them, in a clear and highly entertaining manner. The background to the original research techniques that have been developed by the project to understand the forces acting on the car includes some spectatular computer generated film of the car and the airflow over it at speed - film generated on a Cray Supercomputer by C.D.R. Ltd. Depending on location and the demands of their 'day' jobs, Ron and Glynne are frequently joined by John Rowles, Andy Day, Jeremy Bliss, Greg Tallet, Adam Northcote-Wright and James Alorton.
Having found out much of what there is to know about the car, the audience is then treated to a presentation by ThrustSSC driver Andy Green, who tells some interesting and amusing stories about the driver selection process, as well as revealing something about himself and the prospect of becoming the fastest man on earth. As you listen to him speak with calm assurance, you soon understand why Richard Noble is so confident about having found the right man to follow in his record-breaking wheeltracks.
And if you want to ask Richard Noble what it feels like to drive at 650mph, or ask Andy Green what makes him want to drive at 850mph, then you get the chance to do just that, sinte the finale to the Roadshow is a very open Question & Answer session involving all the team members. The questions are always numerous and range from those that are so obvious you wonder why they haven't been asked before, through to those that are complex enough to have even the more expert of team members furrowing their brows for a while. As a barometer of interest, it shows just how much this project has captured the imagination.
The roadshows are always a great success. They are both entertaining and technical without being incomprehensible and whether they are part of a huge event open to the public like The Goodwood Festival of Speed or private occasions booked by sponsors as an entertainment for guests and staff, they do what they were designed to do - bring the project close to as many people as possible.
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