The supersonic race is certainly heating up! ThrustSSC is now in the testing phase - with engines being checked out at full power in the tie-down test cell at DTEO Boscombe Down, and the car being taken onto the runway at Farnborough for its first runs on Monday. Rosco McGlashan has finished his latest car - Aussie Invader 3 - and is preparing to run on Lake Gairdner in November. Craig Breedlove’s Spirit of America - our challenger to be the first car through the Sound Barrier - is being readied for its first tests on the hard salt of Bonneville, Utah, in mid-September. For more details of these attempts, please check the pages about them in our Latest News section.

The drastically differing nature of each of these attempts is fascinating. Aussie Invader 3 is a car very similar in outline to Thrust2 - the car that Richard Noble drove to his current World Land Speed Record of 633mph. There is one very important difference however - while Thrust2 did not like the salt of Bonneville, it positively thrived on the alkaline mud playa of Black Rock Desert, Nevada. McGlashan believes he has solved the instability problems of running on salt, and will be doing so when he attempts to set an all-Australian record - driver, team, car and location will all be Australian.

Spirit of America is a slim, single-engined, white car with very close front wheels and outrigged rears. ThrustSSC is a wide, twin-engined, black car with the front wheels apart and the rear wheels staggered. Thrust steers through the rear wheels while Spirit uses the fronts. Thrust has been specifically designed to run on the mud playa that served Thrust2 so well - Breedlove is planning to start his testing on salt.

With three cars all making their first tentative steps towards the full-throated blasts through the measured mile this is looking set to be an incredible few months. In Q Shed, Farnborough, the ThrustSSC team are all working hard towards our immediate goals of completing the Boscombe Down engine tests and the low-speed runway tests, then getting the car out to the superb new test track waiting for us in Jordan. We will of course continue to keep this Web Site updated with news as it happens.

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