It is a popular belief that in many sports a player or team has an advantage before a home crowd. For example, in Britain’s national sport of football, playing before thousands of cheering supporters is known to give the players the extra boost required to win a match, while any marathon runner will tell of the additional speed afforded by a friendly cry of support. In Formula 1 motorsport, Nigel Mansell always maintained that the home crowd was worth a second a lap at Silverstone.

The home advantage can also be contrived - there is a wonderful tradition in the Tour de France of allowing a rider to pull ahead through his home town, while the pack take up station behind in respect of his right to lead. In World Land Speed Record Breaking there is no such contrivance - one either has a suitable home site on which to run, or one does not.

The great British land speed record breakers of the 1920’s ran at Brooklands, then Southport and Pendine beaches - all sites within relatively easy reach of their bases in England. As the speeds attained rose inexorably towards 200mph, these sites could no longer provide the length of run required, and alternatives were sought overseas - beginning at Daytona Beach, Florida, and followed by the most famous record breaking site of all - Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah.

In the famous duels of the 1960’s between Art Arfons and Craig Breedlove, both drivers were within relatively easy reach of home. Transportation involved trucking cars and equipment along the American freeways. By contrast, in his attempts of 1981 to 1983 Richard Noble was forced to ship and fly his car, equipment and team 5000 miles from the south coast of England to America. The enormous expense and logistical complexity meant that the journey could not be undertaken unless there was a reasonable degree of certainty that the site would be fit for use. Valuable time was lost in transit, as was the option of making a quick trip back to the workshops to undertake changes to the car - indeed, the need to allow for such modifications on site meant that even more equipment had to be shipped to the States.

The logistics of the forthcoming head-to-head contest on the Black Rock Desert, Nevada, between Spirit of America and ThrustSSC have always favoured the former car. While runways for low-speed trials are abundant for both teams, the Americans have a number of local desert surfaces available that are suitable for high-speed trials, if not record attempts. Included in this list are Edwards Air Force Base and Bonneville - although the safety and suitability of the latter’s salt is the subject of much debate. The ThrustSSC team on the other hand, were forced into a worldwide search for a suitable development site - a search which culminated in the discovery of Jafr Desert, Jordan.

The alkaline playas of Black Rock and Al Jafr are no freaks of nature. There are plenty of alkaline playas in the United States and around the world, but many of these are rendered unsuitable by stone fields, bisecting roads, inaccessibility, unstable political climates - and length of run. Even Jafr Desert, while long enough to break the existing record, does not stretch far enough for ThrustSSC to go supersonic.

The protesting of the permit to run at Black Rock by the environmental movements may have ruled out use of that desert for record-breaking this year. If no immediate action is taken to counter the protest, by the time the necessary referral of the decision has cleared Washington winter will have set in at Gerlach, and the desert will have reverted to a lake.

It hardly needs saying that an overseas team running a land speed record car in Nevada can only do so as welcomed guests of the American people. An American team, however, is in an altogether different position - Spirit of America and Shell have a number of actions open to them, including to petition for a quick hearing of the protest, or for its deferral until later in the year - after the cars have run. It is worth bearing in mind that the BLM itself states that Thrust 2 had no "significant impact" on the Black Rock environment in 1982 and 1983. It is believed that the current protest is based around the impact of a future increase in visitors to the area that might result from its use as a land speed record site.

This situation is nothing new - in 1982 the Thrust 2 team were forced to stand idle while the populations of Gerlach and Empire presented their petition to the Bureau of Land Management - who had suspended the land use permit in response to environmental concerns. That petition won the British the opportunity to run their car and, in 1983, to take the world record.

If the protest is upheld, an alternative location may need to be found. Apart from the type of surface, freedom from obstructions, length and political climate, it must be a site whose people want to host a record attempt for the publicity and experience such an attempt will inevitably bring. Provided there are no specific complexities, the logistics - and costs - will be little different for ThrustSSC, which is effectively an international concern. The team faces only the additional task of finding a suitable alternative site, and that task is already substantially complete. Spirit of America on the other hand is predominantly a North American operation, and now faces an unexpected dilemma. To the best of our knowledge, no global search has been undertaken, and the project is inexperienced in the difficulties of setting up a World Land Speed Record attempt on a virgin desert thousands of miles from home. If Bonneville proves unsuitable, they may have to choose between gambling on permission to run in Nevada, or preparing to go overseas.

Have car, will travel?

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