No oil company or sponsor in history has made a stronger or more successful commitment to the Land Speed Record than Castrol, whose drivers and cars have been at the forefront of record breaking competition for more than 75 years.
Through the remarkable efforts of Richard Noble and his Rolls-Royce Avon jet-powered Thrust 2, Castrol still holds the record today, thanks to Noble's triumphant 633.468mph (1019.44kph) set on the Black Rock Desert in Nevada on October 4th 1983.
Some years earlier, on March 19 1899, Charles Cheers Wakefield had set up an oil company. Ten years later he produced a new lubricant that would revolutionise transport in the first half of the Twentieth century. He called the new oil Castrol.
At the Brooklands racetrack in Weybridge on May 1922, Kenelm Lee Guinness squeezed 133.75mph (215.24kph) out of his 35Obhp V12 Sunbeam, to set a new Land Speed Record. This was the first time that the record was officially timed over two runs, one in each direction to alleviate favours of wind or gradient, but though it would be the last occasion on which it would be set on a closed circuit, it marked the first truly significant triumph for Castrol oil.
Over the ensuing years the name of Castrol became synonymous with speed, endurance, success and above all reliability. 'If there was a better motor oil than Castrol, then I should use it,' said speed king Sir Malcolm Campbell with impeccable use of English in the advertisements of the day. There wasn't, and he didn't. Instead, like his fellow racers Sir Henry Segrave, Ray keech and George Eyston he placed his trust in the brand he knew he could rely on, no matter what conditions prevailed for his numerous attempts.
Guinness's record lasted only until July in 1922, when the Frenchman Rene Thomas swept ahead with 143.31 mph (230.62kph), only to find himself supplanted two years later as the Fastest Man on Earth by Englishman Ernest Eldridge in his monster chain-driven FIAT, 'Mephistopheles'.
On the same tree lined road at Arpajon in France used by Thomas, Eldridge achieved 146.01 mph (234.97kph). That, too, would prove short lived. After a series of bitter disappointments in both Britain and Denmark, the indefatigable Campbell powered the same Sunbeam that Guinness had used to 146.16mph (235.2lkph) on the sands at Pendine in Wales that September, once again pushing Castrol to the fore. A year later he improved to 150.76mph (242.6lkph), again on Pendine.
The following year Henry Segrave entered the record breaking arena, again flying Castrol's colours. He had created a sensation three years earlier by becoming the first Briton ever to win The Grand Prix, as the French Grand Prix was known in those days. Still driving for Sunbeam, he squeezed by Campbell's mark on the sands of Southport with a speed of 152.33mph (245.l4kph) in March 1926.
A month later the Welshman John Parry-Thomas took his crude but effective Higham Special 'Babs' to speeds of 169.30 (272.45) and 171.02mph (275.22kph) at Pendine, and he was preparing to do better still in March 1927, to recapture his record from Malcolm Campbell who had done 174.88mph (281.43kph) in the first of the true Bluebirds. Segrave, meanwhile was bound for Daytona Beach in Florida with a revolutionary twin-engined Sunbeam which aimed for the unimaginable speed of 200mph (322kph). He was still on the Atlantic when he learned that Parry-Thomas had been killed when 'Babs' overturned at high speed, but he continued and set a sensational new record of 203.79mph (327.95kph).
For the next decade the Land Speed Record would exclusively be the preserve of Castrol. In 1928 Campbell managed 206.96mph (333.O6kph) at Daytona, only to be pipped by Kech's mammoth three-engined 'White Triplex' at 207.55mph (344.Olkph). Then Segrave demonstrated his panache with 231.44mph (372.45kph) in 1929 with the 'Golden Arrow', a speed which Campbell could not match until 1931 when he managed 246.09mph (396.O3kph). With his main rivals dead, Campbell then edged ever closer to his avowed goal of 300mph (483kph) - 253.97mph (408.7lkph) in 1932; 272.46mph (438.46kph) in 1933; 276.82mph (445.48kph) in 1935. Then, in September 1935, at the new venue of the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, he finally achieved his dream with 301.13mph (484.60kph).
After that, Campbell turned successfully to the Water Speed Record, again with Castrol lubricants, and it was left to George Eyston to battle against John Cobb's Railton in a gripping duel in 1937 and 1938. With 'Thunderbolt', Eyston achieved 312mph (SO2kph) in 1937, 345.50mph (556.Olkph) in 1938, and then 357.50mph (575.32kph) later that year to wrest the laurels away from Cobb who had sped across the salt at 350.20mph (563.S7kph).
Eyston had been similarly successful attacking records over longer distances with Hotchkis, Panhard and MG machinery, as well as his own Rolls-Royce diesel-engined 'Speed of the Wind', at venues such as Brooklands, Montlhery near Paris, and Bonneville.
Thus were some of Castrol's most significant foundation stones laid, through courage, endeavour, disappointment, success and development during a period of sixteen glorious years when speed on land almost tripled and the technological demands on lubricants increased as dramatically.
With the jet era of the sixties, technology moved in a different direction, and when Richard Noble took aim at Gary Gabelich's thirteen year old record of 622.407mph (1001.639kph) that October day in 1983, Castrol again rode with a record breaker.
Since Lee Guinness' success at Brooklands back in 1922 the Land Speed Record has officially been broken thirty six times, and on nineteen of those occasions Castrol has supplied the lubricants. Castrol holds the current record with Thrust 2, and for the past two years has funded the intensive aerodynamic research study that has enabled Thrust SSC to progress from drawing board to construction stage. In financial and technical partnership with Thrust SSC, Castrol keeps the faith with its illustrious heritage while looking firmly to an exciting and demanding future as it builds further on an unsurpassed reputation for initiative and courage in pushing back the frontiers of technology.
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