"The British Are Coming"

One of my secret 'passions' is Land Speed Records, and about a year ago a friend announced he was going to publish a book of Photographs he had on the subject, so I duly put my name down.

After running into him at Kop Hill Climb, I find he is launching his book "The British are Coming" covering pretty much every Brit land and water speeder going.

The day kicked off with an amazing flame and thunder show from possibly the fastest car ever 'parked' in the Brooklands car park ; Split Second - A land speed record breaking jet dragster.

Parked around the dragster were other interesting land speed cars from the history books - The awesome Napier Railton, Patsy Burt's McLaren, Angelic Bulldog drag bike, Charles Vieux , and both Electric Bluebirds (The new Bluebird has yet to break the current record.....held by the old bluebird !)

Also present were just about every living record breaker and team member including Ron Ayers, and John Ackroyd, responsible for aerodynamics and design of Thrust SSC. I also ran into Tony Adams who was team manager for Bluebird on the fated record attempt where Donald Campbell tragically lost his life on Coniston Water at somewhere over 320MPH. Interesingly he sees the rebuild of Bluebird (www.bluebirdproject.com) from both angles - people involved at the time mostly would like it kept as a grave-site, whereas slightly 'younger' of us have never seen it run and are looking forward to it's maiden run after the rebuild - hopefully next year !!!

Richard Noble sneaks into shot !

The show opened with a slideshow of some fabulous photos from the book to the soundtrack of Land of Hope and Glory (Very fitting too !) Mike Varndell, author of the book gave a short speech and introduced Richard Noble, who gave a great talk on record breaking, noting how odd it is that Andy Green had not been knighted (STILL the fastest man on earth  !), and how little support record attempts get from 'the establishment.

He also mentione that his current project, the 1000MPH Bloodhound SSC should be ready to run in 3 years.

At 4.00 PM , the Brooklands speakers crackled into life and belted out the national anthem to signal everyone was should assemble outside into the very unseasonal sunshine for a photo opportunity. The only thing needed to make this day any more 'British' would be the queen turning up !

Tony James (Team Manager) and Bill Van Ryne (Engine Tech)
 for Bluebird in 1966

I was joined later in the day by fellow Sunriser, SteveC and after a quick look round the museum we were heading home when we noticed Don Wales, Bluebird pilot and grandson to Donald Campbell carrying the body of Bluebird Electric into the museum. Rather rashly, we asked if they needed a hand. the next 20 minutes were spent pushing Bluebird Electric I back into the museum. Not quite as easy as it at first seems , as they had taken all of the parts out of the car to put in the current record Challenger, and had replaced the structure with MDF fibreboard. eventually we got it back into the museum and headed home.

The book is a cracking read with reprints of speeches by a lot of record breakers including Cobb, Eyston, Campbell, Noble et al and one particular page has Donald Campbell talking you through starting up Bluebird K7 - Epic Stuff ! - Well done Mike.

Get the book here from Chaters in Hook, pretty much the only Motoring bookshop you'll ever need !

Picture Gallery HERE

Bald bloke and Bluebird

Shed 7 !

"Do you chaps need any help ?"