Wendover is a frontier town. Shimmering on the edge of the Bonneville salt flats and straddling the state line between Nevada and Utah, it began life as a petrol station in the 1920s. It’s main claim to fame is that the Enola Gay B-29 aircraft took off from here in the summer of 1945 at the start of its mission to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
Today its gaudy casinos attract gamblers from across the plains. A dusty neon cowboy on interstate 20 welcomes them and a sign reads: “You’ve missed Las Vegas, don’t miss Wendover”.
Last week a British team were in town, busy preparing to risk a lot more than money. They are here to race a banana yellow streamliner built by JCB, the brand more usually associated with construction site diggers, across the salt flats at more than 235mph and break the world land speed record for a diesel powered car. The odds are stacked against them.
In the inhospitable surroundings and baking heat of the salt desert the small team resemble a cross between the casts of The Right Stuff and Top Gun. The 30ft-long Dieselmax machine will be piloted by Wing Commander Andy Green, the man who already holds the outright land speed record after reaching 763mph in the ThrustSSC in 1997. On the salt plains he has swapped his green flying suit for a yellow jump suit and shades.
“This is arguably the most exciting form of motor sport there is,” he said last week after a practice run across the flats, “and this is without doubt the most stunning place to do it. I’ve been to Bonneville before but if you haven’t it’s impossible to imagine. It’s wow! The white plains just go on and on and on. You see the mountains in the distance and then realise they are 100 miles away. If you watch someone drive away from you they appear to vanish because of the curvature of the earth.”
The salt flats are not unused to record breaking attempts. It was here in 1935 that Sir Malcolm Campbell became the first man to break 300mph in Bluebird. It was also the setting for New Zealander Burt Munro, who spent years modifying a 1920 Indian motorcycle that set the 1000cc motorbike land-speed record in 1967.
Green, who pilots Harriers when he is not breaking records, will be firmly strapped in to the carbon-fibre cockpit with a seven-point safety belt surrounded by a steel tube cage. While there’s no airbag, the safety set-up includes three fire extinguisher systems, three separate braking devices and two parachutes. Air, not oxygen, will be pumped into his F1 helmet if the unthinkable happens and fire engulfs the car.
“It has all the challenges of any wheel-driven record,” says Green. “To get in a 1500-horsepower vehicle with such fantastic performance is hugely exciting. It’s completely different to a Harrier. The aircraft is the best day job in the world, but the car is the best holiday job.”
With the thermometer nudging 50C, one of Green’s enemies in this ground war is heat. In the cockpit of Dieselmax an average person would suffer heat exhaustion within minutes. Green is wearing four layers of fireproof clothing and even with his training it is proving exhausting behind the controls. “It gets pretty warm in there. In fact when I get out of the cockpit after a run and onto the salt plain it feels like getting into a cool area. It isn’t of course — the rest of the team is sweltering.”
The support team, all sporting yellow JCB jump suits, must operate like a well-tuned machine. “It’s like a military operation and there’s a very obvious parallel there. It has the expeditionary pioneering element and it also has Great Britain stamped all over it — the flag on the tail is there for a reason and we are proud of that.”
The project is being backed by Sir Anthony Bamford, chairman of JCB and 56th richest man in Britain with £950m, according to the 2006 Sunday Times Rich List. The family has a history of stumping up large sums: last year the Conservative party received a £1m donation.
Now, at the age of 60 and with a hugely successful business under his belt, this is Bamford’s chance to put his family in the record books. “It has always been a family tradition that the way to make progress is to push forward with a real sense of urgency,” he said. “I was advised by many people that using our own engine would be a mistake, yet we have proved our critics wrong.”
Back on the Bonneville salt flats the team finished its first run last Saturday during America’s National Speed Week — a celebration that sees teams from across the world descend on the flats in an orgy of speed and horsepower. Onlookers crowded around in the sweltering heat eager to catch a glimpse of the machine that will be attempting to break a record set by the American Virgil W Snyder in Thermo King Streamliner in 1973.
