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BOOM!!!
The challenge of becoming the fastest man on Earth has certainly inspired a select band of very brave men throughout the years. Many who succeeded in their quest were rewarded with fame wealth and national honours. Many of those who failed were subject to most public and horrifying deaths. As these courageous men strapped themselves into their formidable machines, they knew they could never be in complete control of their destiny, that their next journey could be their last. And yet they were there because they wanted to be - and they kept coming back for more. Few people can understand the obsession that gripped these men, but this obsession created the ultimate form of motor racing - the quest for the Land Speed Record.
Richard Noble - the current Land Speed Record Holder for Great Britain - had a vision. To paraphrase a famous saying "to boldly go where no man has gone before", namely to build a car to go supersonic on land. The good and the mighty said it could not be done; it was treading into the unknown of physics and dynamics, with not a little concern as to safety!
On 15 October 1997 at Black Rock Desert, Nevada, USA, Richard Noble achieved destiny for driver Andy Green, who wrote his name in the record books as the first and only man to have driven faster than the speed of sound and set the first supersonic World Land Speed Record at an average of 763mph over a two-way average run. Thrust SSC created shock waves of 150ft stretching out each side of the car (see picture above). Few gave it a chance and even fewer gave it any cash, but against all the odds Thrust SSC thundered through the sound barrier!
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