Sound-barrier driver returns

WENDOVER, Utah (AP):

The only person to break the sound barrier in a car will hit the track in Utah this week with new wheels and his eye on another record.

Twenty years ago, British driver Andy Green set the land speed record for a diesel-powered car, reaching 350.092 mph (563.4 kph) at Utah’s famed Bonneville Salt Flats. Green returns to the lunar-like landscape today to try to beat that mark, this time in a hydrogen-powered car.

The retired Royal Air Force fighter pilot hopes not only to add another accolade to his résumé, but also to showcase the potential of hydrogen as a clean-energy alternative. It’s the “fuel of the future”, Green told The Associated Press in a July interview.

Green will drive the 32-foot (9.75-metre) JCB Hydromax, the brainchild of British construction equipment manufacturer JCB. Bright yellow, long and slim, the car resembles a pencil. It is powered by two hydrogen internal-combustion engines with a combined 1,600 horsepower. Adapted from engines used in the company’s construction machinery, they mix pressurised hydrogen gas with air and ignite it to generate bursts of power.

In targeting the diesel-powered record, Green also hopes to comfortably surpass the world land speed records for hydrogen internal-combustion engines (185.5 mph/298.5 kph) and electric vehicles (341.3 mph/549.2 kph).

Green reached a top speed of 368.347 mph (592.797 kph) during practice last week, but to officially claim the hydrogen record, he will have to repeat the feat today under the supervision of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, the international governing body for motor sports.

“What the peak speed is, I can’t say. We just don’t know,” he said. “Part of the adventure here is, we’re going to find out.”

One thing today’s attempt will certainly not do is approach the supersonic speeds Green achieved with jet power nearly three decades ago.

Green was already flying supersonic military aircraft when he spotted a newspaper advertisement that read: “Wanted: High-speed driver to break the sound barrier,” according to Guinness World Records. In 1997, he travelled faster than the speed of sound and set the outright land speed record, reaching 763.035 mph (1,227.98 kph) in a car powered by twin jet engines. His runs in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert produced sonic booms that rattled the nearby town of Gerlach.

Now 64, Green said he believed his racing days were behind him, but came out of retirement after JCB approached him with plans for the new car. The company has invested more than US$134 million in hydrogen-powered engines that, it says, emit no carbon dioxide from their tailpipes.

“If you’re serious about emissions, you have to be serious about hydrogen, and a land speed project is the perfect way to prove it,” JCB Chairman Anthony Bamford said at the car’s unveiling in May.

Bamford has also argued that hydrogen is better suited than electric power to meet the demands of heavy industries.

However, hydrogen is only as clean as its source, and the vast majority is currently produced from fossil fuels. JCB has signed a deal to buy green hydrogen, which is produced using renewable energy but accounts for only a tiny fraction of global hydrogen production.

Hydrogen-combustion engines also present unique safety challenges because of the gas’ high pressure and flammability.

“We’re managing the risks very carefully,” Green said.

The car underwent rigorous testing, and Green said he spent months learning how it responds to the elements, how the engines operate in tandem, and how to deploy a parachute to slow the vehicle on the low-friction salt crust.

Since the first race there in 1914, the glassy surface of the Bonneville Salt Flats has attracted generations of drivers seeking new land speed records. A remnant of a prehistoric lake bed, the salt flats lie about 100 miles (160 kilometres) west of Salt Lake City and sit atop an aquifer that helps cool the tyres of racing vehicles.

Spectators must stand about a quarter-mile (400 metres) from the course’s straightaway, which stretches 10 miles (16 kilometres), and often watch through wide-angle binoculars.

The expanse on the Utah-Nevada border has also served as a backdrop for films including Independence Day and The World’s Fastest Indian, as well as the series finale of Mad Men.

Green will begin his run about an hour before sunrise today.

His attempt comes a year after a driver travelling at 283 mph (455 kph) was killed while trying to set a land speed record during Bonneville’s annual Speed Week. Chris Raschke lost control of his rocket-like vehicle, the Speed Demon, last August and later died from his injuries.