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Racing and Competition

British bid to claim land-speed record

There’s still time to secure their place in history, but for a British team of speed record-chasers in America, the clock is ticking. Driving a vehicle that has been described as the world’s fastest kettle, they are attempting to break a world land-speed record that has stood for more than a century. And it isn’t going well. Powered by nothing but super-heated water, the team hope to blast their way to more than 130mph along a runway more usually reserved for the Nasa space shuttle. In doing so, they will set a new time for the fastest steam-powered vehicle. That was supposed to happen on Friday but so far the record has remained tantalisingly out of reach. At time of writing, the team had nothing to show for their efforts but bruised egos, damaged pride and a flat tyre. That […]

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Racing and Competition

British Steam Car Attempts Record

A bunch of U.K. enthusiasts are attempting to break the 102-year-old land speed record with a steam-powered car. The three-ton vehicle, described as a giant kettle on top of a camping stove, has almost two miles of tubes inside its carbon-fiber-composite/aluminum frame. The team is expecting the 25-foot-long car to reach 200 mph during its record attempt at Bonneville Speed Week in September. The car — can we call it that? — takes eight minutes to get going, but has only enough fuel, air and water for a three-minute run. The water boils at 482°F due to the fact that there’s 40 bar water pressure inside the boilers. It’s then super-heated to 750°F, or "dry" steam, which passes through heavily lagged pipes and two industrial steam valves before ending up in a two-stage turbine. Outsize Goodyear tires and brake pads […]

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Racing and Competition

Successful Steam Car Test

After its first successful low-speed run last week, the British Steam Car was taken to the MoD’s Thorney Island facility near Portsmouth for a series of higher speed runs on Wednesday and Thursday. Early reports are of the car and crew performing well, with the steam generators building pressure successfully and the safety systems shutting down the car quickly when a small defect was detected. The team of six engineers is learning to turn the car quickly and prepare it for a return run within the allotted time of one hour. The British Steam Car’s target velocity is 170mph, which would net them one of the longest-held speed records, set by Fred Marriott, who achieved a 121.57mph flying kilometre record in the Stanley brothers’ Rocket at the 1906 Florida Speed Week. The target speed will also net the team and […]