BSCC
British Steam Car Challenge
Please note that my involvement with this project ended before the team completed its goal. As with a few other original members, I am not included as part of the team on the official project website (I don't think I should be so no worries there). Regardless, for me it was a fun and enriching experience to work with such a dedicated and talented team of individuals. Thanks and congratulations to those of you who got the project past the finish line.
About the project -
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The British Steam Car Challenge was a project dedicated to using steam propulsion to power a wheeled vehicle to a land speed record in that category. For more history, do a search on Fred Marriott or click here
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Why a steam record? Although I often asked, the answer was frequently different, sometimes a bit vague, but as often as not it was just that it was a cool, fun thing to do.
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My involvement with the early project -​
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Ever have the desire to set a land speed record? If so you're not alone.
A man named Charles Burnett III, who already held several records for boat racing (and I think several classifications for water speed records), brought together a team of designers and engineers to execute his vision for a land speed record (LSR). Some of those team members worked on the iconic ThrustSSC, which still holds the Guiness record for fastest land speed vehicle and the only land vehicle to break the sound barrier. Although I didn't work on that project, I got to meet many of those who did. You can find their story at ThrustSSC.
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It was after working in the UK for about a year (circa 2002) on another project, I was given the opportunity to work with the fledgeling team on this project. Charles asked me to head up the project as Project Coordinator/Director. So for over a year I worked alongside the chief mechanical and electrical engineers doing PR and Sponsorship work. Since my engineering talents were redundant, I did what I could to take non-engineering tasks off those who were doing the heavy lifting.​​​​​​​
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I must admit that my desire to go fast really is about fast laps (for more on that see the "About Me" section of this site). But getting to work on this project, meeting many of the ThrustSSC team members, and getting involved with the LSR community for that year was a great experience and one of the many fun times in my career.
An early design of the car, fairly different that the final design but cool nonetheless.
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To see how the project ended and the team that brought it to conclusion visit the official BSCC website
Early CFD Modeling, some of the hard-core engineering that was done during the design phase