Thrust: The Remarkable Story of One Man's Quest for Speed [Hardcover]

Ever since Dr Johnson declared two hundred years ago that no man travelling at 20mph in a coach could possibly "continue to draw breath", there has been no shortage of nay- sayers. They said it over and over to Richard Noble and his team, but they went ahead anyway and in October 1997 ThrustSSC, driven by RAF Squadron leader Andy Green, smashed through the sound barrier to set the first supersonic land speed record of 763mph. This absorbing and richly illustrated book tells of Noble's obsessive quest for speed, beginning as a six-year-old watching John Cobb's 200mph jet boat Crusader and ending in triumph in the Nevada desert. There is as much financial as technical detail--Noble imaginatively and profitably stalked the Internet for donations as corporate sponsors fell by the wayside--and a jingoistic subplot as the Brits and Yanks vied with each other to achieve the sonic boom first. But mostly this is a human story of struggle, achievement and the peculiar meanings of success. "We'd got through this", says Noble, "we'd succeeded. But success can be very sad once you've got over the initial elation. Suddenly it's all over and it can never be savoured again." --Nick Wroe

The story of the world's first supersonic car and the entangled human emotions behind this great engineering achievement. It is the tale of Richard Noble's obsession with speed, from his early days with the crude self-built Thrust 1 jet car to the Thrust SSC - the fastest car in the world. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

They said it couldn't be done. Sceptics warned that as a car approached 750 m.p.h., the shock waves generated when it hit the sound barrier would either force it off the ground like an aeroplane or tear it apart.

Richard Noble, the modern embodiment of the swashbuckling British speed-seeker of yesteryear, was used to that kind of blinkered thinking. He had held the title of the Fastest Man on Earth since 1983, when his Thrust2 car set a new world land-speed record at 633 m.p.h. Critics had argued that he would fail then, too. Noble likes nothing better than a fight and in the late 1990s, as a gripping Anglo-American race began to create the world's first supersonic car, he was determined to risk everything to achieve this world first for Britain.

On 15 October 1997 Noble's ThrustSSC, driven by ice-cool RAF Squadron Leader Andy Green, smashed through the sound barrier to create the first supersonic land-speed record at 763 m.p.h. The ThrustSSC team had beaten the Americans, thumbed its nose at the sceptics, and realized what seemed an impossible dream. It was a triumph for British engineering, technology and derring-do.

This is not the tale of unbroken success, but a story of disappointment and struggle, and of the entangled emotions behind one of the greatest engineering achievements of the twentieth century. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Richard Noble
Richard Noble has been obsessed with speed since he was six years old, when his father took him to Loch Ness to see John Cobb's boat Crusader - in which Cobb was to die trying to gain the water speed record only a few months later. After a public school education Noble led two overland expeditions across Africa and Asia. On his return he briefly contemplated a career in the SAS, before working in industry for several years, while building Thrust 1 in his spare time. Following his world land speed record in Thrust 2, Noble was awarded the OBE. Nowadays he is much in demand for motivational speaking, particularly since the triumph of Thrust SSC in piercing the sound barrier for the first time.
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.