In this video you’ll see my first attempt setting at a world speed record with my new version 3 RC Jet -powered car to see just how fast it will go on a giant runway.
After months of building, the car got its chance on the runway. Check out the video below:
IWe were joined by Matt from DIY Perks who would help with documenting the record attempt. Of course he was rather impressed with the new car.
When we got to the airfield we were joined by the Easy Composites team, who’d made the carbon chassis for me in the last video - They’d come along to spectate, so no extra pressure then to not mess up the chassis in front of them.
With the tent up, our base camp was ready, and we could attend the all-important drivers safety briefing, but by now the wind was already picking up.
The first job was to prove to the scrutineers that the car would actually stop on its own if the radio link dropped, and that meant an engine run up and a test drive up and down the runway.
Thankfully the car passed with flying colours which was a big relief.
The event organisers were fantastically helpful throughout the whole event, so a big shout out to them and a massive thank you to Stuart and the rest of the ROSSA team for organising the event.
With the wind blowing strongly down the runway, it was time for run number 1 through the timing gates to see how fast it would go on limited power.
My plan with this was to take it steady, only increasing the throttle to a maximum of 25%.
This engine was small, and so I didn’t expect to go that fast through the gates - this would be a run to check everything felt good, the steering was trimmed and, importantly, the car actually registered breaking the timing beams.
I released the brakes and the car made its way towards the gates. I was finding the steering to be a bit twitchy, but generally the car felt very stable as it trundled along at a modest speed.
Applying the brakes, the car stopped almost immediately, which was expected.
At just 25% power, the car had travelled only 22mph through the gates, accelerating to the gates in 200m and stopping in just over 20m.
The previous car I’d got the 94mph record with had a 220 size engine, but this car had an 80 size, which was almost a third the size and it did feel a little underpowered on the run.
The car was refuelled for it’s next run, which would aim to double the speed of the previous run to around 50mph.
Instead of using a longer run up at this stage, I would instead use more throttle.
I opened up the throttle and pushed through the gates but as I went to brake, the car twisted and slid through the gates. The brakes were too sensitive!
If this had happened while running the heavier engine on these initial low-speed tests, the car might well have turned over due to having a higher centre of gravity and more inertia.
Despite this, the car did still make it through the gates but much slower than planned.
I was currently the slowest car at the event, but I knew from my experience that every world record had to start slow to finally achieve success, and this was none more the case than for another driver at the event, Steve, who had built an entirely custom electric wheel-driven car which was completely different to every other car at the event.
Steve had gone through a heck of a journey to get to the point that he broke the all out RC car speed record with an amazing 234mph!
Run 3 would be the last of the day, at 100% throttle, to see how much faster it would go at the same distance as before.
The car had remained stable and controllable over the 200m acceleration distance and the brakes had this time come on without the rear end coming loose.
We’d only got 53mph so far, but it was looking promising.
The next day was a complete washout with downpour after downpour, and the event was cancelled for the day.
Thankfully the final day of the final ROSSA event of the year dawned bright and sunny albeit with quite a lot of water on the runway that would have to dry out.
Unfortunately, though, our base camp hadn’t faired too well with all the heavy rain.
The runway was drying out but the wind was increasing steadily and soon we had a strong headwind. This combined with starting farther back meant things could easily go wrong.
One of my primary objectives for this record attempt was to bring the car home in one piece, and I was worried we might not do this if the car was pushed to hard to soon - the crash of the previous version 2.0 car had been a devastating experience and, as you can imagine, I was keen not to repeat this again.
Further to this, we’d calculated that to actually achieve the record speed, we’d have to use about 5-600m of run up based on the acceleration curve with the small engine the car was running.
Although we’d proven the radio link worked at such a distance, I was still a bit worried about this unknown.
I lined the jet car up 300m from the timing gates.
The run was a success and the car had remained on the track despite the gusty wind.
The car had worked beautifully - the aerodynamics had helped it run perfectly straight and the brakes had brought it to a safe stop.
The wind was now at around 20mph and gusting and we needed to decide if we would risk running again to push the limit of the car.
That previous run had been at 300m from the timing gates and, based on our results so far, we calculated we needed about 5-600m of run up to safely beat the record of 94mph - but longer run ups to get in less than ideal conditions would be risky.
A decision was made. The car would not run again at this event
The car was working well and we’d got loads of valuable information.
We’d completed the second main objective of the project which was to bring the car back in one piece ready for a refit with the larger engine.
While we wait for the next round of ROSSA, go check out some other projects here!