Richard Noble OBE

Richard not only took the record himself but hung on to it for 13 years until his Thrust SSC project car took it to over Mach 1.02 and 763.035mph with his protégé Andy Green at the controls, again at Black Rock. On his own record-breaking day on 4 October 1983, he piloted Thrust 2 at 624.241mph on the outward run and 642.971mph on the return to get the average that made him the fastest man on dry land, each one covering some 10.5 miles and taking 110sec. The Rolls-Royce Avon aero engine drank fuel at the rate of one gallon per second during the two runs. Noble started the Thrust 2 project in 1974 and was tireless in his search for backers, components and test locations. The quickest single run Noble ever achieved hit 650.88mph, and he later calculated that just another 7mph would have taken the ‘car’ airborne; Noble himself survived an emergency roll in the four-tonne Thrust II at 200mph.