The team are also concerned about small slopes on the landscape. In a way, it’s the same principle as speed bumps – the faster you go, the more you’ll feel an uneven surface. Given that Bloodhound SSC will speed across the length of a stadium in about a fifth of a second, even the slightest incline across could begin to shake the car. “These undulations could force the suspension to go into resonance and vibrate, making it very uncomfortable for Andy,” says Chapman. “It wouldn’t explode,” he adds, reassuringly – “but it wouldn’t be something you’d want to be sitting in. It would feel like driving a car along a rumble strip.” And there are also concerns about the wheels over-heating – in one short test they reached 90C (194F). “It’s one of those things you might not think about,” says Chapman, “but the air going the other way, past the wheels, is twice the speed of sound.” It is the resulting friction that heats the wheels.

Once these issues are solved, the team hope to start road tests in the UK – at a mere 200mph (322km/h) – in the middle of next year, before moving it out to the Hakskeen Pan, when they hope to finally break the 1,000mph barrier.

Will it be worth the wait for Chapman, years after that first conversation in the pub? “This is the best job and the worst job in the world,” he says. “I’m a lot greyer than I was when I started this project seven years ago. But the challenges you get are absolutely fantastic. I kind of describe it as engineering without a safety net. What we’re doing is pushing the boundaries so far aside from what people have experienced before.”

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