It’s a funny moment, when you’re sitting in your car and everybody around you has suddenly disappeared in a hurry.

When your car is 28 feet long, slimmer than Cara Delevingne, and powered by a turbojet engine from a Seventies Saudi Air Force Strikemaster fighter plane, that is.

We want to break the Motorsport Association’s UK land speed record of 301.670 mph established by Colin Fallows in July 2007. This is just a test run, our first serious run with a car that is finally working properly. But anything over 261 mph would be nice, so that with a return run we can break the UK Timing Association’s UK record as a starting point.

Moments before, everything was bustle, bustle.

Your crew has towed you into position on Elvington Airfield, outside York, and you’re sitting about 475 metres from a measured 500 metre distance, marked out by yellow and black marker boards on entry and on exit. Crucially, the right-hand exit board also has a red light. That will be your sole point of focus in a moment.

You’re all kitted up in flameproof gear supplied by Alpinestars; black and grey overalls with a big DUO logo on the front, because the team you’ve fought to build these past nine years is sponsored by a wonderful guy called Alex Moss, chief of DUO Plc, who in a different way might just be as crazy (read passionate) as you are. Yellow and black boots and gloves. A black carbon fibre helmet that’s as light as possible, because soon your head will weigh four times what it normally does.

Your elder son Tom, the crew chief, loves you, you know that. But you could be forgiven for forgetting it when he leans in and tightens the three-inch wide TRS five-point seat belts, then tightens them even more so that you are hunched down like a gnome in the cockpit, and unable to draw further breath. You’ll soon be glad of that.

David Tremayne on board Stay Gold at Elvington Airbase, UK (www.xpbimages.com)

To the right, you hear and feel engineer Paul Jewell inserting the cables that will link your car – STAY GOLD, in a bastardised use of the Robert Frost poem – to a 36-volt electrical supply in your black Mitsubishi tow car, Monster Truck.

You hear the click, click, click as the bangers ignite the turbine behind your head, and it starts a slow whine before firing. The needle of the jetpipe temperature gauge swings monetarily to 1,000 degrees C, then settles at a nice 650 as the engine idles at 40 per cent. Outside, people think its screaming its head off. Oh no, there’s plenty more to come.

Bill Smith, he of Bluebird K7 rescue from Coniston Water and subsequent rebuild fame, and one of the most instrumental figures in the project, gives you the A-OK diver’s sign. All clear.

It only needs Graham Sykes, in charge of scrutineering on behalf of the UK Timing Association which is running this expensive and bespoke event, to move to one side, and the moment of truth has arrived.

The cockpit of Stay Gold (www.xpbimages.com)

It’s the moment you have waited for so long. Since you bought the car in 2009. Since you peaked at 205.22 mph in the first-ever test run in August 2012 before chronic engine problems put you on ice. Before Bill, and his Blue Bird Project colleagues Mike Bull, John Barron and Richie Harrison sorted out the Rolls-Royce Viper motor, coincidentally on the 50th anniversary of your hero Donald Campbell’s inspirational death, this past January.

It’s been a rocky road, and even the previous day, Thursday the 17th, GOLD was sulking with no power-boosting reheat. Now, with your unpaid crew of those guys, your sons Tom and Sam and your mate Paul Stabler, who gave GOLD a home in his Darlington garage business, you’re ready to see what GOLD can really do.

We think we’ve finally licked the reheat problem, and all the others we’ve had to solve. GOLD looks gorgeous in her new livery of red, gold and black. Nine years of effort have gone into this moment. But you’re about to find out there’s another nasty little gremlin waiting to grab at you.

Stay Gold is powered by a turbojet engine from a Seventies Saudi Air Force Strikemaster fighter plane (www.xpbimages.com) (xpbimages.com)

As your right hand settles on the throttle lever, you reach the moment when you either get the job done, or get out of that hot seat and go live in a cave, never to look the world in the eye again.

You focus on that red light, push the throttle as far forward as it will go, and now the motor is really screaming: 102 per cent. Your right foot is hard on the brakes but GOLD wants to go. You press the left-hand button on the butterfly wheel to engage the reheat, then stab the right-hand one which ignites it, at exactly the moment you release the brakes.

Man, GOLD accelerates. Not superfast to begin with; 100 to 200 mph is faster than zero to 100, as the engine gulps the air down like a drunk suckling a vodka bottle. But fast all the same. Full power at last. Your hands are locked on the wheel, your eyes on that horizon.

But here’s the funny thing. GOLD will reach its peak speed in just 14 seconds – not bad – yet as the entry marker boards flash by, you realise that you’re urging her on to the exit like she isn’t going fast enough. Your mind has slowed things down.

The road ahead is a shaking blur, but there’s the red light, there’s the exit. Time to dump the laundry.

'It’s the moment you have waited for so long' (www.xpbimages.com)

Previous chute deployments have been excellent. Big, big braking forces that hang you in the belts, and a dead straight pull-up.

Not this time.

You have a split second to appreciate the chute’s pull, then suddenly GOLD’s rear end steps sideways to the right. With unusual detachment you watch the left-hand front wheel lift off the deck, but you already know you are in big trouble. At 201 mph, GOLD is on her right side. This is going to be a big one.

There’s a hideous scraping nose, which is the rollcage grinding itself away on the Tarmac. You smack your head on the right-hand side of that, and you’re definitely not happy about all the sparks invading the cockpit. If we have a fuel leak and go upside down…

You think she’s going to roll to her right, but the front tyres are dancing and next she flips on to her left-hand side, giving your helmet a different whack. You’ve long ago let go of the steering wheel, which is going crazy, and bring your hands to either side of your head for further protection.

'You hear the click, click, click as the bangers ignite the turbine behind your head' (www.xpbimages.com)

The sparks have gone away, thank God. But the slo-mo effect continues. It seems to take an age before GOLD finally comes to rest, though it’s only 12 seconds. You think she did a complete roll to her left, but by God’s grace she lands on her wheels. You detach the steering wheel and toss it aside, release the belts, and after an agonising moment when the HANS device catches on the rollcage and project photographer James Bearne – who’s had his own miraculous escape – helps with that. You jump out, share with him the fact that the crown jewels hurt a bit, and notice that a finger of your right-hand glove has worn through, hence a slightly bloody finger. You’re quite happy with that.

The medics arrive and tell you to sit down while the adrenaline surge subsides. They don’t believe you when you tell them there isn’t one. But really, there isn’t. You don’t know why.

You tell yourself to keep your mouth shut when you realise GOLD isn’t hurt that much and can be rebuilt, but in your heart you already know you’ll be doing this again when she’s fixed.

'Nine years of effort have gone into this moment' (www.xpbimages.com)

Yeah, you’ve been lucky. Really lucky. But when you see a photo of a rolling STAY GOLD on the front of a newspaper days later, it feels like it was someone else in the car.

You’re more interested in the speeds. An average of 275.260 mph is within 30 mph of our outright target speed, though we’d have to do two runs for anything to count. But the real buzz is the peak: 296.6 mph. Both way better than expected. We covered that 500-metre distance in 4.046s. We know we have a car capable of taking the record, with a longer run-up.

So what went wrong? We think we need to relocate the parachute mountings, that deployment caused the chute to lift the rear wheels. Not a good thing on a long, thin car that doesn’t tolerate yaw.