Last weekend, 11/18/06, many of Team NAE was on the lake bed conducting test runs as a continuation of our testing phase of this project. First, on behalf of the team, I want to thank anyone who came out to watch or help us with this session. This was the second of such sessions; the first being last June.
I would also like to thank, on behalf of Ed Shadle and Keith Zanghi (along with the rest of the team), George Callaway for his kind and generous assistance to the project. It never ceases to amaze me how the people involved in this sport are such helpful, understanding and supportive folks. It is a tribute to the quality of people such as these who give me reason to still believe there is hope for our great country and its future.
As most of you who lurk through this forum know, when working on your car - and especially an unlimited class one that is arrayed with so many different systems to check over - it can take nearly all day to simply get it at the end of the course to get a run or two in before daylight is no longer available. The condition of the lake bed is, IMHO, in good shape. I hope everyone who uses it for their personal recreation keeps it that way, out of consideration for those who come there to race.
However, due to the fact that our project is based in Washington state, the project's future plans will be to conduct further test sessions closer to home due to the time and expense, as well as the proximity to such a highly populated metropolitan area like Los Angeles. We hope that by next spring or early summer our vehicle's all aluminum alloy wheels with titanium bands on the outer running surface, will be completed and available to run on the NAE. This will allow us to run at speeds above the limitations of the aircraft tires we have been running on up to this point.
Should those of you who are interested in following our project's continued progress, I invite you to visit the NAE's web site @
www.landspeed.com and learn about where we'll be conducting future test runs in hopes of giving our new contender, Steve Fossett, a run for his money; even though we don't have any, yet. It hasn't stopped us yet.
