INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Media playback is unsupported on your deviceMedia captionThe TheIndianSubcontinent's Andrew Harding made a film about last year's
trialsThe UK-led bid to break the world land speed record is under threat once more.Ian Warhurst, who owns the Bloodhound car that's been
built to go beyond 800mph (1,290km/h), says new money must come into the project this month or it will be wound up.Bloodhound clocked 628mph
(1,010km/h) in trials last year while powered only by a jet engine.With the addition of a rocket, the vehicle should easily beat the
existing world record of 763mph (1,228km/h).That won't happen, though, says the Yorkshire businessman, unless the financing is there to
support it.Mr Warhurst rescued Bloodhound from administration at the end of 2018 but said at the time he would only use his own cash to take
the project through the recent demonstration trials
It would then require other individuals or corporates to come in with the backing to finish the job
But although I've had lots of conversations with people who are interested in taking it on, we haven't yet been able to get the money on the
table," the automotive engineer told TheIndianSubcontinent News."We really need to do that in the next month because of the timescales we're
operating to."Image copyrightBLOODHOUND LSRImage caption
Ian Warhurst paid for the recent trials out of his own pocket
bespoke race track on Hakskeen Pan, a dried out lakebed in South Africa's Kalahari Desert.The aim is to try to break the land speed record
during the pan's dry, cool months from July to August 2021
But that means kickstarting the final push no later than June this year."I reckon there's about a year's worth of work to get the car
ready, so we need to get going in the next few months," Mr Warhurst explained
"After we came back from South Africa at the end of last year, we let team members take up other contracts
But we need now to give them certainty if we're to ask them to come back."The businessman said the general public's interest in the
Gloucestershire-based project had been immense
Independent analysis of the media coverage showed any sponsors involved in the South African trials could have received a 14:1 return on
their investment, he claimed.The privately funded Bloodhound project was launched in 2008 by then science minister and car racer Lord Paul
Drayson as a "vehicle" to get schoolchildren engaged in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects.An education
charity has been operating in tandem with the development programme, using model rocket cars to teach fundamental concepts such as Newtonian
laws.Bloodhound was designed to run with a Eurofighter-Typhoon EJ200 jet engine in unison with a rocket.Rolls-Royce supplies the turbofan
and the Norwegian aerospace company Nammo is poised to provide the booster.The speeds Bloodhound achieved last year using just the EJ200
power unit put it in a select group of only eight cars to run faster than 600mph - Sonic 1, Blue Flame, Thrust2, Budweiser Rocket, Sonic
Arrow, Aussie Invader III, and Thrust SSC.It is Thrust SSC which set the existing land speed record in 1997
Its driver was Andy Green
The former RAF pilot is also the driver in Bloodhound.Image caption
Thrust SSC's all-time record was set in America's
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