Sonic boom boy gets his speed kicks

He was A self-confessed junkie, hopelessly hooked on speed from the age of six. Although he fought it, his desire consumed him, ultimately pushing him to quit his job and lead a twilight life, cocooned from the outside world, unaware of the passage of time and never far from the verge of financial ruin.

Speed became his quest and the irresistible drive behind his hunger quickly addicted others. They found themselves begging for money from a world which didn't understand. Getting that rush was all they talked about.

He knows now that they pushed themselves slightly beyond the normal level of human endurance. Something had to give.

So 12 months ago, he led a pilgrimage into the desert and, over 40 days and 40 nights, they exorcised the speed demon. The end was beautiful; an unimaginable

beast of their own creation, hurtling past them and beyond the speed of sound, carving a magnificent trail in the Nevada dust. That very day, they all happily quit.

After all, supersonic speed is the best high there is.

"It was an incredible mix of emotions, from happiness to pure relief and exhaustion. As soon as we broke the record, I realised the immensity of the strain we had been under and there was a feeling of, `well, thank God, we have done it and nobody was hurt. We never have to test that bloody car again'," says Richard Noble.

He is sitting in the Shelbourne Hotel, talking about his three-decade pursuit of the land speed record, which ended last year when RAF Squadron Leader Andy Green drove Noble's Thrust SSC car across a 14-mile stretch of arid land, smashing through the speed of sound at 763 mph.

Around one million people watched the Thrust SSC preparations over the final 10 days and the designated website received three million daily hits.

"The public response was phenomenal, despite the lack of interest from the corporate world. They really sensed that we had achieved something, even though the TV pictures didn't fully convey how astonishing this thing looked. That was partly my fault - I positioned the media along the centre of the route, thinking they'd pick up the supersonic boom there. But the boom actually registered 12 miles away in a little village, smashing crockery and setting off sprinkler systems," he laughs. He is sitting here, this tall, warm, infectiously enthusiastic Englishman, talking about land speed records as though they are an everyday thing. He tells you it was in his blood since he was a kid in the 1950s, when he witnessed John Cobb's Crusader boat bobbing on the shores of Loch Ness. Cobb died just days later when the boat disintegrated at 240 mph.

Even through his child's eye, Noble felt he was a kindred spirit, but he tried to bow to society, in the words of Trainspotting's Renton, to choose life. He played guitar at Winchester college and dreamt of becoming a Beatle. He joined the army and later flunked his exams on purpose, recoiling from a life of structure, much to his parents' disappointment.

He scribbled the bones of a novel, which, his girlfriend informed him, was so poor that she simply couldn't bear to type it (probably would have been a bestseller). He sold concrete floors for a spell.

"I was just trying to find my niche. But the land speed idea had become so powerfully embedded in me that I couldn't hide it, I had to yield to it."

And so he began. Noble is utterly self taught in engineering and mechanics, essentially posing the awkward questions for the experts.

If the early tales of his forays into the science of speed smack of the kooky professor - Thrust 1 took a tumble and nearly killed him - he gradually became steeped in knowledge accumulated by trial and error and in the 1980s, he built Thrust 2 with John Ackroyd. Despite lack of sponsorship, they took the land speed record at 633 mph.

"It is an unforgettable sensation," offers Noble, who drove Thrust 2. "From zero to 350 mph is incredibly unstable, you have to fight the car and from there to 500 mph is just boring, really. Then you feel this incredible push against you."

He looks back upon that era as the fun time, but even after they attained the record, there was a gnawing feeling that the sound barrier had yet to be breached and that rival speed buffs - most prominently Craig Beedlove - would eventually reach that peak. He told his wife Sally he was about to embark on another project. He recalls his astonishment when she didn't pack up and go. Thrust SSC was born.

"The hardest decision I had to make was not to drive it. It simply wasn't feasible. This was just a constant slog for six years. We couldn't get the funding. The whole project cost £2.8 million, which, being honest, is just an accounting error."

He reckons that about 1,000 people played an integral part in the realisation of Thrust SSC, all unpaid, each enthralled by the project. They advertised to find a suitable driver and Andy Green eventually won the competition to determine the most suitable candidate.

"This thing was rear wheel steer, a pig to drive. It goes off line 100 foot at 595 mph and you have to put full lock on at 595 -you find me a Grand Prix driver who full locks at 200 mph. There isn't one."

By the time the project hit the Nevada desert, the world's media were enthused. Some turned up expecting to see a spectacular blow-out but safety was always paramount; six team members had to unanimously authorise every test. Andy Green drove repeatedly and on October 15th of last year, he went supersonic.

When they returned to England, 9,000 people swamped the pilot in his tiny village home. 40,000 showed up to greet the team in nearby Coventry. It was a far cry from the lonely days of Thrust 1 and a remote air-strip.

Noble believes that Green's feat is comparable to Edmund Hillary's ascent of Everest or Charles Lindbergh's solo crossing of the Atlantic.

"Dead right, I feel it is of that magnitude. Our record may be broken in the future but we passed through the sound barrier first."

While the public were overjoyed, there was an underlying air of reservation towards their achievement in England. Some media commentators virtually denounced it, which disappointed Noble.

"It's mystifying. I don't know, perhaps we have lost sight of the success drive in our culture in England. It really didn't impact on the establishment," he shrugs.

Or perhaps the entire concept is just too futuristic for now. While Hillary left a Union Jack on a physical wonder, Noble's legacy is visual, a fleeting vapour trail. In truth, his achievement may only be appreciated some 50 years from now.

"I do believe the land speed record is something which will grab the imagination in coming years. Already, similar projects such as rocket bikes have sprung up. It is tremendously exciting. For us, however, it's over. Success can be very sad, actually, once you're beyond the initial elation."

Noble is done with speed now. He worried about what the Thrust SSC team would do when the project ended, how they would replace the thrills and camaraderie of those unforgettable years. Noble himself just immersed himself in another project, of an entirely new dimension, which they are keeping under wraps.

"I couldn't possibly comment," he smiles as he prepares to depart.

Disappointingly, the Batmobile is not parked outside the Shelbourne. Instead, Noble strolls towards a Volvo, back to his brave and fascinating comic-book hero life.

Funny though; walking down the street, he looks just like everybody else.