The land-speed record for a steam-powered car was broken last week at California's Edwards Air Force base, when the British Steam Car achieved an average 139.843mph (225.055km/h) over a measured mile.
On emerging to hear he'd broken the record the 52-year-old British driver, powerboat record-breaker Charles Burnett III said, "It
was absolutely fantastic, I enjoyed every moment of it."
Burnett's first run took place at 7.27am. The team had an hour to prepare the car for its return 10km run - it takes 4km to accelerate before the measured mile, and four to decelerate, with two timed runs averaged to reach the record.
The Steam Car's project manager Matt Candy said the record took the vehicle to 12 times the distance and twice the speed it had achieved during tests in Britain.
The record car is built of lightweight carbon fibre composite and aluminium affixed to a steel space frame chassis. Its 12 boilers and 3km of tubing help boost weight to three tonnes.
Before each run, 50 litres/m of demineralised water is pumped into the car's boilers, heated to 400C and injected into a turbine at more than double the speed of sound.
That it took this long to break the original record is testament to the car which, back in 1906, set it at 204km/h.
