BBC_Speed Dreams The Fastest Place on Earth_1of2
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00For one week in August, a dried up lake bed in Utah is transformed from a barren landscape
00:11into a place where dreams are made.
00:15Standing there on the salt for the very first time takes your breath away.
00:17You just don't realize how big it is, how flat it is, and how white it is.
00:23And there's nothing out there.
00:24There's no insects.
00:25There's no plant life.
00:26There's nothing.
00:27It's dead and it's silent, apart from 500 cars, ultra bright records.
00:34These men have just one plan, to drive their bespoke vehicles as fast as they can and hopefully
00:40join an elite group, the fastest men on earth.
00:47This is where you come when you want to prove that you're the fastest.
00:51There are no other place on earth that can say that.
00:54This unique setting has been pushing the boundaries of speed and engineering for over
00:58a century, the salt lakes of Bonneville.
01:04You live more in five minutes on a bike like this than more people do in a lifetime.
01:11It is like going into a different realm.
01:13You can't hear the engine.
01:15There's nothing in the way.
01:16No one's going to pull out in front of you.
01:18Just have it.
01:19It's just a matter of time before you realize that you're not the fastest man on earth.
01:20It's just a matter of time before you realize that you're not the fastest man on earth.
01:21It's just a matter of time before you realize that you're not the fastest man on earth.
01:22It's just a matter of time before you realize that you're not the fastest man on earth.
01:23It's just a matter of time before you realize that you're not the fastest man on earth.
01:24It's just a matter of time before you realize that you're not the fastest man on earth.
01:25It's just a matter of time before you realize that you're not the fastest man on earth.
01:26It's just a matter of time before you realize that you're not the fastest man on earth.
01:27It's just a matter of time before you realize that you're not the fastest man on earth.
01:28It's just a matter of time before you realize that you're not the fastest man on earth.
01:29It's just a matter of time before you realize that you're not the fastest man on earth.
01:30It's just a matter of time before you realize that you're not the fastest man on earth.
01:31It's just a matter of time before you realize that you're not the fastest man on earth.
01:32It's just a matter of time before you realize that you're not the fastest man on earth.
01:33It's just a matter of time before you realize that you're not the fastest man on earth.
01:34It's just a matter of time before you realize that you're not the fastest man on earth.
01:35It's just a matter of time before you realize that you're not the fastest man on earth.
01:36It's just a matter of time before you realize that you're not the fastest man on earth.
01:37It's just a matter of time before you realize that you're not the fastest man on earth.
01:38It's just a matter of time before you realize that you're not the fastest man on earth.
01:39It's just a matter of time before you realize that you're not the fastest man on earth.
01:57Strapped firmly into the car, hurtling along the salt, it's just man versus machine.
02:04Foot flat, revs go up, drop the clutch, you feel the bike, you straighten her up, give
02:08Give it that.
02:09And it snaps you back.
02:11Everything does a bit of the old Star Trek Enterprise warp.
02:14I mean, you just can't adapt to the way this thing accelerates.
02:18But each time you put the foot to the floor,
02:20you actually look up and you see these two orange banners like this
02:23and you're thinking, I am never going to get this through there.
02:25And they go past like that.
02:26They're 90 feet apart and you flinch as you go past.
02:29It feels really effing quick.
02:31I mean, properly fast.
02:34Four and a half thousand miles away,
02:36in the sheds, outhouses and back garages of Great Britain,
02:41the Bonneville dream is hatched.
02:44Two worlds linked by a shared passion.
02:47I can't actually wait to ride this.
02:51Driving to work sometimes, I'm just thinking of what it's going to be like.
02:54Firing it up for the first time and then the guy points to you and goes...
03:00..and you bugger off down the slope.
03:01That's just going to be such a moment.
03:04Head and shoulders lean forward, back and neck muscles tight, not relaxed.
03:09And then it says, sit tight and firmly in the saddle.
03:12That's pretty obvious, isn't it?
03:14Am I going to be hanging on for dear life or am I?
03:16HE CHUCKLES
03:18These vehicles of great beauty have been filed, hammered, welded
03:23and machined from unyielding pieces of bare metal.
03:27You can eat your dinner off that. That's lovely.
03:30This is the story of a group of men who are willing to risk life and limb
03:33on homemade machines in their quest to hold a Bonneville record.
03:39There's a lot of clever engineers come in, six separate teams
03:42comprising of various head-banging hot-rodders,
03:46custom bike builders, drag racers, road racers,
03:50all good, clean-living people.
03:52They have just four weeks to finish their hand-crafted creations
03:56and put them onto a machine that's going to make them
03:58I'm Steve French. I'm a telecoms engineer.
04:01I've been doing telephone systems for 39 years now.
04:04Dave worked at British Telecom. I worked at British Telecom.
04:07My father was in British Telecom as well, but he was a plumber.
04:11The record we're hoping to break is the 750 pushrod
04:14supercharged methanol class.
04:17We're confident that we have more than enough horsepower to do the job.
04:20We're going to be able to do it.
04:22We're going to be able to do it.
04:24We're going to be able to do it.
04:25We're confident that we have more than enough horsepower to do the job,
04:28but of course, we are a novice.
04:30Dave's modesty belies the fact that this self-taught engineer
04:34has hand-crafted almost every component of the bike here in his garage.
04:40Ice-water tank for the intercooler.
04:42Oil tank.
04:44This is the billet crankshaft.
04:45There's one or two. The other one is still half-attached as machinery.
04:48These are beautiful pieces of engineering.
04:51I've put pictures of these up on Facebook pages
04:54and had comments of people saying,
04:56''Wow, who made that?''
04:59So I said, ''Dave did. What did he make it on?''
05:02And I've made it by hand on the two machines here.
05:06And everything's being made by hand.
05:09I would say racing is an obsession.
05:10Racing is an obsession, yeah. Of course it is.
05:12Someone actually said that racing was actually worse than heroin
05:15because you can't actually give up heroin.
05:17Last year, they went to Bonneville as spectators
05:20and got their licences on a borrowed bike.
05:24The salt fever took hold
05:26and they are now building their very own bike from scratch.
05:29That's the cylinder head.
05:30That was all machined from one lump of aluminium,
05:33which took hours and hours and hours and hours and hours.
05:37It's easy enough to go and buy a bike and go out there and go fast.
05:39I mean, my road bike will do 180 miles an hour quite happily.
05:43But it's on the road.
05:44If I take it to a racetrack, it's nowhere.
05:46It's just another bike.
05:48Accuracy is obviously important.
05:50We're talking a thousandth of an inch.
05:52In fact, when they come to fit the bearings,
05:54you're talking tens of thousands of an inch of accuracy.
05:57Otherwise, they fall out.
05:59I'm self-taught.
06:01There's a bit of help from a friend who's a really good engineer,
06:04but I'm 99% self-taught.
06:10In a cramped garage beside a motorway near Glasgow,
06:13salt fever has also taken a grip.
06:16This team are going for one of the fastest land speed records.
06:20This little car is going to end up
06:22the fastest wheel-driven 1,000cc car on the planet.
06:26And they're doing it with a twin-turbo motorcycle engine
06:29sourced from eBay.
06:32With it, they hope to break into the Bonneville 300 mile an hour club.
06:39Why do we go to all this effort to go a little bit faster?
06:45Because it's difficult.
06:47Because if it was dead easy, it wouldn't be a challenge.
06:51The cost in time and money has been tremendous
06:54and has been funded by a Zurich-based hedge fund manager,
06:58Rick Pearson, a retired professional driver.
07:02He agreed to fund the project in exchange for a place in the driving seat.
07:09I have a high-pressure job.
07:11I work pretty much every business day of the year,
07:15part-time, part-time, part-time.
07:18Every business day of the year, apart from the seven days I go to the salt.
07:23People are going to say, why are you putting yourself through this?
07:26Why are you trying to do 300-plus miles an hour down a salt flat?
07:31Richard Noble would always say, in these circumstances,
07:34it's for Britain and the hell of it.
07:36Actually, for me, it all comes down to a blue baseball cap.
07:40And that blue baseball cap is the emblem of the Bonneville 300 mile an hour club.
07:45There were a lot of people on the Bonneville Salt Flats U-Tour
07:48to watch John Cobb's attempt at cracking his own record...
07:51The salt flats have been used for record-breaking attempts for over a century.
07:56The dried-up lake bed covers over 100 square miles of uninterrupted track space.
08:02A string of illustrious Brits have distinguished themselves down the years.
08:07John Cobb, Donald Campbell, Richard Noble and Andy Green
08:12have all pushed the boundaries of speed.
08:15A magnificent performance, and better still, it was all British.
08:20There are only six Brits in the 300 mile an hour club,
08:25so I would be the seventh Brit, the third living Brit,
08:29to have the right to wear that hat.
08:32Rick and his team have just one month to get the streamliner ready
08:36before packing their precious cargo off to the States
08:39and their chance to join the exclusive 300 club.
08:47People come to Bonneville because this is the place,
08:50unlike any other place on Earth, this is where the tradition is.
08:54So, land speed racing started a little over 100 years ago over in France.
08:59It would have to be the French, right?
09:01Well, then the Belgians heard about it and, oh, my goodness.
09:04Well, eventually it went from one place to another and it ended up here in Bonneville
09:08in 1914 was the first organized race.
09:11We're almost 100 years of organized racing out here.
09:14At last everything's OK and the man with the unique combination of courage,
09:18patience and determination for the attempt receives the mascot from his wife, Tanya.
09:22It's a tense moment, but Donald Campbell has known many like him.
09:26To the joy of everybody, a new record was set at 403.1 miles an hour.
09:32More speed records have been set here than any other place on Earth.
09:36Land speed racing started with the roadster, the ubiquitous roadster.
09:41And then, because of the Second World War, there was a lot of extra parts,
09:45what they called drop tanks, fuel tanks, and they were a really cool shape,
09:49a bullet-looking thing.
09:51Some of the racers looked at that and went, you know,
09:53how about if I just cut a hole in the top, put an engine and a couple of axles
09:57and I can turn that thing into a race car?
09:59Poof, all of a sudden, the belly tank Lakester was born,
10:02which is still being raced out here 60 years later.
10:05And then once they had that belly tank Lakester, they thought,
10:08well, what if we cover the engine?
10:10And what if we cover the tires?
10:12And what if we enclose the driver so that the air goes around?
10:16And hence was born the Streamliner, which are the fastest cars on Earth.
10:21Our third team are modifying a Suzuki to break a 200-mile-an-hour record
10:25in the special construction fuel class.
10:28The bike spends its time between Dave's workshop in Dorset
10:31and PJ's shed in Hertfordshire.
10:33This week, it's in the custody of PJ.
10:36I'm PJ. Welcome to Air-Cooled Wonderland.
10:39Come in.
10:41This self-confessed metalhead has devoted his entire life
10:46to all things mechanical.
10:48This is where I live with my children,
10:50who are all rusty, metallic and wonderful.
10:55Crane. Love this crane, mate.
10:57Two tonnes I picked up for that. It's rated at one and a quarter.
11:00That's the reeling machine.
11:02There's my 30-tonne press.
11:04You've got to see me live.
11:08A bike is the only way.
11:10You know, if you ain't ridden a bike, you ain't ridden a bike.
11:13You know, if you ain't ridden a bike, you ain't lived. Simple.
11:17When I'm sitting on my bike,
11:19this isn't some car strapped in with some seatbelt.
11:22This is 300 horsepower. This is two wheels.
11:25It doesn't get any fucking reeler. It doesn't.
11:28Sort of hypnotic, isn't it?
11:31There's something satisfying about doing something yourself
11:34rather than getting your pants pulled off by some so-called professional
11:38who comes round and you weigh them out a load of money
11:41and then you look at what they've done and you go,
11:43leave it out. I could do better than that.
11:45Leave it out. I'm not paying you for that.
11:50Just up the road, another team are getting their vehicle ready
11:53for a 124-mile-an-hour record
11:56with a bike that hasn't been ridden for 18 years.
12:00They've got their very own personal reasons
12:03for joining the contingent of bikers.
12:06The whole reason why we're going is because
12:08our friend Mike died a couple of years ago
12:11from a heart attack at a young age.
12:14He had this bike that he'd been rebuilding for 20-plus years
12:18and never finished. It became a long-running joke.
12:20Everyone always used to ask him, have you finished the bike?
12:22Have you finished the bike? And it never happened.
12:24So a whole bunch of us decided at his funeral
12:27that we should finish the bike.
12:31This is the Team Page secret laboratory.
12:34The bike will be called the Mike Page Special,
12:37so Mike's name will be in the book.
12:39And that's all that any of us want.
12:41Following Mike's funeral, a group of his friends
12:44decided to finish the bike on his behalf
12:47and take it to the flats.
12:49The team have many skills between them,
12:52though sadly, none relate to bike building.
12:55I'm an architectural technologist and building services engineer.
12:59An IT manager. I'm also an IT manager.
13:02I'm the grinder. If it needs grinding, I'll grind it.
13:08In the fading glory of seaside town Great Yarmouth,
13:12up on the Norfolk coast, lives another Bonneville hopeful.
13:17A talented bike builder and engineer,
13:20a legend in bike building circles.
13:23The record I'm going for stands at 125mph.
13:27And he's going to do that on his 70-year-old Indian Scout.
13:31This is an out-and-out race bike.
13:33I mean, it's been built to race.
13:35Everything's one-off on it, and it's been built purely for Bonneville.
13:39Well, it's a full total engine rebuild for a start.
13:42It's now got pistons out of a 1937 Royal Enfield,
13:46valves out of a Peugeot car.
13:48It's got high-compression heads.
13:50It's been gas-flowed, replacement inlet manifold,
13:53Harley Sportster carburettor...
13:55Getting the 70-year-old bike to practically double its horsepower
13:59has taken a year's work.
14:01Look at that. You can eat your dinner off that. That's lovely.
14:05Shame to put it on the bike.
14:08I mean, this has been two years of constant Bonneville.
14:13And to be honest, I wish I'd never heard the name of.
14:17Vroom, vroom. Vroom, vroom.
14:19It's been a long time.
14:22Vroom, vroom. Vroom, vroom.
14:24It is going to be an experience.
14:26I'm getting a really bad disease now
14:28that people have probably told you about.
14:30Salt fever.
14:32Have you heard that phrase?
14:34Salt fever is what everybody's got.
14:40Some of these people have it really bad,
14:42and they've had it since 1949,
14:44when the very first Hot Rodders came out here
14:46and had their first speed week.
14:48Well, it's kind of hard to explain,
14:50but it kind of gets in your blood,
14:52and you say, geez, I'd really like to give this a try.
14:56Salt fever is something you get
14:58about 20 minutes after you leave here.
15:01You come here for the very first time
15:03to see the cars and witness the spectacle,
15:06and then you'll come back time and time again
15:08because of the people.
15:10I think I was 21 the first time I came up here,
15:12so I'm 73 now,
15:14so we're getting towards the autumn years of my racing career,
15:18but I'm still having a lot of fun.
15:20I've been wanting to do this for 30 years.
15:22I'll be 80 years old in two months,
15:24and it's a blast.
15:36With this weapon here,
15:38we're hoping to break 186 miles an hour
15:40on the 1,000 cc air freighter.
15:48This is where we build it.
15:50This is where it all happens, the magic happens.
15:52Geordie Oz has been building his bike
15:55for the past five years.
15:57This will be his second attempt at the chosen record.
16:00All handmade by myself.
16:02The chassis, the bodywork,
16:05which some of it's on the floor over here.
16:08This has all been stretched, modified by myself.
16:12All the cockpit instruments.
16:14Basically everything they say here is handmade,
16:17including the engine.
16:19He didn't want to put it in the shed to start with,
16:21so it lived in the front room for over a year.
16:24It's where we set our Christmas tree up, actually.
16:27So somewhere we've got a photo
16:29of the Christmas tree on top of the bike.
16:31I could collect stamps.
16:33I don't want to collect stamps.
16:35I want to race in Bonneville.
16:37Once you've been, you'll understand why.
16:40Between them, the teams have spent thousands of man hours
16:44working on these machines.
16:47I suppose it is an insertion.
16:49If it was a hobby, you wouldn't do it.
16:51It's different from your work.
16:53It's something you feel you need to do,
16:55but you don't have to do it.
16:57You want to do it.
16:59It mainly talks about going to America,
17:02cars, lorries,
17:04and all that kind of stuff.
17:06America, cars, lorries.
17:09That's usual dinner round the table for us.
17:12Every night, I would say.
17:14Everybody likes speed, don't they not?
17:17No, no, definitely not.
17:19No speed freak for me.
17:21No, the two of them are both speed freaks.
17:23Not for me. Definitely not for me.
17:25No, definitely not. No.
17:30Back in Oxfordshire,
17:32Steve has joined Dave and his wife
17:34for another long weekend of bike building.
17:40I'll say the crankshaft started.
17:42It weighed 80 pounds.
17:44And it took two of us to lift it into the lathe.
17:49I do all he wants to do, and she works with her horses.
17:52We meet in the middle.
17:54He's very committed to what he's doing.
17:56But he's like the mad professor.
17:58He's got no other ideas anywhere.
18:02He's just focused on what he's doing.
18:05The dogs can be walking all over him,
18:07all over the furniture, the floor.
18:09They've chewed up everything.
18:11He won't notice it. He'll get up and walk out into the garage.
18:14I'm not sure that's entirely true,
18:16but I won't argue.
18:20And I think bike people are like that, aren't they?
18:23They're just focused on bikes
18:25and where they're going and what they're doing.
18:27Don't forget to wipe your feet.
18:33Do you think it's normal to have a motorbike in your living room?
18:36No, and I'll tell you,
18:38when I catch up with a bastard that keeps dumping them around here,
18:41I'm going to have a stiff word of him.
18:43It is a geyser hole.
18:45It's not very grown up.
18:47You couldn't entertain anybody here.
18:49But that's not what houses are for.
18:51Houses are for storing race parts for your bike.
18:54I mean, I've got a room up there full of race parts.
18:57I mean, it's just out of control.
18:59I'm a tidy, clean-living man.
19:01And I come home and I find this.
19:03It's bordering on outrageous.
19:05I've seen it get through some beds as well.
19:08It's got rifle damage, that one.
19:11Well, there's not going to be a like-minded woman
19:13and a petropower of feet coming soon.
19:15Fucking hope not, unless she's good at welding.
19:21You've got to get on.
19:23The relationship works extremely well.
19:25You don't get to know somebody really well
19:28until you work with them for, what, five, six months.
19:31It's weekends, I'm not going to lie to you,
19:33but that amount of time.
19:35If you don't fall out in that space of time,
19:37then I think we've got a good footing.
19:39There's just something special about the relationship.
19:42I think that this is different than friendship.
19:45Don't say marriage, people.
19:47It's not a marriage, but it's...
19:49No, it's definitely not a marriage.
19:52It is something special, to be honest, yes,
19:54when you're working like this.
19:56That in the engine will spin round and round at very high speed.
19:59And these go up and down.
20:03So in the engine, they'll be going up and down.
20:08Bang, bang, bang.
20:10Horsepower and more horsepower.
20:12It's a match made in heaven.
20:14Dave takes care of the engineering
20:16and Steve, the techie details.
20:18Once I'd done all this detail on the planning,
20:21I knew it was doable, logistically it was doable.
20:24Put the letters on each of the junctions of the pipe.
20:27E means, if you look for an E down here, you find an E.
20:3045-degree swivel, dash 6.
20:32So dash 6 is the size of fitting you need.
20:34We've got A's here.
20:36You look at the A on the list, it's a dash 8 to dash 6.
20:39That's a reducer, and it's male to male.
20:46Bonneville's history is infused with almost mythological tales
20:51of how men have tamed their machines in the pursuit of speed.
20:56Legends such as Raleigh Free,
20:59concerned that his racing leathers may be causing drag,
21:03he decided to strip down to his swimming shorts for a final run.
21:08Lying flat, legs outstretched,
21:11he guided the bike by following a black stripe painted on the salt bed.
21:17It not only resulted in a 150-mile-an-hour record
21:20on his British-made Vincent,
21:22but became one of the most legendary images in motorcycling history.
21:27But perhaps the story that encapsulates the Bonneville spirit most
21:32is that of a Kiwi bike builder
21:35and his highly modified Indian Scout motorcycle.
21:39There was a bloke from New Zealand called Bert Monroe
21:42that came out here in 1967
21:44with an engine the size of a lawnmower,
21:46and I'm talking to you today, what, 2012?
21:49Nobody's broken that record yet.
21:58How fast you were going back there?
22:00Yeah, about 150, 160 miles an hour.
22:06Yeah, that sounds about right.
22:09Sir Anthony Hopkins' portrayal
22:11of the backyard eccentric genius in the feature film
22:14The World's Fastest Indian.
22:16It follows Monroe's first land speed record
22:19and it drew a whole new legion of fans to the flats,
22:22including Bonneville virgin Chris Ireland.
22:26Oz used to work for me, and I phoned him up one day
22:29and told him to go and watch The World's Fastest Indian
22:31because it was a brilliant film.
22:33Me having an Indian, of course, I'd think that.
22:35After he'd seen it, he said,
22:37I piss in the garden. He said, I've got chickens.
22:39He said, I've got an old shed and I've got an old bike.
22:41I'm going to build one and go to Bonneville.
22:44I said, you'll never do that as long as you've got a hole up your arse.
22:47And two years later, he sent me a photograph of him at Bonneville.
22:54Just like Bert Monroe,
22:56Chris will be taking a modified Indian scalp to the salt flats.
23:08Head out on the highway...
23:10Chris Ireland used to run his own successful custom bike company
23:14with a staff of ten,
23:16but the stresses and strain of dealing with tax officials,
23:19demanding customers and day-to-day cash flow
23:22took their toll.
23:25I ran the business for 20 years almost to the day
23:29and then I went in one day with a big lump in my throat,
23:32bought a bottle of whisky, went home,
23:34said to my wife, I can't do it anymore,
23:36and shut the lot down and had a nervous breakdown
23:39just from the stress of running the shop.
23:43When I came to get a job,
23:45I wanted something that was totally mindless,
23:48that I could go and do, not worry about it.
23:51So now I'm the California beach cleaner.
23:55It's brilliant, I love it.
23:57It's seasonal, three hours a day.
24:00I'm Lynne and I've lived with Chris
24:02and I have done for 29 years.
24:06Long years.
24:09It's very stressed,
24:11because the slightest little thing that goes wrong for Chris
24:14is a major event for us.
24:16It'll be just a, oh dear, but for Chris, no.
24:19He just gets so stressed.
24:21I get four or five of these a day.
24:23That's dog shit.
24:25This is the biggest thing he's done on his own,
24:28without me going and having to be behind him all the time.
24:32It knocked him back, his self-esteem, everything.
24:35It's one of those jobs where you can switch your brain off
24:39and walk about and think about other things
24:42like Bonneville and stuff like that.
24:45And when it comes to Bonneville, there's plenty to think about.
24:49Riding flat out mile upon mile
24:51raises some interesting engineering challenges.
24:54It's interesting because it's a 30-year-old bike.
24:57Everyone else is doing it on modern stuff with hybrid turbos.
25:00Fair play to them, that's the easy way.
25:02We like older stuff.
25:04You can't buy a bike like this, so you have to go and make one.
25:07PJ is doing everything he can to make the bike as strong as possible
25:11for his 200 mile an hour record attempt.
25:14All right, today we're going to be melting metal.
25:17Where's the safest place to stand?
25:19Edinburgh.
25:22And we're alight!
25:24After meltdown, his bikes are reincarnated into new parts.
25:29When an Englishman is sitting in his garden,
25:32enjoying the rare bit of sunshine,
25:35it's going to be nice to hear a furnace going next door.
25:38Relaxing.
25:40We're an industrialised nation.
25:42Part of our history, part of our history.
25:45It's going to be nice to hear a furnace going next door.
25:48We're an industrialised nation.
25:50Part of our heritage.
26:03I sort of buy motorbikes and I ride them
26:06and then I scrape what's left of them up
26:09and melt them down and make more parts of motorbikes.
26:12You can see it's quite liquid
26:15once you get rid of all the shite off the top.
26:23With the price of metal at an all-time high,
26:26PJ's stockpile is as good as money in the bank.
26:30There it is. Instant ingots.
26:35Just down the road, Team Page are rebuilding a classic Triumph Bonneville
26:40in memory of a friend who died unexpectedly last year.
26:43Of all the teams making the trip to the sort,
26:46they're the least experienced.
26:49It's not that we're not focused, but we're having fun doing it
26:52because we don't know what we're doing really.
26:54Their relaxed approach to engineering rigour
26:57is carrying on a tradition that Mike himself would have been proud of.
27:01Mike was kind of an eccentric character.
27:04He was always one for re-engineering things for himself,
27:07so I think the way this bike's been built
27:10is something he would wholeheartedly approve of if he were here.
27:17What's Mike kind of like, a self-taught engineer?
27:22I think the word engineer's quite loose.
27:24Yeah, self-taught's probably accurate.
27:26Definitely self-taught.
27:28But Mike's still here in spirit and in body to some extent
27:32as the team have thoughtfully kept his ashes in the workshop.
27:35If we had a bit of rainwater, we could probably mould him into something.
27:38Joking aside, if the team are to get anywhere near 124mph in Utah,
27:44they'll need to nearly double the bike's horsepower.
27:48Only then will they be in with any chance of joining
27:51the hundreds of other Bonneville participants also gunning for a record.
27:55My name is Gene Gerber, and I'm from Springfield, Illinois,
27:59and we're going for a record of 229mph.
28:03My name is Devlin DeBoss.
28:05And my name is Mick Zurana.
28:07We're from the state of Washington, and we're chasing a 167 and some change record.
28:11My name is Larry, and this is my wife Renee.
28:14We're from Southern California, and we're trying for a record of 165.370.
28:20To break a record, first of all, you have to pass technical inspection.
28:23If, in fact, the vehicle passes, it earns the right to go to the starting line
28:27in its respective class, whatever that might be.
28:30Blown, unblown, fuel, gas, sports car, Lakester, Streamline, whatever.
28:35And we're going after the de-blown, gas-re-engined, modified Roadster record that is 155,
28:40and we're going to go faster.
28:41And my ultimate goal with my motorcycle is to go over 200 miles an hour.
28:46And if the record is 200 miles an hour, and you run 210 miles an hour,
28:50you qualify, okay, and you go to impound.
28:54To set a record, it has to go two ways.
28:56Let's say the record's 200, you run 210.
28:58The second day you go out for your return run, or the record run as they call it,
29:02and you run 220.
29:03That's a total of 430.
29:04Slice it in half, the new record is 215.
29:07You still have to go back to inspection or prove to the inspectors that you are running
29:11in all of the right rules for that particular class.
29:14Once they bless you right in your lung, but you've done that,
29:17bingo, you've got yourself a new record.
29:19My name's Mike.
29:20This is Howard.
29:21This is Chuck.
29:22We're from Fort Wayne, Indiana, going for the world's fastest 32 Ford Coupe,
29:25214 miles an hour.
29:28Back in Scotland, the team are preparing the car for its third visit to the flats,
29:33having only just missed the record the last two times
29:36due to technical faults and mechanical failure.
29:40People come, and you either break a record or you break parts.
29:44There's only two outcomes.
29:46The engine has been retuned to the limit,
29:49from its original 175 horsepower to a staggering 500.
29:54Last year, that power was enough to twist the chassis
29:57and shred the gearbox beyond repair,
30:00so the car has needed an extensive rebuild.
30:03Obviously, you don't go to the parts bin and pick up bits for them,
30:06but if we can't find it, we simply make it.
30:10The team have less than two weeks to get her ready for shipping.
30:15Back down south, team Paige are ready to start the engine.
30:18It's the end of a long, hard year for Paige,
30:21rebuilding a bike that has been lying up in Mike's shed for 18 years.
30:25Ready to go.
30:27There's oil starting to get down into it.
30:29The oil goes in OK, but sadly seems to be coming out just as fast.
30:34Ooh.
30:36Hello, we've got a leaky tri-up.
30:38It's just there on my side.
30:40Please don't say it's the engine casings.
30:43This really isn't good.
30:45There's some grinding marks on this side.
30:47Yeah, it's where we've got the oil.
30:50Yeah, it's where we had to take out that under-webbing
30:52so the engine could move over.
30:54We may have gone too far.
30:56They'd had to make a few modifications to the bottom of the engine
30:59to get it to fit in the frame and unfortunately
31:01it went through the wall of the crankcase.
31:03Frog comes up with a cunning plan.
31:05Someone needs to fill that hole up.
31:07I want to get this started soon.
31:09Can I have a beer of disappointment, please?
31:12A beer of disappointment.
31:15Carlsberg don't do motorcycle disappointments, but if they did...
31:18it would be like this.
31:20It's possible that the crankcase can be welded,
31:22but it means a complete strip-down overnight.
31:25Team Page have just one week to repair, finish and power-test
31:29the old Triumph before shipping it to Bonneville.
31:33For Chris, getting the 70-year-old bike ready for the salt
31:37has been a year's work.
31:39Come on, girls. Come on.
31:41In a world where many of the big players
31:43use the most sophisticated digital technology
31:45to build their vehicles,
31:47spending millions on R&D,
31:49Chris and his other projects
31:51are still very much a product of the analogue age.
31:56That's a Speedo out of a Lancaster bomber.
32:00That's out of a Spitfire boost gauge.
32:03And these two are out of a Barracuda dive bomber.
32:06It was a Citroen 2CV capable of doing about 60 miles an hour.
32:12It's now been changed a little bit
32:14and should be good for at least 150.
32:18Are you more of a fan of older technology?
32:21I can't do it. I can't work the remote on the television.
32:24I can't work the remote on the satellite.
32:26Telephones, why can't they have a phone that's got switch on,
32:30then you press the buttons and it rings,
32:33and then another button says switch off?
32:35Why can't they have that?
32:38They've got to have the internet on them and God knows what now.
32:42I wouldn't even know how to switch one on.
32:45Hello?
32:47Hello?
32:49Hello?
32:51Hello?
32:53Back in Leighton Buzzard,
32:55just days until the bikes need to be crated up,
32:58Oz's 196-mile-an-hour missile is nearing completion.
33:03His friend Lee is helping with some finishing touches.
33:07I think it's really sad in the UK that manually skilled workers
33:12don't seem to be that valued.
33:14Everyone now values the IT skills
33:16and I think we're reaching a point
33:18where we're going to run out of people with manual skills
33:21and what he does, what he's capable of doing, is amazing.
33:27When you've got someone who's doing something
33:29that they really want to do with something they really want to achieve,
33:32you've absolutely got to go with it.
33:35Bloody hell.
33:37I mean, there are some people out there that have got loads of money
33:40and they've got the big rigs that are full of wheel-on tool boxes and stuff
33:44and we don't have any of that.
33:46It's done on a shoestring for us.
33:49Whatever the budget of those going to Bonneville,
33:51safety is one thing that can never be compromised.
33:57Having had his first taste of the salt three years ago,
33:59Oz is well aware of the danger.
34:04Hello, lighter down, we have a lighter down.
34:11This is Oz attempting the record in 2009.
34:16He should be so proud of what he's done,
34:18but I think until he gets that record,
34:21it's, you know, it's still something that's a work in progress for him.
34:26Five years' work for five minutes of fun
34:29might seem a poor trade-off to some.
34:32The old adage of Bert Munro,
34:34you live more in five minutes on a bike like this
34:37than more people do in a lifetime.
34:39And it's quite true.
34:41This is the closest most of us will come
34:44to travelling at over 150 miles an hour.
34:47If the worst should happen,
34:49there is only a thin leather cowhide
34:51between the rider and the unforgiving rough granular surface.
34:55I try not to think about that
34:57because you don't want to think about what happens
35:00if you crash at high speed.
35:03I could never be without him.
35:06Doesn't matter how much, you know, it would be devastating.
35:13I don't know the statistics, I don't want to know.
35:16And I'm going to play ostrich on that one.
35:19HE LAUGHS
35:21I don't want to be without him.
35:23I don't want to be without him.
35:25I don't want to be without him.
35:27I don't want to be without him.
35:29And I'm going to play ostrich on that one.
35:31HE LAUGHS
35:32Head in the sand. No, but, you know, ignore it.
35:36Ignore it she may,
35:38but the fact remains racing at Bonneville is dangerous.
35:42Throw in adverse track and weather conditions,
35:45the risk factor increases dramatically.
35:50Since Speed Week began in 1948,
35:54nine people have died in the pursuit of this dream.
35:58Let's talk about electric cars.
36:02Fortunately, the driver of this vehicle was one of the lucky ones.
36:10The hardest thing about a streamliner
36:12is because they're the slipperiest cars on earth.
36:14They're the fastest cars, but they're the slipperiest.
36:16And it is the forces that are unseen,
36:19the invisible air forces,
36:21that can get you into serious trouble
36:23and can cause a catastrophic accident.
36:29MUSIC PLAYS
36:40There is a...apprehension
36:45when you drive into Bonneville in the morning
36:48and you wonder if you're going to drive out in the evening,
36:51which I think is normal. I think that's healthy.
36:54I think it's important to have that degree of adrenaline running
36:58when you're in the car because it wakes you up,
37:00it keeps you very focused,
37:02and I think it helps you with your reactions.
37:07Oh, undoubtedly, it's massively selfish, yes.
37:10But it is something I need to do
37:16and I rather hope that the kids will one day understand that.
37:24The car is very long and very thin.
37:26The car can behave like a motorbike,
37:28so when you see the Grand Prix motorcyclists
37:31coming out of the corner and they slide the bike
37:33and then suddenly it snaps back on them
37:35and they get high-sided and they go over the handlebars.
37:38We can high-side the flower.
37:40I once asked a very wise man who'd driven these cars for a long while
37:44what happens if we pencil roll
37:46and his only response was,
37:48it won't end well for you or the car.
37:51Oh!
37:57I mean, if there is an accident and he dies, well, he dies.
38:01I mean, it's destiny.
38:04It's destiny and you can't go against destiny.
38:11Back in Great Yarmouth,
38:13Chris Ireland's homespun bike is almost ready for a road test.
38:17But with limited funds, he's popped down to his local scrapyard
38:20for one last part.
38:22His mate Gary, who runs the breakers' yard,
38:25allows him free rein in the spares bin
38:27in return for the occasional basket of eggs.
38:34Aladdin's Cave.
38:43Happy as a pig in Watsit.
38:45This is a bike breakers' paradise.
38:47You've got old wheels, front ends, exhaust systems, handlebars.
38:53If it comes off a bike, it's in this shed.
38:55And I think they've got what I want.
38:57I'm after a wheel spindle.
38:59And I know where they are. They're down there.
39:05Gotcha. That'll do it.
39:08With their bike now complete and just three days until shipping,
39:13Dave and Steve can finally step back to admire their handiwork.
39:18The supercharger here, it's the mouth of the supercharger,
39:21provides all the air for the engine.
39:23That was all made here, not the supercharger itself,
39:26that's sewage engineering, but the air intake, yes,
39:29the metering block above, all the fittings, all made here, yeah.
39:32On the front of the bike, we've got a water pump
39:35which will feed water about 300 gallons an hour into the intercooler.
39:40You see the pipe going the right, feeds the water in the bottom,
39:43pumps up to the top, and then the pipe coming down from the top
39:46is the ice water intake.
39:48That's full speed gearbox.
39:50The belt to the front, that's the supercharger drive.
39:53It should give us about 30 pounds of boost pressure in the engine.
39:57The large aluminium nut sticking out, Dave made that.
40:00That comes through the side case so we can start the engine.
40:03That's the clutch hat.
40:05It's bolted on to basically a bucket full of alternate steel and bronze plates,
40:10and that entire thing was made by Dave.
40:13Currently the bike is geared for about 158 miles an hour.
40:18We have gearing which will enable us to take it up to 195
40:21if there's enough power in the engine to do so.
40:24The grips on the aluminium bars are made here, billet grips.
40:27It bolts into your glove and you can really hang on to the bike.
40:30The jumble of wires is the data logger.
40:33This will log front wheel speed, rear wheel speed, exhaust temperature,
40:37boost temperature, boost pressure, engine RPM, shoe size,
40:41and inside leg measurement.
40:43That's the theory we've yet to put to the test.
40:49Visually the handmade bike exceeds all expectations,
40:53but Steve and Dave know all too well how the best laid plans
40:57can fall victim to the rugged sort.
41:02They'll be relying on a small group of event organisers and volunteers
41:06to make sure that the vast salt flats are ready for racing.
41:11When a guy wants to turn off the course,
41:13we try and put a smoother place for him to turn off
41:16so he doesn't have to go out in this stuff where it beats him to death.
41:19So that's what Jim is doing, he's dragging turnouts.
41:22So far today we've got 58 miles, so the day's just getting started.
41:26Usually we're close to 100, maybe 150 miles,
41:30and we're almost finished.
41:32Well, when you look out here at the salt and you see all this stuff,
41:36this is all underwater during the wintertime,
41:38and as it dries out, it gets workable,
41:41and if you let it go too long, you can't do anything.
41:44And if you probably go down maybe three or four inches,
41:47there's still water.
41:49Each course has strategically placed timing traps
41:52laid along its entire length.
41:54These are the individual wires that go out to the course.
41:57They all connect to this trailer.
41:59There's about 32 to 34 miles of cable just for these two courses.
42:05You can see it's pretty technical.
42:08Formula One doesn't have anything on us.
42:15Back in the UK, Team Page might have solved their grinding incident
42:20with a hole in the crankcase.
42:23Oz, who lives nearby,
42:25kindly takes time from his own build to sort them out.
42:29Excellent. We're fixed.
42:31I don't know much about holes. It didn't look like it was major.
42:34I'm just glad we've found somebody who's got the talent to sort it out.
42:37Just being able to take it out and get it back in and welded
42:40within about four hours is great.
42:45With the bike back in one piece,
42:47they're finally ready to start her up for the first time,
42:50and in a wave of optimism,
42:52they've invited Mike's mum and dad for the occasion.
42:57People say, does it bring back memories of Mike?
43:00But we never forget him, of course.
43:04He's so much a part of our lives.
43:08It was such a terrible shock.
43:12You know, it happened so suddenly.
43:14Nobody thinks a young man is going to suddenly have a heart attack.
43:19When we kick the bike over for the first time,
43:21it's going to be a very important occasion,
43:24because, one, the bike hasn't been started for so long,
43:27plus in the memory of Mike.
43:35A temporary fuel tank is put on.
43:39As one of Mike's closest friends,
43:42Frog is given the honour of starting the bike.
43:46But no amount of kicking and prodding
43:48will wake the old Triumph from its 18-year slumber.
43:51That's far more stylish.
43:53In a moment of inspiration, Frog comes up
43:56with an old Bonneville trick of the trade,
43:59using another bike to spin up the rear wheel.
44:03I can't wait for this.
44:05It's going.
44:19Mike would be over the moon with this, I think.
44:21Apart from the fact it was very noisy,
44:23which would have made him extremely happy.
44:29Back in Great Yarmouth,
44:31the peaceful Norfolk countryside is about to be shaken
44:34as Chris takes to his favourite stretch of private road
44:37for a test ride.
44:52This is it, first ride in two years.
44:56I won't lie and say I've not been worried about it.
45:05When I was halfway down that road and I opened it up,
45:08and it smoothed out and started pulling,
45:10then I felt pretty good about what I'd done to the engine.
45:14Quietly pleased.
45:17That was only in first gear.
45:20But I'm on Bonneville gearing at the moment,
45:22so it's geared at the moment to do, like,
45:24100 miles an hour on tick over.
45:27But that was good.
45:34Chris is so far the only one of the six teams going to Bonneville
45:37to road test his vehicle.
45:42Up in Scotland, the team are finishing the rebuild of the car
45:45they hope will break the 313-mile-an-hour record
45:48in the one-litre class.
45:50After two failures at Bonneville, the pressure is on.
45:54They failed to do it the last time,
45:56and he doesn't like to say they failed.
45:58No, they don't like to fail.
46:00That's probably why they're going again.
46:02The record stood for all this time
46:04because people reckon it's impossible to go any quicker.
46:07We need to prove them wrong.
46:09They really want to get the record.
46:12That's all they think about.
46:15The flower is ready,
46:17but is far too long and powerful for any testing in Britain,
46:21so they will have no way of knowing what she's capable of
46:24until it gets there.
46:27South of the border, with just two days to go,
46:30Team Page are about to find out
46:32how much horsepower the 40-year-old machine has.
46:35What are we housing for?
46:37I want 60.
46:39I'm going to be positive and say 66.
46:41I'm going for 69, because it's a 69 Bonneville.
46:44Fair enough.
46:51The bike gives out just 41 horsepower,
46:54but picks up speed cleanly,
46:56accelerating to well over 120 miles an hour.
46:59But these are ideal conditions
47:01with no wind or salt under the wheels.
47:04The bike will need to deliver considerably more
47:07to tackle the current record of 124 miles an hour.
47:20Well, it's a beautiful sound, isn't it?
47:22The sound of an engine.
47:24You hear the little whine in the background
47:26where the cam's going round.
47:28No tapping noises.
47:30Just a nice little rumble.
47:33Crisp, responsive.
47:36I like the whir in the background.
47:38It means everything's nice and tight.
47:43Smells like victory!
47:47You can't do it the way you're doing it,
47:49because that will just slow you around
47:51and it will go donk at the end of the front.
47:53Excuse the barbie hats,
47:55but you can't bring them to your bar.
47:58Back in Oxfordshire, Steve and Dave
48:00are about to start their land speed vehicle
48:03for the first time.
48:05And in deference to the neighbours,
48:07they're firing it up in the garage.
48:09The methanol fumes are toxic.
48:26They've taken this 45-horsepower bike engine
48:29and transformed it into a 200-horsepower monster.
48:33Keep the barbie hats together.
48:36The bike still has not had a proper road test,
48:39but at least it's running.
48:41And with the container booked for the fast-approaching weekend,
48:44any further adjustments will have to wait
48:46for their arrival at Bonneville.
48:49It's time.
48:51The container is waiting and the teams must part company
48:53with their precious creations for six weeks
48:55before being reunited at the Los Angeles shipping office.
49:03Meanwhile, Team Page,
49:05who have lovingly restored their friend's bike,
49:07have organised a send-off.
49:09Anyone and everyone who knew Mike
49:11has come along to pay their respects.
49:18Here we go. Three, two, one.
49:23CHEERING
49:28It looks so wonderful,
49:30and I just felt that, you know, all Mike's friends were here.
49:33And, um... Oh, sorry.
49:35And it would have been lovely if Mike had been here too,
49:38but I'm sure he was here in spirit. Bless him.
49:42As a touching tribute to their best friend,
49:45Team Page have carefully put his ashes in a container
49:48under the petrol tank,
49:50which they plan to release onto the flats.
50:00The first part of the dream is over.
50:03The bikes, ready or not, are on their way.
50:06The countdown to Bonneville Speed Week has begun.
50:16Safe roads, Chris. See you on the white side.
50:19Between them, years of hard work,
50:22thousands spent,
50:24and just a few minutes on the salt
50:27to prove it was all worth it.
50:325,500 miles away, the teams have assembled in LA.
50:39They all have one thing on their mind.
50:42Has their precious cargo survived
50:44a six-week voyage across the Atlantic?
50:50For some, it's the first time in the States.
50:53I don't like smoking in America. I don't like it at all.
50:56I feel like a leper.
51:00But all are keen to hit the road.
51:04Fully loaded, the teams can now make their way
51:07to the object of this obsession.
51:11Next stop, Vegas, and then Bonneville.
51:19VEGAS
51:37The dried-up lake of Bonneville, Utah.
51:40Since the beginning of the last century,
51:43thousands have descended upon the infamous salt flats.
51:47It will now play host to the 64th annual Speed Week.
51:53After a gruelling 850-mile trip,
51:57the first of the teams are starting to arrive.
52:01And for some, it's great to be back.
52:04Good morning.
52:05For others, it's a lifelong ambition finally achieved.
52:10It's good to be here.
52:11We've done something a lot of people have dreamt about doing.
52:14We've actually made it.
52:17Once we get set up, we'll have a wander around, have a look.
52:20Pack it all in.
52:22We parked it right next to the toilets anyway.
52:26A chance to realise the dream
52:28that we thought about last year.
52:30Then you get excited.
52:31Yeah.
52:35Sometimes all he stands, and sometimes all he stands and thinks.
52:39It's big, isn't it?
52:44We are here.
52:45It's weird, isn't it?
52:46It's harder than I thought it was going to be.
52:48I thought it was going to be more like ground.
52:50Yeah, I did.
52:51That's all right. We can race on this.
52:53Yeah, we can do this.
52:54Before any racing can begin,
52:56all vehicles have to go to tech inspection.
52:59In some cases, it's a bit of a challenge.
53:01It's a bit of a challenge.
53:02It's a bit of a challenge.
53:03It's a bit of a challenge.
53:04It's a bit of a challenge.
53:05All vehicles have to go to tech inspection.
53:08Inspectors' word is final.
53:11We point out the problems,
53:13and we put in the book that they need to address this.
53:17Please, go fix it.
53:19Bring it back.
53:20We'll re-inspect it.
53:21Then you can race.
53:23Now, if they don't want to do that, they can't race.
53:26Geordie Oz is first up.
53:28He's spent the last three years in his shed
53:31modifying the bike with this day in mind.
53:36All right, man, you passed.
53:38It's all good.
53:40Thank you very much again.
53:41Good luck. Thank you very much, man.
53:42It's a beautiful machine.
53:43I can't wait to see you go.
53:45Oh, we've only just got you.
53:47Oh.
53:49Chris is next up.
53:51Oh, I think this is a real good-looking Indian.
53:53I like the long wheelbase.
53:55Looks like it belongs here, doesn't it?
53:56It does.
53:57It looks like a bonnable bike to me.
53:59It's not just the bike that gets a stringent check over.
54:03All clothing has to meet strict safety standards.
54:06So, fix that and bring it back, and I'll sign you off.
54:09OK. Thanks.
54:14Delayed by a slight detour around the Panama Canal,
54:18the Flower of Scotland team arrives a day late.
54:22It's awe-inspiring.
54:24You notice it yourself when you arrive.
54:26It's such a vast expanse.
54:30And then you've got all these nutcases and weird cars.
54:35This is petrolhead heaven.
54:37There's no restrictions here.
54:39There's no ceilings.
54:40There's no safety nets.
54:42There's no safety nets.
54:44There's no safety nets.
54:46There's no safety nets.
54:48There's no restrictions here.
54:50There's no silliness.
54:51It's carefully controlled, but it's sensible.
54:56And they're all mad as hatters.
55:02My leather's just failed tech
55:04because the zip was sewed to a piece of cloth.
55:07And it's got to be sewed to leather.
55:09So, they told me I could get by
55:13by stitching it with lock wire.
55:16Well, that little lock has just taken me over half an hour to do.
55:20Regulation's simple as that.
55:22Yeah, so it doesn't pull your trousers off.
55:25If something drastic had been wrong with the bike,
55:28and we couldn't fix it over here,
55:30then we'd be in deep doo-doos.
55:32Yeah, we've only got a certain amount of spares.
55:35We've had to build the bikes to what we think is standard.
55:39And their standard is sometimes a bit different to ours.
55:42But I'll carry on sewing regardless.
55:47Oh, Lord, I popped a lot of pills
55:51Back in tech, even Team Page are ticking the right boxes.
55:56You passed, man.
55:57Thank you so much.
55:58Welcome, fellas. Thank you very much.
56:00Excellent.
56:01Beautiful.
56:06And Steve and Dave are enjoying a shower of praise.
56:10Perfect. That sounds good, doesn't it?
56:12Yeah, it does. Smells good, too.
56:14Yeah, we're done.
56:15Okay.
56:16Yeah, your bike passed.
56:17Looking good. We like it.
56:19Oh, yeah, it's great.
56:20Yeah.
56:21I wish they all looked this good.
56:23All right, sir, congratulations. Be safe. Go fast.
56:26You need to go to registration.
56:27Sorted.
56:28PJ and Dave's modified 1983 Suzuki has also made the grade.
56:32We have official approval.
56:33We came here to get professionally slacked off,
56:36and we're through, so we're happy.
56:39Check it out.
56:41That's a big deal for us.
56:43This is what we wanted. Safety inspection signed off.
56:46Yeah, you see, I signed it off there, but that don't count.
56:49That's because he didn't have his glasses on.
56:52It's a testament to British engineering that everyone has passed tech,
56:57but the bikes are not the only thing the Brits have brought with them.
57:01Beautiful, isn't it?
57:03We've unfortunately got Bonneville's tallest lightning conductor.
57:07Due to the conductive nature of salt, water and lightning,
57:11Bonneville participants are advised to make a swift exit.
57:22Tomorrow they'll find out if their vehicles have what it takes to ride the salt.
57:28Once the flats dry up, it will be time to race.
57:36In the next episode, the battle between man and machine begins
57:41as they drive their homemade wonders as fast as they can.
57:46Gagging for it now.
57:48Yeah, oh, it's going like a rocket.
57:50It's going like a rocket.
57:53The realities of racing flat out soon set in.
57:56It's completely fucked.
57:58My friend, are you out?
58:00But do any of them have what it takes to get a Bonneville record?
58:04Good enough to spank it up a notch.
58:06It's going to be a good race.
58:08It's going to be a good race.
58:10It's going to be a good race.
58:12It's going to be a good race.
58:14It's going to be a good race.
58:16It's going to be a good race.
58:18It's going to be a good race.
58:20Bonneville record.
58:22Good enough to spank it up a notch.
58:24I hear things happen.
58:26Things go wrong.
58:28Hear it, hear it, hear it.
58:30I thought we'd mixed up the gears up, but apparently I hadn't.
58:33If we don't break the record this year, we will have failed.
58:36How hard could it possibly be?
58:39Dream on, dream on, dream on.
58:43Dream until your dream comes true.
58:49Stay with us here on BBC HD.
58:51We're up to I in the alphabet with QIXL, coming up next.
58:55Dream on, dream on, dream on, dream on.