Bernice could feel the wind pulling the skin away from her body. The vibration from the rocket as it skimmed over the alkali flats was shaking the meat from her bones. Because of the speed she couldn’t raise her arms, so steered with her feet strapped to a pair of pedals gently moving a rudder to one side or the other, though she wondered if it made any difference since the flats were as barren as the moon.She was hoping to break the land speed record of seven-hundred and sixty-three miles per hour but her mind was starting to wander. She’d been working on the attempt with her grandfather for nearly two decades, building prototypes and testing engines. But none of that was anything like this. Strapped to a rocket engine on a go-cart her mind wandered once the ignition was a success. Despite the crushing g-force and explosive roar (her custom earplugs offered no protection) Bernice felt a little bored. All the work and hustle was over and now she was a flash billowing across the desert. The record made in nineteen ninety-seven had never been topped, though many had tried.
Pat Mahoney was a retired appliance salesman who was certain steam was the answer to breaking the record. He’d thought of it as he watched a demo of a washing machine with a steam cleaning cycle. The force of compressed water vapor and heat used to drive locomotives so why not a rocket car? His first attempt failed due to the weight of the steam engine he used.
In order to get more and more power, Pat had to add more and more steel to the boiler. The pieces were brought in on several oversized loads and assembled on site. He managed to get up to four-hundred and fifty-seven miles per hour but the car sank into the earth. The weight drove it deeper and deeper until, in the end,he was nearly twelve feet underground. The soil was so compacted it took two days to dig him out.
Pat changed to aluminum for the next boiler and ran the wall thickness right to the edge of tolerance. The second attempt was going well but in the distance a ranch hand fired his rifle into the air to scare off some skulking coyotes. As Pat’s steam-powered engine reached five-hundred and twelve miles per hour the bullet fell from the sky and pierced the boiler with a pea-sized hole. All the pressure immediately escaped blowing the boiler to bits. The trail of debris was scattered along twenty miles of wreckage.Pat’s body was never found.
Trevor Beamis had been a motocross racer for most of his life. His dad got him started when he was four and by the time he was twelve he had already fractured his pelvis—twice. Motocross developed into a family business for the Beamis clan,with both of Trevor’s brothers and sisters racing at various levels of sponsorship. Their mother also used to race but while pregnant with her fifth child her ligaments loosened from an abundance of relaxin in her bloodstream and as she landed a sweet jump in a semi-final both her hips dislocated up to her armpits. She was never able to ride again, so worked as an ad hoc pit crew for the family.
Trevor was the least successful Beamis in the motocross circuit, which naturally led to his attempt to break the land speed record. He reasoned that having only two wheels meant that he should be able to go twice as fast. Many people tried to convince him to compromise and use three wheels for the sake of stability because the risk of even the slightest wobble at high speed could spell disaster.Unfortunately, Trevor was as poor at spelling as he was at math. His plan was to get his motorcycle up to one hundred miles per hour and then fire up nitro-fuel rocket booster. When people asked him why he would ignite it at one hundred miles per hour he said, “It seems pretty fast.”
The moment the rocket was lit the sudden increase in speed caused Trevor to lose control. The bike flipped twice and suddenly halted, the rocket still attached but pointing toward the ground with Trevor pinned beneath the motorcycle. Because of the risk of explosion, his support team (which did not include his mother) couldn’t help until the rocket’s fuel was spent, which took about three minutes. In that time Trevor had been crushed as if stepped on by a brontosaurus. He survived but never rode a motorcycle again. He became slightly famous for his failed attempt much as Evel Knievel had done. He did a couple of reality shows, and a line of clothing named “Never Quite,” which was supposed to be Never Quit but was mistranslated at the factory in China. The clothing error went viral with millions of hits and shares. Time enough for Trevor to make a few million dollars and hire a publicist to keep his name and brand in front of consumers.
Bernice’s mother left her with her when she was three because the man her mother was to marry did not want to raise “somebody else’s mistake.” Her mother married, moved to Europe and had no further contact with Bernice or her grandfather. His wife had died years earlier from uterine cancer making him a widower when he was only fifty. He was a research and development engineer at Boeing. Bernice was also gifted at science and math and the two of them grew close. He put her through engineering school and when he retired Bernice helped him with his second career of building custom jet and rocket engines for clients around the world.He named the business Bernie Engine Works telling her it would be easier for when she took over the business. The projects varied from experimental aircraft to cigarette boats to solar-powered engines that would keep Google’s airborne transceiver stations afloat. But Bernice’s grandfather had dreams beyond building engines for someone else. He planned to use his expertise to break the land speed record.
He knew that pound for pound a liquid fuel rocket engine delivered the most powerful thrust, and he knew how to build one as well as the best NASA engineer. He also knew weight was key to breaking the record since gravity and friction would slow any attempt. Bernice worked on every part of the project, learning her grandfather’s engineering tricks and encouraging him to follow his dream.
On his first attempt, the ignition went perfectly but the bearings in the wheels of the stripped-down chassis melted creating a nearly fatal wobble. The rocket car started to bounce, the nose catching air and launching as smoothly as the best attempts from Cape Canaveral. Bernice’s grandfather had prepared for this possibility, knowing the unrelenting power of the engine would launch the go cart in any direction it was pointed. Unfortunately his pressure suit failed, and he lost consciousness as the rocket tore into the atmosphere. He didn’t wake until the craft was drilling through the air toward a fierce impact. He managed to free himself from his straps and pull the parachute cord.As it opened, he was ripped from the vehicle, breaking both shoulders and landing so hard he was knocked unconscious for a week. He recovered and kicked himself for overlooking the wheel bearings. Bernice encouraged him to refine his plan and try again.
The second attempt used a sled-like chassis that scooped air under the vehicle as it picked up speed to float it over the ground. Bernice’s grandfather hoped it would eliminate the risk of the wheels melting, reduce the friction and smooth out the ride. It was built with carbon fibers and weighted with small water tanks to act as ballast. As the speed increased, Bernice’s grandfather could release water from the tanks to balance the ride and gradually lighten the load. The rocket ignited, the air scoop worked perfectly and Bernice’s grandfather was able to steer the vehicle by gently releasing squirts of water. All was well until the friction of the air racing under the vehicle started to heat the water tanks. They were equipped with heat shields but the glue holding the ceramic tiles to the tanks began to fail. The heat caused the glue to release and the tiles flutter away. As the speed and friction increased the water in the tanks boiled and became super-heated. Bernice’s grandfather released what he thought was a gentle squirt, but water escaped with the force of a fire hose. The sled wobbled like a failing plate balanced on a stick. Bernice’s father corrected by firing water out the other side but the sled bucked like a spurred bull and the carbon fibers started to fray. Bernice’s grandfather hit the ejector button. He was going over six hundred miles per hour when he ignited the safety bolts on his seat and was shot straight up into the air. The wild bucking of the rocket car coupled with the speed caused his ejector seat to come up short, with no time to deploy the parachute. Bernice’s grandfather crashed into the ground at six hundred miles an hour and spun ass over teakettle like a loose stop sign in a hurricane. The straps of the seat held, but Bernice’s grandfather did not survive the crash.
Bernice Engine Works shifted from design and construction to maintenance. She tried hiring a couple of her grandfather’s old co-workers to help with the design work, but the fun had gone out of it and she eventually let them go. Bernice went over her grandfather’s designs for the rocket sled, looking for anything he may have missed. She eventually figured out that the vehicle needed wheels, but only in the beginning. Once it was up to about two-hundred and twenty-three miles per hour the speed of the wind entering the scoop should make for a smooth ride.The trouble was in the transition from slow to fast, wheels were the best way to stabilize the vehicle in the beginning. Once she started to get some lift she could disengage the chassis and simply hover and continue to pick up speed.
Which is exactly what she was doing as she eyed the endless horizon of the alkali flats through her motorcycle helmet. Although the air-scoop sled created a smooth cushion of air, turbulence from the engine powerful enough to launch a stadium into space meant the ride would always be rough.Bernice wondered if her grandfather realized that. Her speed passed seven-hundred miles per hour and she thought about her mother, wondered if she was still alive.