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The 25ft-long British Steam Car - dubbed the "fastest kettle in the world" - is aiming to beat a speed of 127mph reached by American Fred Marriott in a Stanley steam car in 1906 at the Daytona Beach Road Course.
It is the longest officially-recognised land speed record, but the British team hope to overhaul it by reaching a target velocity of 170mph with their car at the Edwards Air Force base in California.
The British Steam Car Team successfully carried out 5 test runs in excess of 100mph ahead of its bid to break the century-old world land speed record for steam-powered vehicles. After numerous setbacks last week, the team were jubilent on Saturday having unofficailly beaten the Fred Marriott record. The teams own calibrated equipment measured the two way average at 137.14mph, and a 48min 52 second turn-around.
Today the British Steam Car Team will commence their attempts to achieve an official record The current FIA record is 127mph previously set by American, Fred Marriott, driving a Stanley steam car in 1906.
Project Manager Matt Candy said:" it was an enourmous achievement on Saturday and one we hope to replicate now that the FIA timing officials have joined us today. The timing equipement is currently being set up across the 7mile lakebed. When we left England we knew we had a tough challenge ahead, but we had carried out all the testing we could. Since arriving in the UK the team has had to do a lot of preperations to the car with the effects of heat, altitude and the surface conditions. Compared to UK testing at Thorney, Portsmouth, the goal has been to make the car travel twelve times the distance, at double the speed and twice in within one hour. Saturday was a milestone for the team in achieving this goal".
The FIA is the sanctioning body and now recognizes a land speed record as the average speed of two passes made across the same measured distance in opposing directions within 60 minutes of each other. The time of the two runs is then averaged to obtain the official recorded speed.
Today's attempt will take place between 2pm and 6pm UK time.
