Latest news with #landSpeedRecord
Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Penny farthings on parade — and other news in pictures
Times picture editors select photos from Britain and around the world — which is your favourite? TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JAMES GLOSSOP Light illuminates the fells around Brothers Water, on the Kirkstone Pass in the Lake District PHIL WILKINSON People wait to catch about two tonnes of fish released free of charge during Memed Ikan, an annual fish-catching festival held to give thanks to God for the abundance of fish harvests, at the Gemblegan Reservoir in Klaten, Java, Indonesia DEVI RAHMAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES Cammie walks with a prosthetic leg for the first time at the Comprehensive Disaster Response Services centre in Karachi, Pakistan. The young camel's limb was chopped off by a landlord in Sindh, in the country's south RIZWAN TABASSUM/AFP/GETTY IMAGES Hundreds of people attend the Lock & Paddle 2025 event at Peterborough Lift Lock, a heritage site in Ontario, Canada MERT ALPER DERVIS/ANADOLU/GETTY IMAGES PHIL WILKINSON Workshop engineer Mitch Caws services a Sunbeam 350bhp, known as Bluebird, the car in which Sir Malcolm Campbell set a British land speed record on 21 July, 1925. The vehicle reached 150.76mph on the sands of Pendine beach in Wales. A century on, the car, designed by Louis Coatalean and built in Sunbeam's Wolverhampton works, will make the journey from the Baulieu Motor Museum back to the shoreline RUSSELL SACH Residents and holidaymakers celebrate the Torch Festival at Yunnan Nationalities Village in Kunming, southern China. The tourist attraction highlights the folklore, culture and architecture of 26 ethnic groups in Yunnan province LIU RANYANG/CHINA NEWS SERVICE/VCG/GETTY IMAGES Enrica Piccoli of Italy competes in the preliminary round of the women's solo free artistic swimming event during the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore MANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES A youth performs a stunt on his BMX bike during a hot day at Kavouri beach, south of Athens, Greece YORGOS KARAHALIS/AP Goliath, a liger cub — a rare hybrid between a lion and a tiger — plays at a private zoo in Suceava, eastern Romania INQUAM PHOTOS/CASIAN MITU/REUTERS A dress rehearsal for Gravity, which opens at Sadler's Wells East on Friday as part of a nationwide tour. The show is a co-production between Boy Blue and the National Youth Dance Company, which has 33 performers aged 16 to 24 drawn from all over England ELLIOTT FRANKS A convenience store slides into floodwater after heavy rain caused treacherous conditions in Gapyeong, South Korea LEE YOUNG-HWAN/NEWSIS/AP MANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES A tourist takes a photo in an open-air studio with a view of the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul, Turkey EMRAH GUREL/AP The Falcon 9 rocket travels southwest from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Van Nuys, California, carrying a set of Starlink satellites ZUMA PRESS/MEGA The Belles of London City Morris Dancers perform in the grounds of St Anne's Church, west London, during the Soho Village Fete. The 50-year-old festival features music, contests and more TOLGA AKMEN/EPA Golden retrievers Winnie and Kiera promote Pupsicle, a dog-friendly ice cream, in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, as part of National Ice Cream Day. The makers, Beechdean, pledged to donate its dog-friendly ice cream to All Dogs Matter, a charity in London
RNZ News
18-05-2025
- Automotive
- RNZ News
Waikato man on mission to break land speed record in home made car
The car that Dave Alexander will drive when he sets out to break the land speed record at Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States. Photo: Supplied A Kiwi engineer is on a mission to set a land speed record higher than 422km/h - in a car he built in his shed. Seventy-two-year-old Dave Alexander has spent the past nine years building the Lakester, which looks more like the fuselage of a fighter jet than a car. In three weeks he will ship the turbo-charged, 1000 horse power car to the United States to race at the famous Bonneville Salt Flats. Alexander said he had previous records at Bonneville in a car that he built around 2008. At that time "everybody was commenting about the quality of the build and the body design and the aerodynamics of the car," he said. He decided that if he were to do it again he would contact them for the body of the car. "It's really only the top part of the body, the sides are flat. So they took another plug out of the mould and sent it to me and I sort of started from there." Alexander said he had to start from scratch to ensure the vehicle would survive at such high speeds. "Getting a record was important, I didn't want to just go there to compete. "So we looked through the record book to find a record that was achievable and the up to three litre record in this particular class of Lakester was 262 mile an hour and it had been set in 1996 and it was still existing." Alexander contacted Robbie Ward in Rotorua who he described as the "Nissan guru" saying he built and shipped them all around the world. Alexander's car (front). Photo: Supplied Ward was keen to work on the project and Alexander said he had mentored him through the engine build, as well as building some of it. They finished on Friday night, he said. "We managed to get a 1000 horse power out of it, out of a 3 litre 6 cylinder - 885 horse power at the rear wheels which is more than enough to achieve it we think." Alexander said in the past he had been able to test drive some of the cars at Ohakea but that was no longer possible as they said "the paper work now to do that is just too much". Asked whether he would drive the car himself Alexander said "too right". "I haven't done eight years to nine years building it to let someone else get in." Alexander said he was prepared and they had done a lot of research and it was well designed and all the weight was in the right places. You had to do three runs or "licensing passes" before attempting the record, he said. "You slowly work your way up and so they can see that you're capable of doing it and the car is a safe car and then once you've done those three passes they will let you onto the long course where you can have an attempt at the record." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
