AIRLOCKIssue 02 All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary 3

Cover story When Roger Schroer set a new world land record for an electric vehicle in the VBB3, Spacesuit founders Shiv Gohil and Ross Ringham were there as official photographers. As they A matter discovered, sixty seconds is all it takes to make history. of time Images: Shiv Gohil / Spacesuit Media

It’s more than 500 miles from when it was very possible you’d never Sacremento, near San Francisco, to the return) and passionate about advancing Bonneville salt flats. I know because technology to improve life for future that was the route we took on the way generations. to see a new electric world land speed Shiv and I saw an to record being set. combine the trip to the VBB3’s campsite Spacesuit’s artistic director Shiv at Bonneville with a spot of sightseeing. Gohil had been commissioned by Cue four states in six days, spanning the Venturi to document the record attempt Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Las Vegas, and he, of course, needed company. Said the Grand Canyon and the Pacific Coast company comprised a giant pick-up Highway. That’s a story for another truck and me. We had hours of driving time. ahead, sunglasses at the ready and the For now, we pick up the tale perfect playlist loaded onto Shiv’s shiny after a day’s driving, singing Eagles new phone. songs at the scenery as we marvel “Gas” (to borrow the nomenclature at the stunning setting – a ribbon of our American cousins) was hovering of road winding through lakes and at $2.50 a gallon, somewhere near a trees – before heading out into the quarter of the price in the UK. The Nevada desert under wide blue skies: truck, with a 5.7 litre V8 lump and crew Bonneville-bound. cab and several bags of camera gear, averaged 18mpg over the trip out to the --- town of Wendover, where our hotel was located. That economy is considered We arrive in Wendover a little before good for the size of vehicle out here eight on Saturday evening. Night has but hardly counts towards careful fallen. The interstate has shrunk from use of a dwindling resource; it was a the eight-lane monster of earlier to stark contrast to the rationale behind a relatively narrow dual carriageway, Venturi’s pioneering of EV tech. winding through craggy, rust-coloured Venturi is a specialist maker rock walls. The darkness is almost of electric vehicles and associated absolute, punctured only by the technology. The company is a relatively occasional red of tail-lights in front small bunch of pioneers, engineers and of us and, separated from us by a thinkers, headquartered in Monaco. featureless black expanse, pinpricks of Company owner Gildo Pastor is an headlights on the other side of the road. explorer of the old fashioned type, in The night curtains are stark and austere love with the vast expanses of Africa (he either side of us. used to race the Paris-Dakar rally back Just as the signs point out that we’ve 5

Image: Lou Johnson / Spacesuit Media

almost arrived, we spot the moon. It’s a surface of the salt flats does not. You huge, dim disc; it hangs heavy, orange feel that you can see all the way to the and foreboding in the skies just over the Those flats. seam where the sky and horizon are ragged silhouetted crests of the nearby stitched together. mountains, without appearing to cast The strip of weather-beaten highway any light over the landscape. It looks Before you see them, ends at a string of dayglow orange painted onto the sky. cones. A couple of local marshals Then, we round a bend and the cab you think the name stand outside a dilapidated caravan. is suddenly, shockingly ablaze with the They are the gate keepers, holders of glare of neon lights, signs so bright they describes all you need to insurance forms and yellow festival- sear the back of your eyeballs. Before know. It does not. Your style wristbands which show off your us is an oasis of casinos, seemingly authorised status. To the left of the suspended in the middle of nothing. We mind is not prepared tarmac, the salt is churned up, brown roll into the artificial dawn of blinking mud showing through tyre tracks. It’s arcade-style billboards. for the vast expanse of a visual warning that the ground is far Wendover is a town of two halves, whiteness shimmering from solid under the powdery white straddling the state line between crust. The further away you get from the Nevada and Utah like a cowboy on under the low sun. It’s smoothed strip used for record attempts, horseback. The casinos and neon signs the softer the ground becomes. are all on one side of the boundary; hard to get any sense of (How soft? Venturi boss Gildo Pastor on the other, the buildings are much perspective. took his six-wheel-drive Mercedes smaller, drab, and entirely without Sin AMG monster for a spin on the night City aspirations. we arrived. It got stuck. Up to its axles. Our hotel is called the Nugget and The next day, in daylight, the camera is on the Nevada patch. It’s old Vegas crew bogged down on the way up to the in miniature, with a casino, poker access road. Both had to be extricated by room, restaurants and a pole dancer access road for the salt flats. This really a tracked recovery vehicle.) all wrapped in one floral-wallpapered is a road to nowhere, washed out yellow A mile or so from the entry point, package. It’s a slow atmosphere, though. lines mounted on a strip of dishevelled, a few congregated marquee-type No tuxedos, supercars or Eiffel Tower cracked grey. It runs parallel to the structures and portaloos slide into view. knock-offs here. rearing rocks which thrust into the skies It’s a temporary paddock area, a sort We’ve covered 500 miles in a single some distance away to our left. To our of campsite, in the middle of the vast day. We do not stay up to party: soft, right, the salt flats. blanket of salt, next to the main course. warm, still beds call. Those flats. Before you see them, There are 10 groups sharing the salt you think the name describes all you flats today, including motorbikes. Guy --- need to know. It does not. Your mind Martin is next door with Triumph. is not prepared for the vast expanse The Venturi site has everything We’re out of the hotel with our small of whiteness shimmering under the a group of 25-or-so people needs for change intact at 7.30am the next low sun. It’s hard to get any sense of a week in the desert. There are three morning: Sunday. One junction’s jump perspective. It’s like looking out over main tents. The centre of the camp is on the interstate and we reach the the sea, except that the sea moves; the commandeered by a BBQ and kitchen 7

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mounted on the back of a trailer. Stacks of tyres, hoists, tall tool chests, plastic tables and folding camping chairs sit on blue tarpaulin sheets which are held down by wooden battening screwed into the salt. A couple of coolboxes hold bottles of water and Powerade and Black and red bags of ice for the VBB3 cooling system. A shiny Airstream caravan is parked carbon-fibre body off to one side: the executive office. A panels sit off to one lorry trailer serves as the engineering centre. A cluster of pick-up trucks and a side, in the sun, jacked-up A-team style van – the “push truck” – are parked along the back of the while the canopy is engineering truck. open and tilted up The VBB3 itself takes up the longest tent, with assorted equipment dotted and forwards, like around the nude chassis. Black and red carbon-fibre body panels sit off to that of a jet fighter. one side, in the sun, while the canopy is open and tilted up and forwards, like that of a jet fighter. Shiv unpacks his camera gear on one of the plastic tables as we help ourselves to sausage sandwiches and cereal. Time to meet the crew; time to meet the machine.

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There are bleary eyes but bright smiles as we mill about. The crew was working until 5am this morning to get the ready for its practice runs today. It’s now 8am. Painful. The car has a new clutch and shifting set-up which has yet to be properly tested. The team is therefore taking it slow and steady as they build up to their target of 350mph. The atmosphere at the camp feels very like that at a race track. There are a small number of engineers swarming around the VBB3. The sleek body has been removed, one panel at a time, to reveal the black tentacles of the tubular steel chassis. It looks even longer and narrower when you can see all the components packed into the frame. The car effectively has two powertrains, one at either end, with the cockpit mounted in the centre, sandwiched between them. Each powertrain has two electric motors mated to a common shaft, together producing 1196kW. That’s nearly 2400kW – or, in old money, more than 3,200bhp. Each powertrain drives a two-speed transmission, built by Hewland; first 9

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gear is good for 275mph. on the dyno and test track before you get The lithium-ion batteries are here,” says David Cooke, who’s in charge arranged into four packs at the front of this little desert camp. However, he and four at the rear, comprising 2000 goes on, the salt flats themselves throw A123 iron nano phosphate cells. The up a very different surface which can’t eight independent packs, which run at be easily simulated, meaning a couple of 900V, boast 95kWh capacity, 2.7MW days of test runs and data collection at potential delivery and weigh in at a the salt flats are needed in the build-up combined total of 1540kg. Recharging to the main attempt. is handled courtesy of a 200kW DC fast That’s been illustrated clearly in the charger which simultaneously charges team’s thwarted record attempts over the all eight packs. past few years. The salt has been water- Each powertrain comes equipped logged and lumpy, meaning the team with three cooling pumps (one for the hasn’t been able to get close to the car’s motor assembly, one for the gearbox potential. Last year, in fact, the surface and one for the four battery packs). was so rough that the car was damaged. Closed-loop cooling avoids the need Getting into the realms of these for radiators, helping to contribute to is not as easy as it may seem, particularly the car’s sinuous, unbroken profile. An without the resources of a Bugatti or aluminium container for ice is mounted similar. in the nose of the car and is used when The lead time for some of the more the car is running. In the pits, an off-car exotic and expensive parts also means system pulls the temperature of the that the team can’t always move ahead cooling oil used in the motors down to with testing as fast as they’d like. This around zero Celsius. After its 60 second is exacerbated by the limited budgets, run, the car’s fluids will be nearer 40 which means the team is often reliant Celsius. on sponsors for parts; those sponsors The bodywork covers the wheels, have paying customers’ needs to fulfil which are custom CNC-machined first, which can contribute to longer lead 16” aluminium items shod in Mickey times for the record-breaker. Thompson 24.5” tyres. (Prefer metric? The gear changing process is a case Do the maths.) in point. Shifting from first to second From tip to tail with bodywork on, gear when travelling in excess of 270mph the VBB3 measures 11.6m long; race on a surface with very little traction has ready, with all fluids on board and to be very smooth to avoid upsetting batteries charged (but minus a driver) the balance of the car. When there are a the vehicle is 3580kg. clutch and motors up front as well as at Despite being a long-running project the back, the synchronisation has to be spanning many iterations, the VBB3 perfect or the car risks spinning out at is still very much a prototype and the high speed. It’s quite some engineering team is learning on the job. The VBB3 feat and took a lot of tinkering and has been four years in development. Its waiting for parts to get right; the car predecessor, the VBB2.5, was effectively hasn’t yet run in its all-wheel-drive set- a technology testbed leading to this up as a result. vehicle. Another example of just how unusual (The VBB2.5 incidentally also holds this vehicle is how it slows down. If you the outright land for an overshoot the end of the 11-mile run in electric vehicle, at 307mph; it’s the one direction, you just keep running out crown the VBB3 wants to steal.) towards the mountains until you bog This series of speed creations is down in soft mud. In the other direction, all the more impressive given that however, you hit the highway, which sits it is essentially a university project, on top of a raised rock platform not far designed, built and run by students at beyond the end of the track. That’s not the Ohio State University. something you want to encounter at “You do a certain amount of work 300mph. 11

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“I’ve been 220 or 230 or something like that at the test track. I just thought – I’ve been this fast, can’t I go a little faster?”

Like many land speed racers, therefore, the VBB3 has parachutes. Three of them, in fact. They’re vital. However, the VBB3 also comes equipped with a foot-operated friction brake, just like your road car. Except, in this case, the brakes are adapted from a jet aircraft and alone can provide the necessary stopping power from the car’s target the roll hoop that’s right above his head and made in the Clint Eastwood mould: going over 300mph,” he remembers. 350mph. while wriggling his legs out from under tall, sinewy, steely-eyed. He wouldn’t “But that’s not the case. At Bonneville, The cockpit is a repurposed IndyCar the steering wheel and jump out – all in look out of place on horseback. He’s you’re on this vast expanse of white. chassis that, in a neat twist, was driven 15 seconds. been a performance and high-speed It’s like being in a commercial airliner by Mike Conway back in 2012. (Conway The steering wheel holds far fewer development driver for decades, with at 40,000 feet going 500mph and you raced for Venturi’s Formula E electric controls than Venturi’s racing . a CV that spans high-speed work on have no sensation of speed, because you racing team in 2016.) Custom bulkheads There are three separate switches for both the original and the new Honda don’t have any reference points. I was attach the monocoque to firewalls triggering the parachutes, paddles for NSX. He’s also been pressed into service a little disappointed in that – but not at either end. The driver, long-time gear changes, two dials for shifting driving a car for Bobby Rahal for a enough to stop doing it…” Buckeye Bullet pilot Roger Schroer, is through drive modes and torque settings marketing photoshoot, which required a Jumping from testing road cars on held in place in his reclined, moulded and a large screen. During a high-speed stick-on moustache. That, too, is a story a paved course to a one-off machine on seat by a nine-point harness; wrist run, the screen is used by Schroer to for another day. salt aiming for 400mph did not bother straps prevent his arms flying off the keep an eye on when to shift, status and The son of a Lutheran minister, Schroer in the slightest. “I’ve been 220 steering wheel and a HANS-device warnings for the various powertrain Schroer grew up in farming country or 230 or something like that at the test protects his neck. There’s padding and components and, of course, speed. and was driving tractors and pick-up track,” he says. “I just thought – I’ve a chunky skeletal roll cage above his trucks at an early age. He was an avid been this fast, can’t I go a little faster?” head but otherwise the cockpit looks reader of Hot Rod magazine as a boy relatively similar to that of the single- --- and remembers the special Bonneville --- seater racing car it once was. “I guess I never go fast enough,” Roger features. He was 66 when I first met him, The safety procedures here require Schroer laughs, four years later. “Ever when he was gearing up for a 350mph Sunday is spent in a seemingly the driver to be able to extract himself since I’ve been a boy, I’ve enjoyed run on salt. endless cycle of engineering tweaks, in 15 seconds. That’s quite an ask. speed.” “I imagined – wrongly – that I would meetings, more adjustments and testing Schroer has to get all the belts undone, Schroer is 70, born and bred in Ohio get this wonderful speeding sensation procedures. Nicki Shields, Formula E push up the large canopy, duck under 13

broadcaster and CNN presenter, grabs purchased by Pastor at the turn of and the team’s push van. Off to our time with Schroer while he’s not in the the century. Under his direction, right, on the course itself, the VBB3 is car or in debriefs. So does Shiv, with the company began making high- in its trailer being towed up towards both Schroer and Shields happy to pose performance electric sportscars, the starting line. Shiv hangs out of the for portraits. The sun glares off every years before a certain US start-up pick-up truck as we pace along at speed, surface including the ground, which is put batteries in a Lotus Elise. Today, capturing tracking shots as the sun so reflective that just sitting under a the company has an eclectic mix of rises over the distance mountains. The cover doesn’t protect you from the rays. projects, including a racing team in colours of the sky are beautiful; pinks Finally, late in the day, Schroer is the ABB Formula E series, an Antarctic and purples, yellows and blues. shoehorned into the car, loaded onto exploration vehicle programme and a Just beyond the end of the track, an exoskeleton-like trailer and ferried two-wheel land speed challenger. which is marked with a neon pink to the end of the course nearest the “Not only did we hope to beat VBB’s “0” on a black board (as seen in this highway. A test run proves that the own world speed records, but we also direction; it’s marked with “11” in the day’s fiddling has worked wonders, with wanted to demonstrate the efficiency other), we circle the wagons. The VBB3 the car shifting gears well and working and reliability of our electric vehicles in is unloaded, pointing down the centre of through its full power band while in all- extraordinary conditions,” says Pastor. the course with intent. wheel-drive mode for the very first time. “We hope to make an indelible mark on In front of us, another speed There’s an immediate sense of relief our era with every new we machine is readying for a run. There’s and achievement and a quiet sense of set.” some waiting around for it to get confidence that tomorrow’s record runs underway, which Shiv makes use of by will be worth watching. --- grabbing Schroer for a photoshoot in the crisp morning light. “This is the Not only did we hope --- “Do I have a clear course?” The marshal, Top Gun walk,” he shouts excitedly one to beat VBB’s own red snapback, blue hoody, shorts – a minute; the next, “This is Gone in 60 For Monegasque businessman Pastor, bear of a man – clasps the radio in his Seconds, when Cage meets Eleanor.” world speed records, the record attempt was simply the paw like a toy. Photographer’s heaven, despite opening salvo in a grand plan of We wait. Three engineers, a Schroer’s protestations that he simply but we also wanted technological expeditions. photographer, a couple of media people isn’t cool enough for the shoot. “Have to demonstrate “Venturi focuses on innovation and the boss. We wait. you got everything you need?” he asks in the field of electric vehicles by It’s 7.30am on Monday morning. It is Shiv, shortly before the high-speed run. the efficiency and harnessing the most advanced 19 September. Today is record attempt A record attempt is made up of technological solutions in this area,” day. We’ve been on the salt flats for an two timed runs, which must both be reliability of our he tells me by email, four years later. hour already. The crew arrived just after completed within an hour. The course is electric vehicles “With ‘Mission 01: Jamais Contente’, the 6am for final prep; Shiv and I swung a straight line, 11 miles long. Each mile opening chapter of the Venturi Global into camp half an hour later and joined is marked with black boards standing in extraordinary Challenges, we aim to demonstrate the small convoy of team vehicles either side of the course; the half miles the efficiency and reliability of electric headed up towards the far end of the are marked with orange cones. The conditions. vehicles.” track. The course is only 11 miles long first six miles are for acceleration. The Venturi began life in the 1980s as a and yet it vanishes into the distance as timing tower (a little shed-like building French maker of fast, conventionally- if it goes on forever. occupied by the timing official, an FIA fuelled luxury cars, before being We’re behind the six-wheeled AMG delegate and a couple of computer 15

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screens) is located at the 5.5 mile behind the machine like strands of hair. marker and measures speed between “Forty-five minutes left – on the mile markers five and six. At six miles trailer in 30,” calls Cooke. The smell of in, the parachutes are deployed; the bacon frying floats across the air. remainder of the course is for coming to The crew is moving as fast as their a standstill. driver has just been. Mechanisms and In front of us, the first machine of systems must be checked, bodywork the day roars off into the distance and cleaned and inspected, data downloaded the salt flats fall quiet again. The surface and analysed. The chutes must be is like a ruffled carpet under our feet, restowed, fluids cooled and the batteries the crystals much larger and looser charged. The car must complete its at this end, away from the tents and return run within an hour of starting its trailers. We wait. first leg. The radio crackles into life. “You I ask what the speed reading was on have a clear course.” the first run of the day. “342,” comes Team members arm the fire the answer. That’s world record pace, suppression system and turn on the although the VBB3 must make the master power. The electronic dash in return run to qualify for a record. the centre of the steering wheel lights The other speed machine completes up with the Buckeye Bullet logo. Schroer its turn around and blasts past our is firmly squeezed into the cockpit, camp. No battery charging needed lacquered carbon fibre helmet wedged there. After a helter-skelter few against the cushioning fixed to the minutes, the VBB3’s umbilical cords underside of the roll hoop. He pulls on are disconnected, the body panels his red gloves. are screwed into place and the trailer “Have a good one,” says Cooke reverses up to the garage. It’s time to go simply, before pulling down the canopy again. and locking it in place. He pulls the The VBB3 takes off again on its arming pins for the parachutes, dangles return run. The average speed of the two the three red streamers in front of the runs will count towards the record. Back windscreen to show Schroer that the at the camp, we wait for news. It soon system is live and then sprints to the comes: the average is 341mph. That’s a push van with the rest of the crew. new world record. Before breakfast. The VBB3 moves off. Silent, gliding, like a submarine hovering above --- the seabed. The car gathers speed like a wheeled Usain Bolt – smooth, Four years later, I ask Schroer why he controlled, assured. It vanishes into the was speeding up when society tells us white haze. people of his age should be slowing Shiv jumps into the back of the down. Racing drivers are usually pickup and we peel off after the other considered old when they get past 30. support vehicles. We barrel down the “It’s a different dynamic out on path just to the side of the main track. the salt,” he says, after some thought. It’s like driving along a ski piste: wide, “Yes, having good reflexes is important. white, soft. We’re doing over a hundred But there are so many variables out and the truck feels like it wants to give there. If all the variables are positive more. Shiv, in the truck bed, braced – the aerodynamics on your vehicle against the cutting cold of the morning are good, the salt is good, the winds wind, doesn’t feel the same. aren’t high – if all of that is working We pile back into the camp. The just fine, well, yes, you are going in a Buckeye Bullet is already here, canopy straight line. I get it. The reality is, at up, body panels half removed. The least in my experience, that rarely are parachutes are trailing along the ground all those variables just what you want 17

Before Schroer sets off on any speed run, he holds his wife’s hand. Don’t for a moment think that means he is not as focused on the end goal as Schumacher or Hamilton or Green or Yaeger or Armstrong.

them to be. There’s lots of flat spins – of the vehicle as an arrow. There’s run, all kinds of things, related to grip, is already discussing how to access that “Must not wreck the record-breaking easily pick up the wrong lens. And you and some not so flat – out at Bonneville an important relationship between how the parachutes worked, where potential – and when. Losing weight, car,” I repeat over and over, a mantra, have to commit to a shot. There is no every year because the cars are very the arrowhead, where there’s a lot the issues were on the salt and so on. changing the gears or finding a longer all the way down the long straight track time to change settings.” twitchy. I would never say that any of weight, and the feathers. If that The engineers want feedback from the track form the central discussion but the back home. Even with time to reflect, Shiv is given land speed racer has the reactions relationship isn’t correct, the arrow driver, like every form of motorsport. I’m team has no doubt that this car and this convinced this was a special moment: of, say, Lewis but the highest speeds will wobble. Because the BB1 battery focused on those things.” driver can break 400mph. --- “It was lifechanging. To be able to have been set by more veteran drivers. weight was changed, the arrow wobbled. The final drive back down the track witness a record attempt, and one where Some of them well into their 70s. Your What we did was effectively move the --- towards the base is used as a tracking “It was the most surreal event I’ve the record was broken. You feel like a countryman – I met him at tail feathers back by adding eight to photography run. One of the crew straps ever photographed,” Shiv says, four part of history.” Bonneville. He’s not a spring chicken ten inches to the vertical tail fin. We The job is done but the day is not. The into the racing car. I’m at the wheel of years later. He’s not a man given to “I’m really proud of this sporting, either but he’s got the absolute world dredged up some aluminium boilerplate engineers work flat out for another few the pickup truck. Cooke is next to me. hyperbole. “The landscape, the sense technological and environmental record. I think there’s probably a point material, pop riveted it to the tail fin hours before the car makes one more Shiv is lying down in the bed, tailgate of space. The fact that you could just challenge,” Pastor says. “To me, it at which experience meets some level of and it solved 80% of the problem.” run at the end of the day. Shiv and I down, inches from the nose of the VBB3. drive onto it. It was so accessible. There is truly thrilling to work on such a physical ability.” Before Schroer sets off on any speed station ourselves at the middle marker This is no easy shoot. From my was no one to stop you going where project to help tomorrow’s mobility That experience helps when it comes run, he holds his wife’s hand. Don’t for this time, the point where the VBB3 raised driving position, and with the you wanted to go. It was just insane. to progress. Moreover, this world land to solving problems. “I was the second a moment think that means that means will be moving at its fastest. On its first bluff squared-off flanks of the truck, It makes you realise how beautiful the speed record programme also shows driver for the BB1,” Schroer recounts. he is not as focused on the end goal as pass of the afternoon, the car exceeds I can’t see the electric land speed Earth really is, especially as I live in a that a partnership between students and “When I first drove it, it was hunting Schumacher or Hamilton or Green or 350mph. It whistles past in ghostly machine at all in the mirrors. Because city.” a manufacturer can bring a lot in the back and forth across the track. What Yaeger or Armstrong. quiet. The clicks of our camera shutters of the tapered nose, the crew member There were technical challenges to automotive industry and in the field of had not been taken closely enough “I have a healthy respect for what are louder. can’t see where the VBB3 finishes in overcome. Shiv explains: “I’ve never electromobility, in terms of research and into consideration was that the battery could happen but if you dwell on that The return run doesn’t go so well relation to the back of the truck. The had to work in a situation where it was development.” pack had changed configuration. That you don’t belong in the car,” he states but the morning’s work is enough. The only person who can see both is Shiv, too bright. Photographers are always For Schroer, 2016 was simply the changed the relationship between simply. “You have to focus on what you VBB3 has broken the record set by the and he’s too busy looking through the looking for the light so this was a new latest accolade collected over a long the longitudinal centre of gravity and have to do – and that’s keeping the team four years earlier and still has viewfinder of his camera, enjoying the problem to have – too much light. There period. “2004 is when we got the first the aerodynamic centre of pressure. car pointing straight. I developed my more to give. Even before the car is smoothness of the salt compared to the are no reference points so you can’t tell American record, as we call it – the That relationship is critical. Think own debrief form that I use after every broken down and packed away, the team usual bumps of asphalt. how far you were from anything, so you Southern California Timing Association 19

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record,” he says. “As opposed to the FIA international record. We have both.” The fastest electrically-propelled car driver in the world: not bad for someone who started off piloting tractors. He’s not ready to quit just yet, though: “The first time we went three hundred, within minutes we just wanted to go four hundred. That’s been the carrot – the 400. It was good for our patron that we achieved the new record but we’ve always still wanted to chase 400. The next thought is always – well now how fast can we go?” Land speed records demand huge resources, not least financially. The Buckeye project is on hold until more dollars can be found. Schroer knows that someone else could spend their way to a new electric record in the meantime and we talk about what VW has accomplished with its ID.R programme. But it takes will as well as funding – and experience counts. Over the many iterations of the Buckeye Bullet project, it’s been rear-wheel-drive, front- wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive. It’s had different battery sizes and motor types and configurations. It’s even had a hydrogen fuel cell. That’s learning that will be hard to replicate by any new challengers without doing the hard yards. In recent years, powerful electric production cars have become more commonplace. Outrageous halo models have been revealed so often the figures are now unremarkable. Tesla has been joined by the likes of Porsche, Pininfarina, Lotus and Jaguar and there are many more to come. “With electric propulsion coming on, it’s only a matter of time, isn’t it?” Schroer says quietly. If – or when – Shroer loses his electric world crown, it won’t be because he’s slowed down. It will be because everyone else has caught up.  21

The Conversation Spacesuit creatives Peter Minnig, Kenneth Midgett and Taylor Robbins voluntarily joined the demonstrations that followed the death of George Floyd. All three are American; all three are white. Why we chose Here’s why they felt sitting on the sidelines was not an option. to act Images: Peter Minnig, Kenneth Midgett and Taylor Robbins / Spacesuit Media

is happening in the US, as well as the Why photograph issues in the UK and around the world. Black Lives Matter It felt pretty powerful to be a part of and I wanted to show people back demonstrations? home that this is happening around the KM: Everything erupted [after the world, that everyone’s collective voice killing of George Floyd]. It all hit the is being heard – not just in the US but fan. I’ve lived here all of my life and everywhere. I’ve never seen anything like that. I realised that this could be something really important for our society moving Does your camera forward. I wanted to be a part of that. change your interaction? Getting into the streets to share my Photography is perspective of it with others was about human important. TR: In the past, I’ve felt that if I’ve been at an event, I’m hiding behind a interaction; you TR: Huge societal events like this are lens, sticking my eye to the camera and a great way to see first-hand where living through the lens. More recently, just happen to people are at with such a sensitive topic. I’ve learned that when I photograph bring your camera It’s something that is so emotional, people, it’s more about the conversation something that people are so involved and then every so often the camera along. In this in: that’s why I felt compelled to capture comes up. Photography is about human something. interaction; you just happen to bring instance, I really your camera along. In this instance, I wanted to see how PM: For me, living outside the US really wanted to see how people were and watching these things happen in feeling and reacting to what was going people were feeling my home country was hard in a way on. I wanted to be involved in the because I felt like I couldn’t take part moment; and then, if I saw something, and reacting to in such an important moment in our I had my camera so I could capture the what was going on. history. So I was grateful to see events moment. happening in London. Before I went and photographed, I went to a protest KM: I’m not certain that I would have earlier in the week, without a camera been involved at all without feeling or anything, just to be there, to try and that draw to get out and take pictures be some part of what is happening. I and share; that need was what that got was surprised and impressed by the me out in the first place. We all feel number of people caring about what similarly that racism has to stop. Even 23

so, it was pretty uncomfortable in the really change things for me. I had been TR: When it comes to photographing objective reporting? In my opinion, photo photos and videos, people sharing beginning moments of being in this reading things before I went about how people in public, I’ve battled the subject there are things that people need to do resources to unveil the terrible systems mass of people chanting and yelling; to be respectful, how to share images in internally before. I’m naturally introverted, so show they’re not manipulating facts. that we allow to exist in our country. To there was a lot of animosity. So I kind a constructive way. I was thinking about so I think about respecting people’s After that, everyone has an opinion. You be able to contribute to that in some way of stayed on the sidelines. Then once I it when I was photographing, in a way I wishes. My intent with taking photos of cannot divorce that from what you’re with an ability I have, my photography It’s very easy to got comfortable, I was up at the front wouldn’t have done with similar events anything sensitive is always to be uplifting, doing. – I’m glad there was a venue to do that, with the main crew, trying to get the before. However, apart from that added never to bring someone shame. Especially with people I already know and respect. manipulate the story. emotions. I probably would never have consciousness, for me, having a camera where people are going out to make their KM: We’re all people, right? put myself in that situation – having a didn’t reduce the importance of being voices heard, I want to show that these are KM: I agree with Peter, definitely. I You can make this camera changed that for me. there nor reduce my connection with real people. I thought about this before How does Spacesuit think Spacesuit at its core is by the person very evil or very the event. taking the photos. After taking the photos, photographer, for the photographer. It’s PM: I’ll make the comparison with our I also looked at people’s faces. I realised empower you to tell these a place to push creative boundaries, push innocent. It’s easy in motor racing work. I’ve always been that, yeah, it’s very easy to be picked out. stories? our artistic drive. There’s more to being a fan of motorsport but, when I’m at The ethics of It’s something we have to juggle. a photographer who works in motorsport camera to change the an event, I’m working. I’m not there photographing protests PM: I am appreciative that Spacesuit than taking pictures of cars but you need story with one image. I cheering for someone or rooting for KM: It’s very easy to manipulate the story. is not just a place to post photos of an outlet to share that. With Spacesuit, something to happen. I’m there to KM: Especially as a white guy, I didn’t You can make this person very evil or very motorsport or other events that we’re I know any time I ever say, “Can I do had to be very sensitive document the event and get the images want to make others feel like it was a innocent. That includes the police – we paid to go out and shoot. We are this?” the answer is always, “Definitely, that people need. I thought that would show. But these people want their voices were surrounded by the riot police. It’s interested in giving a space to these anything you need, we’ll help you out.” to that and not create be similar in this sense – going to the heard. They want to be seen. If you’re very easy in camera to change the story sorts of images, space beyond our own some narrative that protest and participating versus going sensitive to it, you can feel people’s with one image. I had to be very sensitive social media. I’m glad that this was the TR: To have my photos being mixed to document something. But I wasn’t body language, if they want their photo to that and not create some narrative that case. As difficult as it’s been to reckon in with a collective of other great wasn’t there. there because I was being paid to be taken or they don’t. As soon as people wasn’t there. with these huge problems, I’ve been photographers – it paints a bigger there. No one was telling me to be there. saw my camera, they were looking at both challenged and helped by seeing picture. It’s less of a narrative and more It was something I wanted to go and do. me, they’d hold their fist up, they’d stop PM: This has been a debate in journalism so much – friends of mine back in the that we’re showing perspectives of what In that sense, having a camera didn’t’ and pose. also. Is there anything that’s truly US going to protests, sharing their cell we’re seeing locally, where we live. 25 27

The Conversation

Photography can be conducted as a broadcast, speaking way or in a more receptive, listening fashion. For something like this, particularly, it’s important that we listen and think and try to learn.

Should photographers join in?

TR: From a photographic point of view, it’s a phenomenal task to go out where everything is happening all around you and just immerse yourself in that, to see what your story is from it. Whether someone wants to get involved politically or emotionally, that’s completely up to them. Speaking strictly from a photographic point of view, it’s not just a challenge: it is something deeply rewarding.

PM: Going and photographing something like this, there’s a responsibility that the photographer has as well and it’s important to be cognisant of that when you’re doing it. Photography can be conducted as a broadcast, speaking way or in a more receptive, listening fashion. For something like this, particularly, it’s important that we listen and think and try to learn. Listen to black photographers, black activists, when they speak about images and how important they are to sending the right messages and fighting for the right changes. Yes, be involved – but don’t forget the thought behind it. 29 31

The Shot

When it all goes wrong

At Spacesuit, we document extreme Firstly, do I carry on shooting? Secondly, events where there is always the risk what sort of images should I be of something going wrong. When capturing? Thirdly, should those images something does go wrong, creatives be shared? often face a dilemma. There is still debate over Kevin The incident in this image occurred Carter’s The vulture and the little girl at the Pocono round of the 2018 (his 1994 Pulitzer Prize-winning photo). IndyCar season. This is such a fast The image was shocking and harrowing; track that I was fully focused on what it also acutely highlighted the problem was happening in front of me: taking of starvation in Sudan, raising both my eyes off a pack of 22 cars travelling awareness and charitable donations. Is towards me at 220mph didn’t seem like one worth the other? a great idea. Similarly, a motorsport After only a few laps, I glimpsed photographer is at a racetrack to a flash out of the corner of my right document the whole story of each event, eye. I looked around just in time to see not just parts of it. Robert’s crash at a fireball high up in the fence. In the Pocono was awful but it was an event moment, it wasn’t terribly obvious what which dominated not only the race but had occurred but after a few seconds it also the entire 2018 season. became very clear: somebody had taken I had no desire to show any gory off – catapulting much higher than details; if the paparazzi style of in-your- you’d have expected to see a car – and face shooting has its place, it’s not part suffered a pretty hefty impact with the of my repertoire or what Spacesuit does. catch fencing. That said, my job is to tell the news, Safety vehicles started to pour and the news isn’t always good. Here, out on track towards the damaged I chose to be as sensitive as I could cars. There was a lot of debris on the whilst still showing the story; I felt that stretch between turns two and three, documenting the efforts of the safety making it difficult to pick out who had teams and first responders helping actually been involved. Some red Arrow Robert and the other injured drivers told bodywork lay between the damaged the story of the crash in the correct way. fence and a wrecked car: it was Robert Once an image has been taken, there Wickens who had left the ground. He is still time to reflect on it, on whether was taken away in an ambulance. it is something that ought to be shared. Modern race cars are so strong That doesn’t mean that a creative will that even a serious-looking crash may make the right decision every time cause a driver little injury. After years but the selection process does add in of photographing GT cars in England, I a “checks and balances” stage. This is was used to seeing battered cars in tyre where being a part of Spacesuit is really barriers – and unscathed drivers walking useful, as there’s always someone else to away. When I got back to the media offer a second opinion and to say: “This centre, however, it became obvious that is – or isn’t – a shot we should share.” this was not one of those situations. Looking at this image now, I think Oval races are very different and Pocono we got it right. I hope Robert thinks so is a unique beast; when things go wrong too – and it’s great to see him back at there, they really go wrong. the track with a smile on his face.

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When things go wrong like this, a Jamie Sheldrick is a creative at Spacesuit creative has three decisions to make. Media. 33

The Opinion When a serious medical condition radically alters your life, your route may change but your destination doesn’t have to.

Changing Image: Jamie Sheldrick / Spacesuit Media track

My friends tried rugby; I watched, of motorsport without the risk of occasionally jogging round the field. an impact at triple-digit speeds. They tried cricket; I jogged around the Lightweight carbon. Aerodynamics. boundary. They tried hockey; I ran a bit Power outputs. Fastest route. Cornering faster because it was usually raining. I at speed and braking late. Tyre did a lot of running and got kinda good compounds and pressures. Gear ratios. at it. And I got used to being sidelined. I Helmets and garish sponsor-speckled may have been good at cricket, or rugby, suits. Oh yes: I found cycling. or hockey, but I’ll never know because Cycling was my saviour. All that I couldn’t join in. I learned to accept it. running suddenly paid off. I began to I even learned to accept that I couldn’t tackle local Strava segments and got a play football again, which I knew I was kick out of challenging the fastest times good at. up hills (well, flyovers – I live near the The cruellest twist of fate, however, Fens). The mindset is similar to motor was reserved for motorsport. It turned racing. You want to maximise your out I was good at going fast. I had power-to-weight ratio, minimise your naturally good motor skills and reaction aero profile and win, whether beating speed. My Dad had always said he’d clock or competitor. enrol me in a racing school when I was My bike allowed me that sensation old enough. When I dabbled in karting, of speed that I’d been craving without I’d just turn up and win: I didn’t realise the risk of hitting a hard thing very that’s not how it’s meant to be. I also hard. (Unless you count the road. A loved racing video games, like many 80s couple of years ago I picked up a rather and 90s kids. When the games became hefty head injury and was unconscious more sim-like, I excelled in those too. at the roadside for eight minutes. I don’t When I did finally get to try a car on remember what happened but my wife track, at Oulton Park, I took to it like a subsequently issued some rather stern duck takes to a water – or a duck that new instructions.) instinctively understands braking zones Exploring new places alone might The game is intense. As it draws to a That’s what happens when you are of the condition; if you’ve got to have and how to find the apex, anyway. In have been knocked on the head (excuse idea in 2012 grew into a plan, then an close, the result could go either way. diagnosed with haemophilia. Suddenly it, mild type A is the one to have as it fact, I was pulled into the pits and told the pun) but I could still race. Triathlon event, and then an annual event, and Your friends are all out there – friends any activity that might cause a bruise doesn’t affect normal day-to-day life to stop overtaking people. My lap times became my way to beat the stopwatch now it’s the highlight of the year for (or worse) is off-limits. Football? Forget were nearly identical to the instructors. local cyclists and has raised more than it. Yes, it sucks. I was home. Motor racing suddenly £100,000 to date for the East Anglian Air That was me. I was 11 years old, looked like the sport I was born to do. Ambulance charity. football mad, captain of my primary But not for long. There’s some irony in that, by being school football team (although, in a For someone who had to avoid forced to play it safe and avoid the risk school of just 39 pupils, that didn’t schoolboy cricket for medical reasons, of high-speed crashes, I’ve been able to automatically make me the next doing 150mph inches from Armco help save the lives of countless others Ian Rush). But then, as I headed to barriers was deemed imprudent by who have been involved in serious secondary school and was tested for rather sensible doctors. And that was incidents. If that’s not reason enough to haemophilia when a doctor suspected that. Except that it wasn’t. keep up the cycling, then what is? my easy bruising might be more than Adventure means different things Oh yeah. Lycra. you’ve practiced with, sweated with, just clumsiness, everything stopped. too much. Some of my cousins are to different people. My circumstances and, although I’ll never get a podium, grown with, dreamed with. But you’re I have mild haemophilia A. This unfortunate enough to know what living changed almost overnight. My limits I can finish in the top half of the field. watching this game from the sidelines, means it’s harder for my body to form with severe haemophilia is like. Trust changed. My horizons didn’t. I just had I’ve not allowed my condition to throttle knowing you will never again be allowed clots and therefore riskier for me to do me, you don’t want it. to find new ways to get there. my adventurous or competitive side. on the field. For you, the game is game anything that might result in bleeding. So the sporting careers of my friends As it turns out, there is a sport Cycling also became a way I could Damien Cross is a communications over. There are different forms and severities and I split into parallel dimensions. which takes many of the elements help others. What started as just an specialist and founder of Psst Digital. 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