I'm a Bloodhound Babe... !

What a brilliant day! I was invited to visit the Aardman Studio, Gas Ferry Road and came across this amazing beauty stored nearby, The Bloodhound! Promoted as the biggest engineering adventure of the 21st century, the Bloodhound will in 2012, attempt to travel for one mile at 1,000mph to break the world land speed record - WOW!

What has this got to do with me you might ask? Well when I first arrived, I had little idea what Bloodhound was about but as is the case with these things, as the plans unravelled, I realised it has everything to do with me. In fact, with every one on you too! It's an all inclusive adventure that's been ingeniously plotted and planned to appeal to all ages and I love this project. I can guarantee, it will be what everyone will be talking about in the next couple of years. It's amazingly exciting and the guys leading the team are so passionate about it, the feeling is infectious. The project is led by the infamous Richard Noble who by his own admission, specialises in developing high risk ventures. His most famous being Thrust2 programme which brought the World Land Speed Record back to Britain in 1983 and the ThrustSSC first ever supersonic land speed record programme. Most interestingly the project is about engaging the public in all countries of the world and exciting the population in a way to highlight and encourage new engineering talent. The big global manufacturers have recognised that they are going to be seriously short of engineering talent in the future. That's why they're backing this bid to encourage the youngsters of today in particular to join in the fun that is the Bloodhound adventure. Take a look http://www.bloodhoundssc.com if you'd like to know more...

There's a massive amount of support and sponsorship already in place and although the Bloodhound will eventually be built in Bristol (this is a full size model!) this is a global project. I love cars, fast ones even better so yes, of course this is definitely my kinda adventure!

Just to test the theory, I stepped into the simulator in my red lady shoes to attempt the world record. I don't do simulators so it was definitely a 'Ginger moment'... one of those times when my inner Ginger says to me 'Go on.. I would!' and I think, yes I can too! So on my first test run I scored a poor 650mph but I was keeping my cards very closely to my chest. Ha ha.. that's rubbish really because actually I had no idea which buttons to press to fire my rockets! I'm a girl... !! And if there are 3 buttons on each side of the front of the steering column, I'm going to press those first - not the ones I can't see which are on the back! But following a whisper in my little, shell-like ear by Tony to say... "Don't wait for the instruction through the headset, fire the rocket earlier"... I was fully prepped for my attempt.

The task is to keep the car running as close to the thin blue line as possible. There is a marked mile right at the centre of the course and that's where the speed will be recorded. For the actual record, there has to be two runs, there and back, with both beating the previous record for the record to count. My task was to keep the car steady, listen to instructions and just floor it and fire my rockets to beat my poor first run. Well, girl power did it! I beat the record with an amazing 1018mph and managed to stop by the crew vehicles which would mean in real life, they can refuel in the very limited time of 60 minutes, to send the car back for a second run.

I was triumphant! Just imagine what speed I could have reached in my trainers! I now think they need to change the colour of the Bloodhound to a more girly colour - pink!