The big boss of the Drive channel, J F Musial is a stickler for genre - given that he's 10 times more organised than me, I always defer to his opinion. So, when I told him I'd done a race weekend with Andy Green in The Radical UK Cup, he rightly pointed out that it couldn't be an episode of Chris Harris on Cars, because that's where we review cars.
Chris teams up with the world's fastest man
"It has to be a Driven show", he said.
The Bloodhound team is so adept at keeping us all informed of its progress that I don't need to say anything more here. Suffice to say that spending a weekend with Andy Green exposed me to more jaw-dropping conversations in 48 hours than I will have in the next five years. I will never tire of hearing him use the word 'trans-sonic'. He says it the way I say 'mild weather.'
So enjoy watching and listening to him talk about the business of going very, very fast.
Harris and Green - two fast blokes in a Radical
The other interesting aspect of the weekend was the incident where I crashed the car. Now contrary to popular opinion, and despite sometimes acting like a yobbo for the video camera, I am not in the habit of crashing racing cars. My long-time team-mates Chris Cooper and Guy Spurr will at this point attempt to hijack the forum thread and say the opposite is true, but they will be lying. I don't like crashing because it tends to hurt. And it is always expensive.
You'll see the onboard footage of the shunt and see that I lost the back of the car under brakes. Paddock is one of the most challenging turns in the world, and it learned me good and proper.
What happened? Well, I was beginning my third flying lap, so the rubber wasn't quite up to temperature, the track was a little damp in places and I was pushing to see how deep the car would brake into the bumpy entry point. It's at this point that data becomes both a driver's best and worst friend: it shows where you went wrong, so you can learn. But it also means there is no hiding from the truth.
This doesn't end well - see the vid for more
Cold tyres, few damp patches. And I hit the pedal 20 per cent harder than the previous lap. If Heston served Spun Radical at the Fat Duck, that would be the recipe. Going backwards through the 'trap at 100mph doesn't feel good, nor does the impact itself. Still, I learned something the hard way and the Radical boys got the car looking minty for the following morning. Chaps: I'm sorry I made a mess of the car.
The SR3 is a mighty little racing car. It pulls serious lateral Gs and the racing is hard-fought.
Enjoy the vid. More normal car testing next week.