A JERSEYMAN is officially responsible for helping to orchestrate the hair-raising new land speed record for a hydrogen-powered car.
Earlier this month, the JCB Hydromax reached a speed of 406mph (654km/h) at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah – the fastest a hydrogen-powered car has ever travelled.
Across two runs, 64-year-old former Royal Air Force pilot Andy Green surpassed the previous official hydrogen combustion record of 185.5mph by more than double the speed.
The entire operational side of the feat was overseen by Jersey’s Liam Crabb – a former De La Salle College student who went on to study motorsport engineering at the University of Lancashire – who worked on the project for over 11 months as crew chief.
Speaking to the JEP just two days after returning from Utah, Mr Crabb said that he felt “super lucky” to be involved in the history-making JCB Hydromax team.
The car was built in the UK in May, he said, and then put through its paces during two-and-a-half weeks of “shakedown testing,” during which it achieved just over 200mph.
He explained that the project was initially divided up between JCB, who worked on the hydrogen gas systems; Ricardo, an engine-assembling company; and Prodrive, an advanced engineering group that Liam worked for in an operational capacity.
The engineer said that the three teams “felt like three separate entities” until arriving together in the USA on 23 July ahead of “SpeedWeek”, an annual open competition at the Bonneville Salt Flats that sees cars from all around the world attempting record-breaking speeds.
“I was apprehensive at first, because of the speeds involved, I’m not going to lie,” he said.
“When we went to Bonneville last year, I was there for three or four days. During that week, one of the competitors there had a fatal accident, which was quite sobering.
“That was one of the things I think we all battled with on the project, that there isn’t any room for error on anything.”
During their preparations for the Speed Week in Utah, Mr Crabb said the three disparate teams came together to achieve their shared goal.
“That is the most rewarding thing about projects like this,” he added. “When you’re in a high-performing team with a single focus, that is when you get the best out of people.
“There are no egos, everybody is just thinking about the right thing to do for the job, so therefore it just allows you to be completely unselfish and fully dedicated on whatever the core task is to achieve your objective.”
During the open competition week, the team laid the foundation for the eventual Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) land speed record with a SpeedWeek record of 369.5mph.
A matter of days later, the JCB Hydromax crew returned to the salt flats to achieve the official, FIA-sanctioned high speed for a hydrogen-powered vehicle.
“It was like being on another planet,” Liam recalled. “Everyone else was gone and it just our stuff there – just 12 miles of uninterrupted space.”
For the record week, the team needed to record two runs in the space of just one hour, something Liam says threw up myriad logistical challenges.
“There was a lot of design choices made around that turnaround time,” Mr Crabb recalled. “In that time we had to refuel, change the cooling fluids and ice, and change the tyres – so that is quite a big challenge when you’re in the middle of a desert.
“In the end, we did just over 400 mph on the first run, and we did a 412 mile average on the second run, which then gave us a 406.32 mph average for the two.”
As the crew chief, Mr Crabb got a front seat view for the land-speed record, having been tasked with using a push truck to drive the JCB Hydromax up to the start line.
“Between myself, the driver and the race engineer, we had the final sign off to say the car was good to go, basically.
“And it was incredible. The Hydromax is a 9.8 metres long – two and a half tonnes – a big beast – initially it pulls away quite gradually, and then the turbos come on and the thing just disappears into the horizon.”
Mr Crabb joked that for driver Andy Green – who was the first person to break the sound barrier when he reached the outright land speed record of 763.035mph in 1997 – the run was “more or less like a Sunday drive”.
“Andy is the world’s fastest man, and he was cool as a cucumber,” he remarked. “The guy is just totally unflappable.
“He’s driven at the speed of sound, so for him, it is his bread and butter, his reason for living – and for us as a team, to have someone with his knowledge and his experience, it was invaluable.”
Despite boasting a stacked CV in the motorsport industry – including being behind multiple race podiums at Le Mans in the early 2010s – the Islander said that securing the hydrogen-powered land speed record was his ultimate “halo project”.
“It would have to be, because of the risk-reward thing, and doing something that nobody else has done before,” he reflected.
He now hopes that their achievement will help put the hydrogen-powered vehicle “on the map” as a viable alternative to both electric cars and the internal combustion engine.
“I think there is a market for it,” he nodded. “And it’s good that JCB, as a brand, are concerned about the future, the environment and looking for these alternative and zero-emission solutions to keep leading the market.”
