DID YOU KNOW:
...That oil tankers are now more valuable as scrap than the oil they transport? Today’s oil shipping companies are facing a hard truth: they can make $19 million selling their ships for scrap, a number that could never match hauling oil. As hundreds of sellers remove their ships from carriage to scrap and with the Keystone Pipeline being shut down, the United States (who thought we had the oil supply handled) may soon face shortages. The Middle East is already playing games with the code barrel prices and that is certain to get worse.
...That when ThrustSSC set a new world speed record by breaking the sound barrier for a vehicle on land, we all assumed it hadn’t been done before? Turns out that in 1979, famed Hollywood film director Hal Needham along with stunt driver Stan Barrett had in fact run a vehicle known as The Budweiser Rocket faster than the speed of sound (750 miles per hour at sea level) at Edwards Air Force base in Southern California. Now, and this is where it gets a bit tricky: The Budweiser Rocket doesn't qualify as a car because it only has three wheels. Also, The Rocket didn’t perform a return run of equal speed to confirm the record.
ThrustSSC (if you haven’t watched the video on YouTube, you have to! I will include a link below) is a four wheel vehicle with two giant jet engines, not rockets, and did do the required return run at the same or better speed to officially qualify for the World Land Speed Record Holder several years after the Budweiser Rocket, albeit not with a vehicle that met International Speed Record Rules. Take nothing away from either effort; it took great courage, money and talent to build and drive a vehicle in that realm of speed.
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