The race to become the fastest human on earth is under way. In one lane, a British team with a multi-million-pound budget and what it claims will be the most technologically advanced land machine in history. In the other, a small American outfit with a workshop in Seattle and a team made up of volunteer mechanics working with 50-year-old hardware.

At stake is the grandest prize in motoring — the world land-speed record. Both teams are gearing up for their attempts: next week the British team behind the Bloodhound SSC project is expected to announce it has finalised the design plans for the vehicle after a successful desert test of the rocket system last month. The team already holds the current record of 763mph — set in 1997 in the jet-propelled Thrust SSC — but hopes to raise the bar to 1,000mph with the new car. It will also reveal where in Britain the vehicle will be built and where it will make the attempt. There are currently two potential sites — one in America and one in South Africa.

“We have done our initial testing, settled on our final design — a few tweaks notwithstanding — and are about to enter the build phase,” says Richard Noble, the man behind the Bloodhound project. “We are now entering the business end of things. We have about 20 months and the clock is ticking.”

The Americans aim to get there faster. “We might not have the money of the Brits, but we know we can break the current record,” says Ed Shadle, the boss of the North American Eagle team. “We’re on course to try next year.” The team took a step closer last weekend, when after months of preparation, it tested its vehicle in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada.

The contrast between the two teams could not be greater. While the Bloodhound SSC (it stands for supersonic car) is the most advanced streamliner ever built and will cost around £6.3m, Shadle has built his machine out of the rusty remains of a 1957 Lockheed F-104 Starfighter jet, bought for $25,000 (£15,000 at today’s prices) from a scrapyard in 1998.

The transformation has taken Shadle, an amateur motor racing driver and former American air force pilot, and Keith Zanghi, a Boeing engineer, more than a decade of work in a rented aircraft hangar near Seattle. Their project has received funding and parts from companies in the US and Canada but Shadle has also ploughed more than $150,000 (£90,000) of his own money into the project. “We get a little bit here and a little bit there,” he says.

With a team of 38 part-time volunteer experts in everything from hydraulics to aerodynamics, he has created a 42,500bhp jet-propelled car with a predicted top speed of 835mph, and he says it has hit speeds of more than 400mph in testing. After last week’s tests — which ended prematurely when the undercarriage was damaged in the desert sand after the car had reached “a couple of hundred mph” — he claims to be on course to attempt a record run in 2010, two years before Bloodhound will be ready.

The British team does not appear unduly worried. “I have had a look at the design [of the North American Eagle], and it’ll be interesting to see how they get on,” says Noble. “They have chosen quite a simple way of going about it — it’s not quite the way we would do it, but it might work. What you have to bear in mind is that, by definition, a new land-speed record is something that has never been done so of course it might just work. But from what we know now, the design requirements are so demanding that I think they will have difficulty.”

The rivalry between the two countries is nothing new. US teams held the record for almost 20 years from 1964 until Noble won it back for Britain in 1983 by driving the Thrust 2 to 633mph. In 1997 Noble beat his own record with the Thrust SSC, this time driven by Andy Green, hitting 763mph. The Americans have been smarting ever since.

The Bloodhound SSC attempt was announced to great fanfare last year, and since then the team has been quietly refining the design. Last month saw the first tests of its revolutionary hybrid rocket system in California. It works by combining a jet engine with rocket technology. From a standing start, the car will operate purely on the jet engine up to 300mph. At this point, the jet is set onto full afterburner and the rocket is fired up. Together the two power sources provide 47,500lb of thrust, or roughly 133,000bhp — that’s equivalent to 180 Formula One cars. With that much power, the team reckons the car will take around 20 seconds to get from a standing start to 300mph — then just 20 seconds more to get from 300mph to 1,000mph.

“Originally, we wanted to use two jet engines, as we did last time,” says Noble. “But the intake drag is just too great. After testing the new system, we have also had to swap the jet and the rocket around so now we have the jet engine at the top of the car and the rocket at the bottom.”

Green will once again be the man charged with controlling the power, and although he is no stranger to high speeds — when piloting the Thrust SSC he became the first man to break the sound barrier on land — he says the new car will be a complete step into the unknown.

New images of the cockpit, whichwill be officially released next week, reveal that while the Thrust SSC was in the analogue age, the Bloodhound is the first digital speed racer. It features touchscreen controls and a live internet feed to stream video online. “The Thrust had hard, round dials rather than electronic displays because that was the technology then,” says Green. “It was simple, reliable, sensible; but it did limit some of the things we could do.

“The Bloodhound is a huge technological step forward. It is extraordinarily far ahead of anything that’s been before. I am absolutely confident it is going to work. It’s a great concept and a great team and the pressure is now on me to take what is the best built car in the history of the land-speed record and make it perform.”

Back in Seattle, Shadle refuses to be shocked or awed by the blinding technology on the other side of the Atlantic. Despite his latest setback with the damaged undercarriage, he says he is more determined than ever to take the record. “You know, when Richard Noble’s team were testing their last car that broke the speed record [in 1997], sometimes things didn’t go exactly as planned and they had setbacks. Well, that’s kind of where we are now. If anything, our determination has been steeled.”

The problem is that even if he does coax the North American Eagle to 800mph next year, the achievement may be a fleeting one. “I hope they will break the record,” says Green. “I’m going to bet on them achieving something and it would be brilliant to see them do it. They deserve it.” Then he adds: “But I’ll put money on the fact Bloodhound will end up going faster — much faster.”

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