Rosco McGlashan

[2] This record was set on the 27 March 1994 on the dry salt flats of Lake Gairdner, South Australia, 440 km (270 mi) northwest of Adelaide.

Ford V8, with direct drive (no clutch) and Wally and Rosco would rev it up to 5,000 rpm and rock it off a stand and Krazy Horse would leave rubber up the whole quarter-mile.

McGlashan also drove a rocket-powered go-kart to 253 miles per hour (407 km/h) in 1980 at a race track near Thousand Oaks, California.

[6] Aussie Invader 1 was initially owned by Ken Warby, who holds the World water speed record of 275.97 knots (511.10 km/h; 317.58 mph), set on Blowering Dam on 8 October 1978.

It took four years to build and McGlashan's first attempt to set the Australian land speed record in Aussie Invader 2 was in December 1993.

Rosco and the team returned in March 1994 and broke Donald Campbell's record set at Lake Eyre in 1964.

The Aussie Invader team returned in February 1995 to Lake Gairdner for an assault on the 633.468 mph (1,013.55 km/h) world land speed record, held by Richard Noble.

McGlashan then built his next car Aussie Invader 3, utilising another ATAR engine from a Mirage jet fighter.

McGlashan hoped to challenge Andy Green and Craig Breedlove to be the first to Mach 1 on land, but in 1996 again the salt conditions were too bad for high speed record runs.

He started planning to build a rocket-powered car capable of smashing the sound barrier and achieving a 1,000 miles per hour (1,600 km/h).

Work on building Aussie Invader 5R has now reached the end of phase 1 (completed car with systems in place).

Phase 2 is underway, trying to raise funding to test and fine-tune the 62,000-pound thrust rocket engine, which is equivalent to about 200,000 hp, about the power of 200 Formula One cars.

A lot of the initial design and calculations for Aussie Invader 5R's performance were carried out by Peter Beck in 2009, who at the time was starting a company called Rocket Lab.

[8] This book tells Rosco's life story from a tough childhood to a champion drag racer and land speed record holder.