Motorised shed returns to break 100mph land speed record
- Published
A souped-up shed will return to an historic Welsh beach this weekend as its owner tries to break his own land speed record.
Owner Kevin Nicks hopes Fastest Shed - which cost £13,000 to build - will smash its own 100mph record set last year on Pendine Sands, Carmarthenshire.
But the record bid "all depends on the weather", said Mr Nicks.
He will be joined by superbikes, karts and cars trying to smash land speed records at The Straightliners event.
Mr Nicks said he only first made the shed to "take his daughter to school and pop to the shops".
Now, it is the only road-legal motorised shed in the world, according to 54-year-old Mr Nicks, gardener from Oxfordshire
The bespoke shed on wheels boasts a 400BHP turbo-charged Audi RS4 engine.
He first had the idea of creating a shed on wheels in 2015 when his old Volkswagen Passat broke down - and he wanted to "do something a little different".
Mr Nicks initially spent £5,000 and 12 months making his home-made shed roadworthy.
Two years and 20,000 miles later, Kevin has splashed out an estimated £8,000 on revamping the shed with the new engine.
"A couple of weeks after last year's record, the engine blew up," he said.
"I've spent most my time since fixing it. The key ingredient has been installing a water methanol injection kit, which should keep the engine cool.
"The shed has no aerodynamics, so if the wind is strong I might be a bit stuffed."
He will begin his record bid on Saturday at Pendine, a beach which has become synonymous with land speed attempts since Sir Malcolm Campbell broke the record in the legendary Blue Bird in the 1920s.
He will be joined by a host of karts, three-wheelers and the most powerful street-legal motorbikes.
Among them is Gurnsey speed rider Zef Eisenberg, who hopes beat his world sand record of 201.5mph on his 350BHP supercharged Madmax motorbike in May.
He said that Pendine sands is "the holy grail of speed, where the best speed racers in the world have tried."
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