YEAR OF THE DIESEL; Audi made the point and JCB Dieselmax underscores it: Diesel isn't just for trucks anymore.(Motorsports)(JCB Dieselmax)

Byline: KEVIN A. WILSON

At 360 mph, a mile passes in 10 seconds. For RAF wing commander Andy Green-more accustomed to the velocity of a Tornado jet fighter or the supersonic Thrust SSC record car-it must feel like a long time.

Green passed through the measured mile on the Bonneville salt flat in 9.842 seconds (365 mph) in one direction on Aug. 23, still accelerating when the JCB Dieselmax finished the mile. The front engine (there are two, one ahead and one behind the driver, each driving one axle) was too cold, and stuttered during the acceleration pass on Green's backup run, which FIA speed record rules require he complete-running in the opposite direction to balance out factors of wind or grade-within an hour.

So the return leg took 10.724 seconds, a mere 335 mph, for a two-way average of 350.092 mph, giving the British team a new world record for diesel machines. Green had set the record less than 24 hours earlier at 328.767 mph, toppling the previous FIA mark of 235.756 mph that American Virgil Snyder set in 1973.

Speed itself wasn't the challenge: When he went supersonic on the ground in 1997, Green ran the measured mile in less than five seconds. But JCB Dieselmax was a whole new world. Wheel-driven rather than jet-propelled, pushing the limits of diesel engine and drivetrain technology, and on the salt rather than the dusty alkali desert at Black Rock in Nevada.

"They are very different vehicles to drive,'' Green said. "SSC, in a lot of ways, was more of a known quantity.'' Its engines were familiar, proven capable, and the worry was mostly aerodynamic. "With Dieselmax, we're taking two bigger, heavier engines that have just been developed and trying to put the power down through two transmissions-getting them properly synchronized-and then to the tires on salt.''

JCB is a heavy-equipment manufacturer that just started making its own engines two years ago. Dieselmax's two powerplants are based on the JCB 444, a four-cylinder turbodiesel routinely installed in a backhoe/loader. Dieselmax was conceived as a showcase for the engine and British engineering generally, said owner Sir Anthony Bamford.