There is a momentary lull in the visitors, and I gratefully sink onto a stool. I am manning – well, no, that’s a considerable exaggeration – attending the BLOODHOUND stand at the Cisco Live Exhibition in the ExCel Centre in London’s Dockland, wherein BLOODHOUND has a major stand because Cisco are a major collaborator and sponsor. On the stand is the BLOODHOUND Show Car, the EJ200 jet, the BLOODHOUND Driving Experience simulator, and a 3-D copier.

It is vast, this ExCel Centre. So vast it has no less than three Docklands Light Railway stations along its length. So very vast that were the ends open I would have no qualms about flying an aeroplane through it, although I imagine the demand for such a service might be limited if not non-existent.

And the Cisco Live Exhibition matches the scale of the Centre. It is huge, huge, huge. There are well over 100 stands and pavilions both of Cisco themselves and their suppliers and customers. And – oh, I don’t know – quite possibly 6,000 people milling around right at this moment even though the show is drawing to a close. This is a big event…

I can talk about BLOODHOUND and the rocket and the jet and the aerodynamics. I can and just have been talking about these things to Germans, French, Danes, Spaniards, Swedes, all of whom have spoken excellent English, much to my embarrassment since I only speak English with the odd passing swipe at French and American. I would willingly even talk to an Englishman should one happen along, which has so far not occurred on my short watch. Which maybe says something about BLOODHOUND’s main purpose in life – firing up enthusiasm for young people to turn towards careers in engineering and science. I have further had a preview of the new upcoming Cisco animation on BLOODHOUND’s inner workings – which I can tell you is a work that Steven Spielberg could be proud of.

Cisco are of course providing BLOODHOUND TV and equally importantly immense electronic connectivity, giving BLOODHOUND the ability to pass on vast technical files instantaneously to Product Sponsors and other suppliers. And I mean vast.

But – I confess – I do not fully understand everything around me in this vast hall. It comes from being educated in the blackboard era, of course. The bright bloods of the BLOODHOUND Design Team undoubtedly comprehend every word and every insignia on every pavilion at a glance.

I may be baffled in places, but one thing I do know.

Which is that come around quitting time, which is not far away now, there is going to be a live workload whose middle name is HUGE as everyone races to dismantle their stands, load up cars and vans, and get the hell out of Dodge.

Well, I know enough about display stands to know that the apparent solidity is mostly illusory – a structure which looks like the Taj Mahal can be collapsed in minutes, the ever-so-clever frame folding into man-portable boxes and the rest of the kit and caboodle also wrapping itself up and decamping at the blast of a dog-whistle. This because companies who exhibit regularly know full well that portability is vital in order to avoid having staff still there at midnight trying to get the caboodle out of the doors. Such staff are not going to be excessively gruntled and may not wish to repeat the experience – and so you make sure as far as possible that everything tucks away, folds into containers, shrinks at the wave of a wand, and fits on a handcart.

 

But not everything…

Not all equipment, however, entirely lends itself to this.

Especially, for example, an EJ200 jet engine. This rather significantly does not fold up. Nor can you make it weigh any less. Likewise the BLOODHOUND show car. These items have to get to the venue the hard way, and then get back. This may look at a casual glance like a fairly small issue in the overall sweep of the BLOODHOUND Project…

But no. Not small. Very, very far from it. Big.

For these components you need fork-lift trucks and then lorries. Forty-four tonne articulated lorries, to be precise. You’re not going to load them up to the gills weight-wise or anything like it – but you do need the space. For example the Show Car only just fits into an artic trailer. And once you’ve got it in there, there seriously ain’t much room for anything else. In the days of yore when the Show Car was half BLOODHOUND’s final length you could get car and jet into one trailer (see ‘To create something special’) but nowadays the replica is full length – so you cain’t.  And then there’s the BDE – the BLOODHOUND Driving Experience simulator. And then there’s that 3-D copier… and then… and then…

So now you need two trailers. And two tractor units to haul them. People in the haulage industry mostly don’t tend to use the words tractor units. They think of themselves as truckers, and these tractor units are therefore… trucks.

And whatever you want to call them, these trucks don’t come cheap, either to buy or to operate.

BLOODHOUND’s transport sponsors, G & J (for Graham and Julie) Lockwood, knew this all too well before they volunteered for shifting BLOODHOUND kit all round the joint. (The joint so far meaning the UK. This will change, but let us not get ahead of ourselves…)

Graham and Julie committed themselves. Two-and-half years ago I asked them what budget they’d allocated to the project. Graham said; “Boodget? What boodget?” – he having a slightly Wigan accent – “We’re in. Whatever it takes”.

What it turned out to take, among other things, was a bite out of a small company’s profits.

Now we need to see this in perspective. Because it highlights the difference between a big sponsor and a small sponsor. Or what’s generally seen as a small sponsor.

A global company the size of Cisco may well receive 100 sponsorship proposals every day. They will study them carefully and politely junk 99 or more probably 100 of them. Experienced sponsor-seekers like Richard Noble and Andy Green know better, although they may not even realise it themselves. They know at least subliminally that (a) it helps to be famous in the first place, (b) it helps massively to be guest speaker at a major company function or similar, and (c) you must – MUST – be able to demonstrate the advantages to the sponsoring company. Not – repeat NOT – just the advantages to you – but to them. Be these advantages short-term or long-term or preferably both.

 

Ideal match

Cisco are an ideal match. In the short-term they can demonstrate their expertise. And enable the BLOODHOUND family to work together up to and unto around the world by using Cisco collaborative technologies. And in the long-term they are as troubled as any major company by the scarcity of quality recruits for the expert jobs they have on offer in the UK, and wish to see education improve – making BLOODHOUND a great compliment to their own efforts to promote STEM education among school kids.

A mix then of self-interest plus altruism. Cisco are making a most significant contribution to BLOODHOUND, and doing it very thoroughly. That’s a big, big sponsor. To whom BLOODHOUND is an important project…

But, in truth, not a vast one in their corporate scale of things. Important, yes. Hideously expensive and corporately life-changing by their standards – well no, not on Cisco’s size of operations. Much more than a pinprick, but nowhere near an arm amputation.

For G & J Lockwood Ltd, truckers of Wigan, things are different. They are a company which our enlightened Westminster classify as an SME – a Small / Medium Enterprise. (Which I always think sounds kind of condescending coming from a Government – any Government – most of whose members don’t have the business acumen to run a prophylactic dispenser in a bordello).

G & J Lockwood operate a small fleet of trucks and rent in the trailers. Not because they’re too mean to own the trailers, but because different jobs require different kinds of trailer, and you’re going to look a bit of a waddle if you’re hauling a fleet of curtain-sided trailers and someone asks you to shift 500 tonnes of grain, which is going to trickle out of curtain-trailers, to say the least. So they rent the trailers to give themselves the flexibility of changing them as required according to load.

Anyway, they took on the BLOODHOUND commitment in 2009. And so it came about that after a while they were operating one truck less on normal business, said one being exclusively on BLOODHOUND. Full time. Together with a huge percentage of office and driver time, since that truck became the most difficult to schedule by a long chalk.

The problem was the BLOODHOUND Educational Team, and the success thereof. Welcome though said success was, and is.

 

Hit by friendly fire

Lockwood had not quite anticipated this. BLOODHOUND sort of had, but had little idea about how much. No-one knew. No-one could possibly have known. In the event the BLOODHOUND educational requirement to shift things about expanded so rapidly that Lockwood’s were kind of hit by friendly fire. The blunt truth is that you can’t, as an SME, lose a slice of your operating capacity and back-office time without starting to – well, er, notice it.

I am sitting now with Graham Lockwood over a coffee at the Cisco Live exhibition, while the show closes all around us. Graham will shortly be supervising the loading of the Show Car, the jet, etc. He looks slightly tired, as he is entitled to be, having just driven a large artic down from Wigan.

I ask; with my usual tact, “Would you have taken this on if you’d known what it would involve?”

Graham sips thoughtfully. Then; “I might not have done. We might have been scared off”.

And with good reason. Road haulage is an expensive business but, along with most forms of transportation, not one universally blessed with high profit margins. Very, very few people in trucking receive a bonus that would buy a banker a new golf ball. Too much competition for that.

In the beginning the commitment was manageable, taking the (truncated) Show Car plus sometimes the jet to major events such as Goodwood and Farnborough. But as BET ‘growed and growed’ like Topsy in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, so within a few months Lockwood’s had one truck on BLOODHOUND to all intents and purposes full-time – and frequently more than one truck, because now if you needed the Show Car and the jet – not to mention other kit – then you needed more than one truck…

So the family firm of Lockwood faced not so much a double-edged sword as a trident. The first prong was losing some of their earning capacity. And the second was doing same without reducing their overheads at the same time, because they were still operating the ‘non-earning’ truck.

And the costs of running a 44 tonne truck are formidable. These artic tractor units are by far and away the toughest vehicles on the road, but think about the logistics for a moment.

A truck may do 800,000 miles during its useful lifetime – many times a car’s expected span on this earth. In fact a truck will usually average about 100,000 miles a year.

And trucks are incredibly serviceable. Depending on type and usage, they may well go to between 50,000 and 70,000 miles between major services.

 

Trucks are machines made by Man…

That is the plus side. On the not-so-plus side…

They have to have a major inspection every six weeks. Not wildly expensive in itself – unless you find something wrong, which you not infrequently do, especially aided by the truck’s own self-diagnostic electronics. Lorries, like aircraft, are machines made by Man, and machines made by Man will always encounter snags. Some of which are not cheap to fix…

And then there’s road tax and insurance. And then tyres - very much not cheap.

And then of course there’s fuel. A big truck does roughly 8 miles per gallon. At the current cost of diesel this means about 80 pence a mile. Just for fuel. So for BLOODHOUND trucking of 35,000 miles in 2011, call that about £28,000. And then there’s insurance. And capital depreciation on the airframe – sorry, the truck.

Add that all up – and your small sponsor just became a big sponsor…

And by a grand irony, it gets worse – the third prong of the trident. The BLOODHOUND truck ‘only’ did 35,000 miles last year as opposed to its more normal 100,000 on commercial work. But on commercial work you load up, drive to your destination, off-load, and go on your way. With the BLOODHOUND education kit you drive to your destination, off-load – then hang around until the event’s finished, then on-load again. Which means a professional driver (usually Graham) off productive work for at least a day.

There are upsides, of course. Lockwood’s business has grown considerably in the past two years, which Graham puts down to the BLOODHOUND effect. “Coostomers coom to us”, he says. “They seem to figure that if we’re good enough to be hauling a land speed record car, we’re good enough for their freight”. Which is of course fine and dandy – exactly the sort of outcome a sponsor wants. But doesn’t change all those costs out of an SME’s wallet…

So Graham talked to Richard Noble. Richard can be uncompromising at times – well, most of the time, in fact, which is why BLOODHOUND exists – but he will always listen to reason. Sometimes with thunderclouds on his highly expressive face – but he will listen to reason. Well mostly, anyway.

He listened this time.

With the first result that the sponsorship deal was re-jigged in the light of experience and sweet reason.

And the second result that Richard snapped his fingers at a pumpkin, which obligingly disappeared in a puff of smoke and turned itself into a Mercedes Actros tractor unit all liveried up in BLOODHOUND colours and ready to go to the ball – free, gratis…

Well… all right, there was no pumpkin, and no puff of smoke. And a 44 tonne artic is, let’s face it, going to look a tad out of place going to a ball. It further has to be said that Graham Lockwood is not entirely the right shape or sex for a magic ball gown and especially glass slippers, or not unless you like your Cinderella topped off with 24-hour stubble, a woolly hat, and heavy work-gloves.

No – this goes back to one of those Noble dinner / lecture events. Some time back Richard spoke at an Institute of Road Transport Engineers function. The result was a connection with the area Chairman, one Perry Reeves, British Dealer Principal for the Anglo-Irish company Rossetts Commercials, who sell, market, hire, and especially maintain the whole gamut of Mercedes – well, commercial vehicles, as the name implies.

Richard talked to Perry – and the outcome was the loan to BLOODHOUND of a Mercedes Sprinter van, now extremely busy. So after Graham had spoken to Richard, Richard spoke to Perry again – and lo! Here is the Actros tractor unit, also on loan.

With my customary tact and diplomacy I asked Perry Reeves why Rossetts, this hard-headed company, did this. Perry did not hesitate.

“Engineering’s the biggest part of our business. We run a good apprenticeship scheme, we’re exacting, and we get good lads on it. But overall we see less interest in engineering as a career. We’ve struggled to make engineering more fashionable – and here’s BLOODHOUND doing just that”.

Well of course that’s so. Cain’t argue. In fact in this relatively new Product Sponsor is more than a faint echo of the way Cisco feel about it…

Which brings me back to the ExCel Centre and what I’ve really come here for today – to wit, the handing over of the new truck to Lockwood’s. The key-handing ceremony.

It turns out to be a complete non-event. There are a small handful of us homo sapiens in the ExCel lorry park, and the only real thought in our heads is to get in somewhere out of the arctic cold. Graham Jones, Rossetts’ chief driver / instructor, rather hastily hands over the keys, I take a few pictures, and then we all bolt for the warmth of the truck cabs. Cabs plural, because there’s the truck Graham drove down plus the new one.

We fire up to crawl up to the second storey loading bay – at ExCel in a 44 tonne artic, a task a bit like going the wrong way up a pinball table inclined 30 deg against you.

But never mind. As we pull out of the lorry park I am irresistibly reminded of a country and western song that was a favourite of mine 35 years ago. It was by one C.W.McCall.

 

Mercy sakes alive…

“Hey, mercy sakes alive – looks like we got us a CONVOY…”

Okay – two trucks doth not a convoy make. But it’s a start. In the end BLOODHOUND may require five or even ten trucks to haul the real car and all its caboodle. And in both Britain and South Africa…

Well, well… we all know we’re going to South Africa – but we don’t know all the transport details yet. Lockwood’s don’t know. Rossetts don’t know. BLOODHOUND doesn’t know – or not yet in any finalised form. But we’re going.

As the Cisco Live exhibition sort of implodes around us I take another sip of coffee and say to Graham; “So this could happen again? Running out of capacity?”

Graham shrugs. “Bound to. The trooking need isn’t going to get any less, is it? Especially when the real car’s oop and running. So yes, we’ll certainly need more troocks at some point”.

“Can you see yourself quitting if it gets too big?”

“Quitting?” Graham looks at me as if I’ve just suggested an orgy involving three nuns and a Yorkshire terrier. “Heck, no! We don’t quit!”

Well, I had to ask the question…

In fact, the blunt truth is that Graham is one of those sponsors I particularly respect. I do not suggest for one moment that he is unique in the BLOODHOUND pantheon. But to me, after most of a lifetime in sponsored aerobatics, there is always something a bit special about a relatively small sponsor who simply won’t let go.

Call it the Bulldog spirit.

Young Lockwood is not short of this, nor of entrepreneurial spirit.

For example, he currently wants two things in particular. The first is a fork-lift truck which sort of clips onto the back of an artic trailer – piggy-backing they call it, and you’ll have seen them on the road – so that the BLOOHOUND truck doesn’t have to rely on external fork-lifts which usually arrive on time, but…

The second is a new set of liveried curtains for the second trailer – which would really create a two-truck convoy. Total cost of the wants – maybe £50k.

This means that shortly you’ll able to buy a day as a BLOODHOUND trucker – not driving it, but taking part. Sounds like painting the fence? Well, certainly. But have you ever had the fascinating experience of real life in a 44 tonne artic for a day? And above all the much more fascinating experience of being a BLOODHOUND trucker, where the logos make you a celebrity on the road. Takers should be prepared to answer questions at every fuel-stop, every café, and every destination. So not a normal trucker, but very much part of the BLOODHOUND Project for a day…

I guess this enterprise is called determination within a determination.

If that isn’t the Bulldog breed, it’ll do until the Bulldog breed comes along.