93 QUICKER THAN GOD?

I was watching an old episode of Top Gear today where Jeremy Clarkson concocted a challenge for himself to test a new car.  The car was the (then) new Jaguar XJ; deciding to go for the mental 5-litre V8 petrol beast as opposed to the more frugal diesel because the challenge he set himself was to prove the car was quicker than God himself - yeah, I know.

Clarkson's challenge was to race the rotation of the Earth, watching the sun set in the most westerly part of Great Britain and attempting to reach the most easterly before the sun came up again. This was no small feat, hence the massively powered Jag.

He planned to race through the night from Lands End to Lowestoft, trying to arrive before dawn. Because of the distance, he estimated he had to do an average of 65 miles per hour, which sounds straightforward, but a large chunk of the journey is A and B roads. Add in learner drivers, roadworks, and average-speed cameras; it was a close-run thing.

Spoiler alert: Clarkson managed to beat the sunrise…just. This demonstrated that, with the right car at the right time of year, it should be possible to watch the sun go down on one side of England and come up the next morning on the other.  

That got me thinking: Could we reproduce this race in the Abarths? We would need to pick a day with sunset and sunrise that match the travel time. 

According to Google Maps, without traffic, it would take 8 hours 15 minutes to make the trip travelling along the A30/A303 through Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, and Wiltshire, then joining the M3 in Hampshire before leaving for the M25 at Junction 12 in Surrey, following it all the way around to Junction 28 in Essex then heading for the A12 to the finish in Suffolk. 

Based on some geeky research, we would need to do the trip on 8th May next year. On that day, the sun sets at 21:53 at Lands End and rises again at 05:08 in Lowestoft, 8 hours and 15 minutes by my reckoning.  

So 432 miles in 8 hours 15 means an average of 53 mph, which is definitely doable, especially when there are 60-odd miles of the M25 where we could make up some lost time.  

Is it worth doing a pre-rally challenge as a shake-down?  Probably not.  Is it worth doing a pre-rally challenge to try and beat God?  Hell yeah (no pun intended)!!! We can put this in the 'maybe' pile.