Another trip to North Weald was laid, on essentially for BBC Television and a number of runs were done to demonstrate the cars potential and display the parachute in operation. The BBC included an item in their news programmes complete with an interview with Sydney. There is no doubt that the car was attracting a good level of publicity, which helped support the Shorrock supercharger conversion kits which were being marketed. In hindsight the publicity being generated by a new member of staff, Gerry Belton, was getting in the way of preparations for running the car at Brighton. To help promote the supercharger conversions, Silverstone was hired and a selection of modified cars were provided for the press to try on a timed quarter mile section of the old club straight. The dragster was demonstrated in front of the motoring press and it’s performance attracted a good deal of positive comment. The lack of performance from a standing start did produce some doubting words to be printed, however when you wine and dine the motoring press, plus let them have a drive of a number of modified cars against the clock, it does produce some positive publicity.
More publicity was generated by yet another Press related day at Brands Hatch with supercharged cars laid on for the press to try, plus a demonstration of the dragster. With a standing start on the main straight plus a complete lap, once again the car was impressive, however it still was not producing the sort of initial acceleration that was required. While the publicity was good for supercharger sales, together with the new Golde (German) roof conversion, there were in my mind nagging concerns about how the car would per- form for the standing kilometre at Brighton. Even translating the cars quarter mile times plus completing the remaining .37 of a mile, a sub 20 second time should be possible. Because of the roughness of the course towards the end of the kilometre, it required inherent chassis strength far in excess that of a chassis designed to run specifically on American style smooth quarter mile surfaces. The fallacy of designing a car to meet two very different criteria was becoming apparent.