Five-time Olympian Graham Bell wants to be the second Graham Bell to make it into the record books, this time by setting the speed record on skis.
The British skiing champion has teamed up with engineers for Jaguar to help design a ski suit capable of reaching speeds of more than 160 mph. If they accomplish the goal, Bell will take the Guinness World Record for fastest man on skis.
The unique suit will combine areodynamics and twin mico jets. To prepare for the forces that might be at play, Bell took some practice runs skijoring, which is fancy way of saying he got pulled behind a car going bloody fast.
Earlier this year we showed you a story of a snowboarding getting pulled behind a frozen race track.
Jaguar employed its XE all-wheel drive for the practice runs in Sweden, shown in the video below.
Ian Anderton, thermal and aerodynamics manager, Jaguar Land Rover, said the engineering challenges are extremely unique, but not outside the realm of possibility.
“We kick-started the technical partnership by ski-joring with a Jaguar XE AWD to determine what factors should to be taken into consideration when designing his suit, such as wind, skiing position and chill – especially in minus conditions,” he said in a press release.
“In many ways, it’s very similar to the car design process, necessitating the perfect balance between aerodynamics, engineering and design for ultimate performance.”
The current world record is held by Italian Simone Oregone who reached 156 mph skiing downhill.
Photo credit: Jaguar Land Rover
