OK so remember when you were a kid and you thought going 70 mph on the highway felt like flying? Andy Green would like a word.

Andy Green is the british driver who back in 1997 became the first person to break the sound barrier in a car. He drove across the desert floor faster than sound travels through air and if you sit with that fact for even five seconds it gets more and more surreal. a wheeled vehicle. on the ground. faster than sound.

And now he's going back for more.

According to KSAT, Green is heading to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah to attempt a new land speed record. If you've never looked up photos of this place, please stop reading and go do that right now. It is WILD. Just a huge open expanse and it looks like another planet.

OK so the new attempt involves a hydrogen-powered vehicle. HYDROGEN. This man is going back to the salt flats to chase speed records in a car powered by the most abundant element in the universe and I cannot think of anything more sci-fi.

Green has kept setting records since that famous 1997 run, including a hydrogen-powered run where he reached 406.320 mph. So this isn't someone resting on past glory. This is someone who looked at breaking the sound barrier and said "yeah but what else can I do."

land speed racing is one of those sports that feels beautifully human to me. It's people looking at a flat surface and thinking "what if I went REALLY fast across that." no complicated rules, no elaborate strategy, just: make car go fast. Point car that direction. Hold on.

I'll be watching this Utah attempt with my whole chest. The science is fascinating and the setting is stunning and people who refuse to stop chasing the edge of what's possible are exactly the kind of people I want to write about. Go fast Andy. We're all cheering for someone strapping into a rocket on wheels and pointing it at a salt flat and that's a sentence I am delighted to type.