I'm just laying out some of the factors that worked against me as I attempted to hit 200 mph on the massive slab in the new Bentley Continental Supersports. The surface is uniform, but it's crosshatched with grooves, the friction meant to slow 165,000 pounds of Shuttle recently returned from orbit.
Kennedy Space Center is the third-longest runway in the United States, you wouldn't want to ride a skateboard across it. Standing in the middle is enough to give you agoraphobia.īut while the Shuttle Landing Facility at John F. The crown of the pavement puts the centerline two feet higher than the shoulders. It's wide, too, a regulation football field from edge to edge. Designed as a landing strip for the Space Shuttle, the concrete slab measures nearly three miles long, not counting the tarmac overrun at either end. The runway is straight and flat, but it's not smooth.