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The Why Factor: Speed

Powerboats racing

11/02/2019 GMT

Speed

BBC World Service - The Why Factor, Speed

Why do we like to go fast – why are we so taken with speed?

Caz Graham finds out why speed plays such an important part in modern life – from world records on water, roller-coaster experiences, and fast cars in Formula One racing.

We live in a world where going fast – and faster – is an everyday fact of life. Where fast cars, fast boats and fast athletes command our attention. 
In theme parks we queue for the most fastest, most exciting rides.  But why do we find speed so thrilling?  

Caz Graham meets people who risk their lives to set world speed records, the boss of a Formula One race team, and a sports psychologist to ask – why are we so taken with speed?

What motivates people like Formula 1 or speed boat drivers to stretch themselves to the limits of what might be dangerous? Do we like scaring ourselves? 
 
Caz visits the annual Coniston Power Boat Records Week in the English Lake District to meet the  teenager who hopes to break a world water speed record and she hears of the risks that going at speed on water can entail.  She hears from a ‘thrill engineer’ about why people like to ride roller-coasters.  From the psychologist who worked with the UK’s Olympic cycling team in 2016, Caz hears what it takes psychologically to be able to want to go faster and faster.  And from the man in charge of Renault’s Formula One team she discovers the engineering effort that goes into designing fast cars – and what it takes to be the driver of such cars as they race around high speed tracks.

(Photo: Zapcat powerboat racing, Fistral Beach, Newquay, Cornwall, UK. Credit: Education Images/UIG/Getty Images)

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