Bonneville Speed Week

Larry Cloetta

Larry Cloetta

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7:25 AM
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Jun 16, 2006
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Wasn't sure where to post this, or if to post it. Not really about Travel, though one has to travel to get there. It's about cars, car people, and maximum car craziness, but there is no Car forum, so am posting it here.

Two reasons for posting, the first is to encourage others who have photos of this event, to post them here. The secondary reason is these photos, just to get people started.

These photos are generally not that great as photos, but am posting this to see photos others might have, and to encourage the "car people" here to make the effort to go to this event some day, because you will not regret it.
Bonneville Speed Week is Burning Man for car people, unlike anything else on the planet.

The photos to follow will not fully capture this event, because being there is, as many others have said, a bit otherworldly, because the Salt Flats are a bit otherworldly. Superimposing this unique event, with these people, on top of the geography, it's something else. Photos can't do it justice, just go someday, if you can.

Bonneville Salt Flats, largest racing venue on the planet at 350 square miles of surface, home of the annual Speed Record attempts every August, is located a few miles outside of Wendover, UT, which is itself in the middle of nowhere.


6:30 A.M. on the road in





Support vehicle close to start line
 

Orange line on the salt is the start line. They run two parallel lines of vehicles, lined up behind the starting line, and each line of racers stretches back about a mile and a half. Starting order is determined by nothing more than when you got in line in the morning. First come, first served. Motorcycle, in front of stock car, in front of streamliner, in front of jet propelled something, totally random. No favoritism, just run what you brung.
 

Starting a run. Dots in the distance are, to the right the "Pits" area which stretches for about a mile and a half or two miles, dots to the left are the tail end of the mile and a half or so of the double line of vehicles lined up, and snaking around to the starting line.
 

There is a class for everything. It is possible to set a world record for anything, because there is a class for that. Honda 50, Jet engine car, doesn't matter. If you think you can set a world speed record, and get your name in the record books, go ahead and try.
 

Racers here from all over the world, spending untold amounts of money and time, and traveling halfway around the world, to attempt to do something no one else has ever done. The prize money: Absolutely nothing. This is amateur sport at it's finest, most obsessed, and nuttiest. Just for the sport, makes absolutely no sense at all if you are "practical". Practical people are somewhere else this week.

Where is this team from? Italy, obviously. che bellissima!
 

Let's go racing. The umbrellas are not for show. Sun is unbelievably bright coming off the salt, and in the afternoon it can get pretty hot.
 

View from the starting line. Object is to stay on the blue line painted on the salt, and stay between the barrels with the timing lights, and, if you are going to flip at 300mph+, try to not take out one of the timing lights because it slows down the event. Which I saw once.
Short course (3 miles long) is overlaid on the Intermediate course (5 miles long), which is overlaid on the Long course (8 miles long). So, what you see here off into the distance is 8 miles of straight blue line followed by a cool down area.
 

The lady who owns the black coupe drove it down from New Jersey. She told me she had been coming every year for the last decade. Some years she runs it, some years she just spectates.
 

Jaguar. Jaguar with a supercharged Buick Straight Eight putting out over 800 horsepower. There's a class for that. I don't know what it is, but there's a class for that.
Not sure what kind of person wakes up one morning and decides to find an old Buick straight Eight, supercharge it, put it in his Jag, and fly it across the Atlantic to see if it can be the fastest ever of what it is. All for no reward outside the doing of it.
The spirit of this place is decidedly beautiful, in a really, really weird way.
 
Wow! Great pix, Larry! Thanks for posting--the last I read--the salt wasn't in that great of shape---that true?
 

It is so bright here that there are dynamic range issues. I have spent much time on white beaches near the equator, but this is by far the brightest place I have ever been. Sunglasses and a hat pretty much mandatory.
 
Paulbe said:
Wow! Great pix, Larry! Thanks for posting--the last I read--the salt wasn't in that great of shape---that true?
Click to expand...

Hi Paul,

Thanks. You're right. They had to postpone the initial day by a couple of days and it still wasn't that great, which kept the speeds down. Relatively.
Too much snow over the winter, just hadn't had time, even by August to have baked it down enough. It was flat, but it was soft. And, bumpier than on a good year.
I had never gone before, but I may try it again next year. It's a completely crazy event, and a lot of fun.
 
Larry - these are splendid - thank you for such a lovely set of photos of such a unique and historic event.

As to the Jaguar - the owner must have been off his rocker to mix an old XJ40 with salt at all!
 
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