Bonneville Speed Week

Thank you for sharing these Larry.
My brother has a desire to go to this event as do I.
I shared the thread with him. He's without power today due to the fires in Nor Cal today. He did look at the thread on his phone though and really liked it.
Great pics, what do you shoot with?
 
Really great pics Larry. Bonneville is a hoot. Got a chance to stop by in 1976 and was interested mostly in the motorcycles. Remember this little Honda that set a land speed record at like 87mph and we though, "How could that be" Turns out he had like a three cubic inch engine in it. Also remember these stretch motorcycles where the riders laid down on the top of three Harley engines in a row. Didn't look too comfortable, but man were they quick.

Were you out there with a team, or just visiting?

Best,
-Tim
 
Thanks, guys! My main reason for posting this was to see if I could get some other people to pull some of their photos out of the files, or, at least get some stories coming. Craig Breedlove, Don Vesco, that’s great! I grew up following the Craig Breedlove, Art Arfons year to year duel, which was a huge deal at the time.

And to encourage those who have often thought about going to just find a way some day. It’s worth the effort. I am only a long day’s drive away, but never quite pulled the trigger. This year I was driving to Monterey for the Historics to crew, sort of, for a friend of mine who was going to be running a Le Mans Prototype there. Then I realized Speed Week was going on during my drive over so thought I’d catch a day there on the way over. After the first day, I called my friend and told him I would be a day late to Monterey, so I could stay at Bonneville another day.

These photos just scratch the surface, there are so many opportunities for photos it gets a bit numbing after a while.

I’ve got a copy of “The World’s Fastest Indian” here and have made the family watch it a couple of times. Recommended, as others have said, and pretty realistic.

Will post a couple of more after the World Series game:)
 
Larry, fascinating photos and dialog! I stopped by there in Sept 1970 and took my 1970 Honda 750 out onto the salt which was smooth and hard. Nobody else around then, no Speed Week, so for safety reasons I took it fairly easy speedwise. I shot about 10 photos with my Leica M2 and 35 Summicron but they've not been scanned.

And that cute little Honda 175... I earlier owned a CL175 Scrambler... :)

Oh, and in 1970 there was no speed limit in Nevada, so once across the border my progress to Reno was pretty quick!
 
Larry Cloetta said:

Not usually a fan of alternate versions, but really liked how this one worked out in B&W
Click to expand...

Thank you for ALL your pictures, but this B/W is stunning! Like to have it in big resolution to get a poster out of it.
But in color it is great too, because there's not much color in it.
Nice big picture! Thx for sharing.
 
AlwaysOnAuto said:
Thank you for sharing these Larry.
My brother has a desire to go to this event as do I.
I shared the thread with him. He's without power today due to the fires in Nor Cal today. He did look at the thread on his phone though and really liked it.
Great pics, what do you shoot with?
Click to expand...

These were taken with a Nikon Z7 and Leica 28mm Elmarit-R, Nikon 58/1.4G, or Contarex 180mm/2.8. Strange mix, I know.

It’s definitely out of the way, but you should both go sometime. Worth bearing in mind that, though the dates are fixed on the calendar, they run this “depending on the condition of the salt”, which means you might show up there, and they won’t run. Unlikely, as there is usually sufficient advance warning, but it happens. This year they didn’t run the first two days of the schedule, and they quit running a day early due to conditions. Salt wasn’t ideally dry and hard, and it began breaking up.
That’s another reason I found it remarkable, people drag cars, bikes and motorhomes there from all over the world without even being sure they will get to run or not, or, if they run, if salt conditions will be good enough to actually get into the record books. The lady I referenced earlier, who has been going for a decade and had driven her car down from New Jersey, told me that one year everybody showed up, and conditions were “day to day” and the whole week went by with no runs being done. She said everybody sat around telling war stories day to day, had a good time, then went home and waited till next year.
It’s a very collegial, low key atmosphere; very friendly.
 
mcfingon said:
I'm loving the pictures Larry. You and the Z7 are doing an excellent job. They look like medium format studio shots.
John Mc
Click to expand...

Thanks, John. It’s easy to get nice results out there. The natural lighting mid day is like a huge bank of strobes so it is sort of like shooting in a studio. Direct light from above plus light bouncing off the salt.
 
p81 said:
Thank you for ALL your pictures, but this B/W is stunning! Like to have it in big resolution to get a poster out of it.
But in color it is great too, because there's not much color in it.
Nice big picture! Thx for sharing.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I’d be happy to let you have the TIFF file, but it’s huge and not sure how I’d get it to you, as my email account would probably choke on it, and I’ve never uploaded anything that large to Smugmug.
 

People who are camping on site are well into the spirit of the week.

That’s all I have for now. There may end up being a few more on a C-41 roll that is still in the camera. Normally, I shoot much more film than digital, this just ended up being a digital week for a couple of reasons.
I didn’t see anyone else there with a film camera, with one notable exception. There was someone there, who I don’t think was a professional, who was lugging around an 8x10 K.B. Canham on a tripod. Shooting 8x10 Provia 100. Out of Colorado, he comes every year with the 8x10. He told me he used to shoot around 150 sheets of 8x10 during the week, but he’s cut back to around 80 (!) (80 sheets of 8x10 Provia is $1,200, then there’s the processing and or printing on top of that.) Wish I had gotten his name; took his picture, thought I would run into him later, but never did.

Drove from here to Monterey for the Monterey Historics, but that’s a different story altogether. Maybe later with some of those pix.

Many thanks for all the nice words, everyone.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top