(Photos by Wes Allison) While there have been some amazingly impressive streamliners at Bonneville in the past decade, including some that threw down numbers nobody expected, there is no arguing with the fact that the Speed Demon team has been the team to beat when it comes to the single fastest run at Bonneville Speed Week. Why does this matter? Well, there are two things that the fastest cars on the salt are going for. Records, as you’d expect, and the single fastest run which is what counts for the Hot Rod Magazine Trophy. And George Poteet loves records, but he absolutely worships having his name on the Hot Rod Trophy. With last year’s fastest run being just over 470 mph, Speed Demon not only set big records, but also showed everyone that they came to win. Well this year there has been nobody in the 400 mph range yet and that means the chase for the Hot Rod Trophy is wide open. In fact, Speed Demon isn’t even in the top two right now, with Danny Thompson and Mike Strasburg being two of the fastest cars on the salt so far. Thompson is driving the Ferguson Racing streamliner, which is arguably one of the prettiest ever to grace the salt, and he’s running it in B Fuel Streamliner at over 350 mph. We have a feeling there is a bunch more coming, but remember it is NOT supercharged. Naturally aspirated on Nitro baby! Remember, we’ve got a great gallery of photos below but if you missed any of our previous photos then use the link below.

We promised you all the photo coverage you have come to expect from Bonneville Speed Week here at BANGshift.com. For the past 10 years, we’ve been providing you with more photos from the salt than anyone else, and we are not going to stop now. The number of photos shot today alone is staggering, but we’ll make sure you get to see them all through the coming week as we bring you at least one gallery per day, and some days even more! And if you missed any of our previous galleries, just CLICK THE LINK BELOW and you’ll be able to see them all.

This is a magical time of year, as my friend Keith Turk would say, and since he’s got more 200 mph club memberships than anyone else on Earth, I think he’s a pretty spectacular judge. Don’t you? And since I have been the first car down the long course at Bonneville, just after sunrise on a particularly beautiful Sunday morning, I can tell you that there is no place like it and that’s a good thing. Bonneville is a party, a race, a history lesson, a family reunion, and so much more. It pains me to say that I am not going to be on the salt this year, but with everything going on we thought it smart to just send one guy and keep things simple. You know, like all the years I covered Bonneville all by myself for a week. Only with a better photographer, because Wes Allison is a badass. And we can’t wait to see everything he captures from the SCTA/BNI Speed Week at Bonneville!

We already posted a gallery from last nights Nugget Car Show kickoff party and we’ll have more and more galleries coming throughout the week. We will likely be running more than one gallery per day for the first few days at least, just like you have come to expect from us. We’ll have on track, in the pits, and car show photos from the entire event.

This year promises to be an amazing year at Bonneville with all kinds of new cars making their debut and some old cars coming back out for the first time in years. Plus, the piston engine and wheel-driven all-time records are being aimed at with everything people can throw at them this year. We’ll see how the salt is, but we’re hoping for some big things this year at Bonneville. Who will come out on top as the fastest of Bonneville? Who will take home the famed Hot Rod Trophy? George Poteet wants his name on it again. But so do all the Team Vesco gang! So who’s going to be the top dog? We’ll just have to see how the week pans out.

As we say, this is our first gallery of photos from the salt and we’ll have tons of them coming throughout the week as Wes shoots everything he can point a camera at.

IF YOU MISSED ANY OF OUR PREVIOUS GALLERIES, CLICK THIS LINK!