Salt racing in Bolivia

[studemax]

Speed Trials Bolivia (boliviaspeedtrials.com)

Quite a number of Americans have traveled to the Salar De Uyini to set records and have a South American adventure. They are gearing up again...

[DanStokes]

Interesting - but WAY out of my price range! Hope they have a great meet. I wonder why they're limiting the entries at such a low number - seems like it would be cheaper to spread the costs among more entrants.

[studemax]

Who knows? Might have something to do with the Bolivian gubmint? I suppose it could be any number of reasons.

I think John Goodman or Bob "Stainless" Steele went a couple years back? I can't recall.

Do you know either of them? John went to Lake Gairdner in Australia probably two decades ago and set some records with his G/Lakester.

[Captain]

At just Short of 12,000 ft above Sea Level........
besides Altitude Sickness, and beyond the max level of
Most Civilian Aircraft, ......
Dailing In your Air Fuel Ratio is going to be a Challenge for
Any Carburetor Class.

[studemax]

At just Short of 12,000 ft above Sea Level........
besides Altitude Sickness, and beyond the max level of
Most Civilian Aircraft, ......
Dailing In your Air Fuel Ratio is going to be a Challenge for Any Carburetor Class.

What's your point?

[Captain]

What's your point?

Tough place to set a New Speed Record..
Don't you have to Beat the Existing Record by 10% ?

Jet, Rocket, cars will have an advantage.
And the less dense and humid Air the Speed of Sound
Could happen in the Rocket Cars Class.....just at lower speeds.

Just Saying.......

[studemax]

Captain, thank you - but it's obvious you know nothing about land speed racing... ALL places where land speed records are set are tough places to race. Are you aware that there are far more people who have climbed Mt. Everest than have gone over 200MPH? Those going faster than that - especially the 400 plus up to the speed of sound is really small - fewer than 5 currently alive.

As to setting records, it's never been 10%..The percentage varies according to which outfit is setting the rules for the event, but it's most often around 1% or lower. Almost no one runs jet or rocket cars, especially in Bolivia. And the guys who do end up going down there are not newbies. They are old salt dogs who know the score, having run at Bonneville which is at 4200 feet elevation.

I suggest you check out landracing.com to educate yourself on land speed racing. It's not just Guinness Record Book crap. There are hundreds of classes - some that run less than 100MPH. You know, about your speed.

[DanStokes]

Let's be kind to Captain. There was a time not all that long ago when I knew little of LSR other than what was published on the back page of My Weekly Reader.

Captain - Stude has a point. The tracks are so varied that each keeps their own record books and a record at one track is not a record at another. For example, with all the moving ECTA has done the records from each venue are kept separate and the records from the facilities no longer in use are sealed. So I have ever-lasting records from Maxton and Wilmington OH. I expect the guys who are running Mutt these days to break my Arkansas records and no doubt they will as they find a bit more power here and there.

As far as the Bolivia records - also a separate set of record books so every record was set at that altitude. No doubt the teams will do a ton of tuning to try to get as close as possible to their Bonneville (or other) records but everybody is in the same boat at the same time.

The only exception to the "one track, one set of records" rule is the ultimate fastest car in the world. There there are only 2 classes - wheel driven and reaction engine (think Jet). This is a really specific bunch with cost no object, etc. Andy Greene, those kind of people. People also like to make claims of "fastest piston-driven car on earth" or "fastest Ford-powerd car on earth" etc but I don't know of any organization actually keeping track of those records. I might have built the fastest Mercedes OM617 powered vehicle on earth but unless someone disputes the claim with a timing slip in hand I can say it but it doesn't mean much. (In fact, there IS a faster guy out in CA).

As far as breaking a record: If you go .001 MPH faster than the previous speed you have set a record for that track. Now getting into the 200 MPH Club, especially at Bonneville, is a whole 'nother issue. The Bonneville 2 Club is a separate group and if they think a record in a specific class is "soft" (easily broken) they'll assign a minimum speed required to get into the Club in that class. Their Club, their rules. As Stude pointed out, there are at least 600 car/truck classes and over 1,000 motorcycle classes so picking a class and building to that classes requirements is a really critical aspect of LSR.

Hope this is now all as clear as mud.

[Captain]

Thank You for Setting Me Straight.

[DanStokes]

Thank You for Setting Me Straight.

Not sure how straight that was.... LSR is a lot more complicated than folks think it is. There are basically 2 kinds of rules - safety and class.

The safety rules are, as they say, written in blood and that's not much of an exaggeration. If something goes wrong the safety group will analyze the event and try to determine if it could have been prevented. If yes, a new rule is worked over and eventually adopted.

As far as the class rules there is a structure of firstly engine size and configuration. You have to designate the displacement (they check it at the end of the meet at Bonneville) and whether running gas of fuel (N2O is fuel), as well as whether or not the engine is NA or blown. Other than that nobody cars what camshaft, how many carbs, etc. you're running - that's up to you. Also a part of the class rules is the body class. Is it a roadster, streamliner, lakester, etc. All of these are carefully spelled out in the rule book. My job at Bonneville was to check the "body cert" to make sure that the body met class requirements and I also checked the cars running gas classes to make sure their fuel tanks were sealed so that nobody could have slipped fuel into the tank.

Like I said - complicated!