Next week Bonneville Speed Week 2013 kicks off and a days on end of the hardest core land speed racing on the planet will commence. It is a venue and sport as unfettered as they come. The salt flats have not been corrupted with asphalt and the sport has not been overrun with corporate money backing the highest performing racers.
We’ll be there all week as a duo for the first time with both Chad and I stationed at ground zero and on the scene. As such we have made plans to bring you the most comprehensive coverage of the event you’ll find anywhere. We’re going to do our damnedest to keep the big news streaming, the photo galleries rolling, and the record breaking passes updated from the surface itself. I can’t hardly contain my own excitement to make my first visit to the great white dyno.
We care about Bonneville lots and for multiple reasons. The history of the place is incredible and to think that racers are turning wheels on the same surface that people did during the dawn of automotive performance, is incredible.
Another reason we care is because the talented man who has built something in his garage is just as capable of taking a record or pushing the speed envelope to previously unknown heights as a more well equipped or financed team. The salt does not know money, it does not know paint color, and the salt discriminates against no one.
It is pure performance. No hype, no t-shirts guns, no nothing outside of who can be the biggest and last dude standing on the Mountain.
So here’s our question to you. Do you care about Bonneville? Tell us why or why not!
You know I do! The cars are varied and amazing but most important to me is the people. I really miss being there this year but plan to be back next year for sure. (Some may not know that I volunteer in the Impound yard). The tyranny of cancer keep me away this year but all goes well and should be back in Bonneville shape by next year.
Favorite Bonneville story: In 2012 (IIRC) I met and got to shake hands with Ed Iskendarian. He’s a small man (may have shrunk with age), grown a bit pudgy in his old age. After years of soaking in coolant and cutting oil, his hands felt exactly like shaking hands with a regular guy wearing a baseball glove.
Dan
Hang in there Dan. You can beat that cancer. LONG LIVE THE SALT !
It sure is! It is the historicall connection we have with drag racing. The cars are unique, for the most part, although I do think the “Safety” rules have gone over the top, as in most forms of racing. I hope to get there someday…
Heck Yea, I am 69, been a Hot Rodder since age 10 but only got to B\’ville finally about 6 years ago. It is just surreal, not to pharaphrase a movie but their really is nuthin like The Smell Nitro in The Mornin, and especially if it\’s daybreak, right on the starting line on the Salt. Or listening to Ed Iskendarian and other Ole Salts telling stories, having a beer at the hotel parking lot in the evening, watching people work on race cars on flat trailers in hotel parking lots like they use to at Indy NHRA Nats in the 60\’s. And. 3 or 4 names painted on the sides of cars like it use to be, just a few guys pooling their limited resources to build a hotrod to go fast. I\’ve unfortunately travel 2,000 miles for 2 rainouts, but it won\’t keep me from trying again this year. Nuthin Like it.
Living in England is expensive and hard to justify to the wife to take our vacation on the salt but i did manage it 2003 and hope to again someday (booking it months in advance and then no racing due to the weather would be a loss of $000s. For me i love it because it\’s the average joe struggling to get there spending all his spare time and cash to chase a dream wether it\’s a 60mph record or 360mph record the salt doesn\’t discriminate
As you get older, and I’m almost 74 and have been a gearhead since I was young, you realize that tradition means a lot in all forms of auto racing. I’m not going to go into why I feel all the other forms of racing are terrible and not worth watching or even commenting on. Bonneville has had to make some changes over the years, but I don’t see it being controlled by greed and corporate America. Yes, there are wealthy folks building and driving cars there than Joe Sixpack could never duplicate, but there is no getting around that. It’s the last bastion of building a car to meet the rules that don’t seem to change month to month and going as fast as you can to get into the record books and get a trophy and a hat. That’s what it’s all about folks.
Wow – have speeds on the sacred salt got so high they have effected the space/time continuum and sent you back to 2031?
Bonneville is sacred to me, both as a place of stunning natural beauty and a place where people from every background and every level of wealth forget all their differences and unite in the sheer joy of speed. Although I will never be able to afford to visit it, the shining salt allows me to share these dreams as your stunning photographs and passionate writing transports me there each year. For that I am eternally grateful my brothers. believe you me!
All you have to do is go there once.
Then you will be hooked.It happend to me and my brother.
I lived an hour and a half away from it my whole life in Slc.
I never went there till i was 39 years old.
Now i go every year.I know its easy for me to say go there because im so close but i think its should be on a car guys bucket list for sure.
Its just that cool!!
The current connection to ‘the old days’ is unmistakeable. Brian, what is ECTA going to do. Haven’t heard a thing.
Every car is different. Even Camaro/ Mustangs etc. vary greatly in their approach. Even the big dogs struggle greatly. Only the Speed Demon seems able to be successful every year. Still they eat tires/diffs/motors like they are free stuff. Nish, Spectre, Burklands, Danny Thompson all struggle.
Yes. Why? Craig Breedlove and his Spirit of America 1 and Spirit of America -Sonic 1 and his AMX. Not to mention Lee Breedlove, his wife, rocking SoA-Sonic 1 to another speed record there as fastest woman alive in 65. Hooked on the salt flats since I was a kid.
It matters.
It gets in your blood and will call to you in your sleep.
Ive meet the best folks in motorsports out there and watched incredible machines do incredible things.
Once you go you will go back. That salt its a hard habit to break..