It has been more than a decade since there has been a legitimate slug fight for the coveted Hot Rod Top Time Trophy at Bonneville Speed Week AND wheel driven speed record at the same time. Sure, there have been plenty of dramatic battles for the Hot Rod Trophy, and there have been some incredibly fast streamliners with the “potential” to go out and hammer all the records, but this year is going to be special. The 65th running of Bonneville Speed Week will provide the platform for the return of Team Vesco and their mighty Turbinator as well as the streaking and shrieking Speed Demon streamliner of Ron Main and George Poteet. Both of these vehicles have been well over 400mph during their time on the salt.

In the case of the Turbinator, it has spent several years away from the salt. The original pilot, Don Vesco passed away from cancer in 2002 and will be replaced by Bonneville 200mph club, 300mph chapter member Dave Spangler. This is an machine that is classified as a T3 or Turbine 3 machine. Turbine 3, roughly translated means that it is the biggest, heaviest, most powerful turbine class. Power comes from a Lycoming T55 engine that is rated at somewhere around 4,500hp. The streamliner is also all wheel drive.

The car is (like all streamliners) an engineering wonder. To package all of the equipment, the four wheel drive system, driver, and everything else tech demands into such a small space requires thinking that is way, way outside the box. Turbinator stands as the words fastest wheel driven car right now with a Bonneville record of 427.832 MPH. (Not to confuse the situation, but the car does hold an FIA record of 458.451 MPH – we’re talking SCTA records here so the 427 is the number to concentrate on). Reportedly the Vesco team was motivated to break the four year streak of Poteet and Main winning the Hot Rod Top Time Trophy. They are also motivated by the goal of trying to be the first wheel driven car to go 500-mph. That is absolutely bat shit nuts, for those of you playing at home.

On the other side of the docket we have the famed Speed Demon of Ron Main and George Poteet. With turbocharged power provided by Kenny Dutweiler, these guys have the fastest piston driven car on planet Earth and they have been the dominant force regarding that piston driven field for some time. Like the Turbinator, they are also shooting to be the fastest team that uses wheel driven power to motivate the car down the salt. Their accomplishments are well known. Although they run in a completely different class than the Turbinator, all eyes will be on these two machines as they both have the potential to reset the “Wheel Driven Land Speed Record”. There’s no class for that, but the bragging rights are pretty damned good.

The Speed Demon’s shape is one of near Puritanical simplicity. Slab sides, a rounded canopy and a lone snorkel to feed that incredibly powerful Dutweiler turbo engine, finally there’s a fin jutting up into the breeze at the rear of the car. This stands in stark contrast to the Turbinator which has a much more fluid shape with curves, flairs, and bends in its new carbon fiber body too complex and numerous to count.

Poteet and Main have the fastest piston powered, wheel driven car in the world with the Speed Demon. In 2012, the team set a record of 422.509 in its class while running a 300ci engine. They saw a terminal velocity of 430mph out of that combo, which if memory serves correct was using their “small” motor.

So given all of their differences, the cars both hold records within five mph of one another. That’s amazing and total proof that there’s more than one way to skin this land speed racing cat. Our goal during Bonneville Speed Week 2013 is to bring you the most comprehensive news and photo coverage possible. When something cool happens, you’ll hear about it first at BangShift and we’ll do our best to follow as many of these great story lines as we can during our time at the event.

If you are looking at this event as a prize fight, the main event is the battle between Team Vesco and the Poteet and Main gang. The Vescos have privately stated that they want to keep the Hot Rod Magazine Top Time Trophy out of the hands of the Speed Demon crew. We’ll pay close attention to see whether or not that happens. If there is one thing better than Bonneville, it is Bonneville with two heavy duty pieces of iron slugging it out until the end of the week.

Welcome to Speed Week 2013!