There are many elements of SCTA Bonneville Speed Week that really cannot be described as much as they can be experienced. The size and scope of the salt flats is one but the “size” of the event is another. Not so much the sprawling layout of the courses or the pits but the amount of people that are on the salt at any given time. There are times when you are out there and you may as well be the only human being on the planet. Other times it feels as though you are at a massive event with 10s of thousands of people. The real answer is that it is somewhere in the middle. There are always a few thousand people on the salt at any given time between the racers and the spectators but this was not always the case.
This video from the 1950s captures the look of SCTA Bonneville Speed Week 60 years ago. There was a small, dedicated group of racers, no fans, and an equally as dedicated group of SCTA officials keeping order of all the goings ons.
We’re in love with every push vehicle, every belly tank, and every hot rod in this film. One of the things that strikes us as cool is the fact that at this point, the vast majority of stuff you’ll see here are dedicated race cars. This was not “unbolt the fenders and go racing” anymore. Rudimentary understand of aerodynamics, increased availability of horsepower, and outright creative thinking were driving the sport forward into what it is today.
The shapes in the video are not unfamiliar to the salt today. Many of the same style cars are still competing. The construction has advanced, the fit and finish has advanced, and the speeds have advanced but not the cool. These guys had that market cornered.
