Story and Photos by Jim Luning
For a car nut of any sort, the Salt Flats of Wendover, Utah–and specifically Speed Week at Bonneville–are bucket-list destinations. The words “Bonneville” and “Salt Flats” instantly conjure images of cars with wild shapes, insane horsepower and equally dizzying speeds…
EDIT
In reply to z31maniac :
Which links are broken?
"Read the rest of the story" was originally returning a 404 error for me.
Now it seems to be working. Which is good, I wanted to read the rest of the story. :)
Glad it fixed itself. Not sure what happened there. Enjoy!
Very cool read, exactly why this is my favorite temple of gear. 1,800hp to the flywheel and it runs for more than a 1/4 mile at a time. Built by a GRM dude who picked it up on the cheap and built it by hand.
This is on my gear head bucket list near Pikes Peak and I'm most conflicted as it seems like a great place to run one of my toys rather than be a spectator... I did manage to check off running the Nurburgring last year and attending the Singapore F1 night race the year before.
Progress is slow but enjoyable.
In reply to 84FSP :
If you really want to run at Bonneville, check the rules and requirements. Without a doubt, you will find a class to run your car in- that's not the issue. It's more about what the safety requirements are for the class you want to run in.
Like the featured car probably has a NHRA cage wrapped around the driver. Seems like most cars that can clear 200mph are like that.
Still, I've never been anywhere else where creativity and skill are celebrated with so many cool cars. The Challenge is awesome, no doubt. But this is quite different.
When you have a chance to see a car streak by at 400mph, it's pretty special.
That is one of my favorite issues of the mag. I always dug the wing cars, and that one is really something. Guy I got my 914 from iss a big Mopar guy. He had some cool cars, a couple of Superbirds and a couple Daytonas, a hemi Roadrunner convertible that paid for his house. He still has a decent number of cars, but does not have to rent space to store them.
How is the torque figure so low? I'd think an engine making 1800hp at 7200 rpm would come with a lot more than 490 torques. What am I missing?
In reply to thatsnowinnebago :
Correctomundo, 1800/7200*5252 = 1313 lb-ft torque at 7200 RPM. That 490@4000 is waaaay below the torque peak.
We took our 2015 Subaru Outback with a huge (20 cu. ft. Sears) rooftop carrier on top of it out there on the salt.
With 4 of us in the car, it started feeling light at about 94 MPH - so I said "I'm going to back off". My wife and kids all said "Good idea". I had been to about 101 MPH on asphalt in another place along our cross country trip. The salt is a bit sketchy, like driving on wet sand - a feeling similar to when your car is starting to hydroplane on a wet racetrack.
The salt is damp in places - and it sticks all over the bottom & fender wells of the car. Luckily we drove about 4 hours in the rain a couple of days later. Pressure washing with fresh water made me feel better about it.
It's quite an experience. I hope to someday go back there with my 1st Ge. MR2 and get just over 100 MPH.
Maybe more if I can rebuild the car for the purpose.
"My love of speed is like a truck- BERSERKER!"
"My nitro V-8 is ticking tock-BERSERKER!"
"Breaking records is sucking berk-BERSERKER!"
I will get out there one day. It's on my list.
At first I thought the title said “Bonneville Berkleyer”.
You'll need to log in to post.
