Pictures from Speed Week (many pictures)

So, I finally got the camera back from my wife so I could pull the pictures off it. If anyone wants pictures of giant asphalt plants from Michigan, I have those too. I could even transcribe the excited narration. But we're looking at a place with no pavement at all right now. The moon. I mean the Bonneville Salt Flats.

I just took pictures of whatever I felt like taking pictures of. The photos reflect what I found interesting. There's no rhyme nor reason here, but I did only capture perhaps 1% of the rat rods in attendance. There were many cooler things to see.

First, hot rods. This one caught my eye because it's real, aged steel. That's bare metal on display. It would be interesting to know what it looks like this week after all that salt! But it was a stark contrast to both the fibreglass rods and the rusty junkers. He probably should fix that door latch.

This is what happens when you buy your own louver press. Love the flames.

The required rat rod shot. I like this one because it shows the amount of salt that gets thrown up on everything. Bonus points for cool door signage.

One seriously mutated bug. Corvair engine, flip-up windshield, great stance and wheel choice. There are some nutbars in the VW community, here is one of them. Licence plate said KDF, from 1948 in Ohio. Cute.

One of the weirder engine bays on what I think is a drag-oriented hot rod. If I've figured it out right, that's a supercharger driven right off the front of the crankshaft. And is that mechanical fuel injection pre-blower?

The car to which the engine belongs. Janel looked at this and exclaimed "We need a trailer like this!" Those are gullwing doors on the car, the driver is sitting on the rear axle.

My favorite vehicle of the whole week. A slingshot bike (quadricycle?).

Okay, now the race stuff. Who says you can't be fast and beautiful?

This one's for Tom Heath, as I seem to recall he has a need for VW Caddys. If memory serves (it was one of the first teams we talked to), this is a turbocharged 2.0 and it was aiming for some very quick speeds. More details than that, I have lost. Sorry.

An oddball from the Triplettes de Bonneville pit, which was full of oddballs. A streamliner powered by compressed air. Those tanks are 125 L in size and have a service pressure of 3600 psi.

Another oddball from the same pit - a 50cc motorcycle. Sorta. It's probably not the quickest vehicle in the competition, but I'll bet it feels very fast.

Since we're on bikes. I have nothing to explain about this one. If I read the Triplettes site correctly, it has a turbo.

Someone is seriously unhinged. That little pad visible on the, umm, rear bulkhead? That's for the driver's helmet. Wow, this thing is nuts.

Hard to believe, but that is a land speed gullwing. Complete with both Mille Miglia numberplate and a Moon Eyes sticker. This one's for the purists, obviously. At the time I took the picture, they were looking for a welder.

Wanna build your own streamliner? "F4 Fantom" tanks for sale, $600 each.

As you can see, access to the cars was very difficult. Janel's checking out a streamliner that I think might have been 4wd although I didn't figure out all the packaging. This was early in the day, before we figured out that anybody would answer any question.

I dunno, that sure looks like a differential and ring/pinion unit to me. Note the narrow track, wide for a streamliner. How these streamliners don't just fall over every time the driver shifts from one cheek to the other, I have no idea.

Fastest car of the event, apparently. Around 360 mph, which is just shy of the world record for a gasoline powered wheel driven car. There's a Caddy 500 buried in there somewhere.

I managed to avoid taking any overall shots of this car, but it was a fresh pro built Barracuda. Check out that plumbing! This was an extremely friendly team who would answer any question, even the unspoken ones as you look at details. I'm surprised they didn't offer to let us sit in the car, although if Janel had spent any longer looking at it they probably would have. If the fluids are set up like the other car in the team, the intercooler tank gets dry ice while the radiator gets ice.

Everything was clearly labeled, right down to the oil capacities on the dry sump. And I have to say, that's some pretty good handwriting with a brush for a quickie label! Most people would have just grabbed a Sharpie.

The engine room of the Cuda. Good for 3000 hp according to one of the builders, but they were running it at low boost and around 1200 (or was it 1800?) hp to shake the car down. I don't know how it eventually did, they were still sorting out a problem with the location of the EGT sender when we were there. The engine reportedly has a six-digit price tag.

And because you have to take pictures of your own car on the flats, here you go. This might give you an idea of the scale of the place, it's a little unnerving.

I have more pictures of all of these cars, so if there's a particular one you want to see more of let me know. I might throw some more shots up later.

So what did the M5 run? :)

Thanks for the pix, Keith! Absolutely fascinating.

I AM SO JEALOUS! I've attended most kinds of motorsports over the past 54 years, everything from local circle track to F1, but have never made it to Bonneville. It was one of the first events I followed in Hot Rod each year, and I keep meaning to go some year, but haven't made it yet. I guess I'd better get my butt in gear and go soon.

So what's the fastest-ever run by a Miata?

Keith wrote: First, hot rods. This one caught my eye because it's real, aged steel. That's bare metal on display. It would be interesting to know what it looks like this week after all that salt! But it was a stark contrast to both the fibreglass rods and the rusty junkers. He probably should fix that door latch. One of the weirder engine bays on what I think is a drag-oriented hot rod. If I've figured it out right, that's a supercharger driven right off the front of the crankshaft. And is that mechanical fuel injection pre-blower? Hard to believe, but that is a land speed gullwing. Complete with both Mille Miglia numberplate and a Moon Eyes sticker. This one's for the purists, obviously. At the time I took the picture, they were looking for a welder. Everything was clearly labeled, right down to the oil capacities on the dry sump. And I have to say, that's some pretty good handwriting with a brush for a quickie label! Most people would have just grabbed a Sharpie.

Early Ford doors overlap the body until 1932 when we get "modern" style flush fitting doors.

That engine has multiple Stromberg 97 carbs, not mechanical fuel injection. They are a favorite among traditionalist. And yes, Moon Equipment and others sold a crank driven blower setup.

That Gullwing has been racing since it was new and has been a regular visitor to the Salt since the '60s.

Sharpie is to be avoided for anything that has to last. Any contact with fuel will remove it.

I've been to Speedweek 13 times since 1988. It's always been fun whether I'm spectating, crewing or driving.

The blower setup is called a Potvin. Driven right off the crank. Popular in the early 50s, but became obsolete later once people figured out that the boost was 1:1. You can't changing it by swapping pulleys and belts.

Great pix Keith! I can never get enough Bonneville pix!

Love the hot rods and that volksrod makes me wish i'd get laid off for a few months so i'd have time to chop my bug apart...

Keith wrote: S Someone is seriously unhinged. That little pad visible on the, umm, rear bulkhead? That's for the driver's helmet. Wow, this thing is nuts.

Hey! That's an internet-buddy of mine. That's triumph-powered, in the vintage pushrod class I think. He just posted on our forum that he destroyed both the Gas and Fuel records by around 20mph each! He was running between 120-125mph on the salt. He also holds records at El Mirage in Cali... its a serious grassroots affair. He had to sell his welder to pay for gas to make it to the salt, then ended up spending that money to change classes to grab the Fuel record...

I need to make the Salt Flats pilgrimage part of my bucket list.

Thanks for the pics, Keith!

The M5 was not allowed to play Not by the authorities, but by Janel. Our different cars run under different rules. If I'd wanted to run the Targa Miata (disappointing the entire crowd and being passed by a nutbar on a red Triumph-powered roller skate), I could have.

Fastest Miata? Well, one of our customers has a 130 mph timeslip from Bonneville in the standing mile. Yes, yes, many people have driven faster on the street. But he's the only one with an official timeslip that I know of. Elvis is geared for 305 mph...

I'll put some more pictures up later.

More pictures! Not because anyone asked for them, but because this keeps me from pestering Janel with "hey, remember this car?"

Cool.

This is a Saab. Of course it is. And it is front wheel drive. We both enjoyed the tennis balls being used to keep the salt out of the exhausts.

It really is a live-action car show. This is a nice, but not totally atypical, example of a car used for support purposes.

A rear view of the Potvin-blown rod. Those nacelles for the rear lights were beautifully cut to match the curve of the body, then tack-welded into place and the welds left to rust. I don't quite get hot rods sometimes. But as a piece of art, it was notable.

Parked next to the slingshot rod was this beast. It had obviously seen quality salt time driving around, while the other was for static display only. I'm not sure how you'd characterize this, but it's got a sprint car vibe to it and tires wide enough that it would probably drive on water.

The intake on the sprint car rod. Is it just me, or would air rushing over the ends of these tubes cause a drop in pressure? Nice workmanship though! This was a nice piece of work overall.

More Volksrod. One of the standouts of all the hot rods driving around.

Streamliner guts with a fair crowd. There was an Italian group of tourists standing nearby - that's not something I'd expected. There were racers from all over the world, but tourists?

Data acquisition on the streamliner - front suspension movement.

How do you move your speed demon around? Almost nothing was being driven in the pits but support vehicles. The racers would get pulled or pushed by a support truck. Some guys used hot rods for pushers, some used motorhomes. The start line was a fair distance from here - I spent some time standing between mile markers 4 and 5 on the long course.

There's a little bit of the Burning Man vibe here. All sorts of devices were trailered in and then driven around on the flats, the only place they're allowed to play. The website for the Radical Flyer says it isn't a trailer queen, but I didn't see any plates.

Great pics! I can't wait to see more.

By [URL=http://profile.imageshack.us/user/weslake]weslake[/URL] at 2010-07-17

I'm the seriously unhinged person. Just wanted to say it helps no end when it comes to riding "Screwball" the sidecar (So named by a friend who declared it "an effin screwball idea").

Keith wrote: How do you move your speed demon around? Almost nothing was being driven in the pits but support vehicles. The racers would get pulled or pushed by a support truck. Some guys used hot rods for pushers, some used motorhomes. The start line was a fair distance from here - I spent some time standing between mile markers 4 and 5 on the long course.

That's the rules. Competition vehicles are not allowed to move under their own power anywhere except the actual course. Even the return road is off-limits.

Obiwan wrote: http://profile.imageshack.us/user/weslake I'm the seriously unhinged person. Just wanted to say it helps no end when it comes to riding "Screwball" the sidecar (So named by a friend who declared it "an effin screwball idea").

Fixed the link there. That thing is seriously awesome, BTW

Obiwan, your sidecar was exactly the sort of thing I wanted to see at Speed Week. Something way out in left field that serves no other purpose than to go as fast as possible, from a clean sheet of paper. And congrats on the record!

modernbeat, thanks for the inside scoop. Speed Week isn't really all that newbie-friendly, other than the willingness of the crews to explain everything and anything. It's the sort of event where having a mentor/guide/guru with you would add a whole extra dimension.

BTW, the M5 is speed limited to 155 mph. Based on the way it's still pulling hard at 130, I don't doubt this at all. But that's no fun on the salt.

Keith wrote: modernbeat, thanks for the inside scoop. Speed Week isn't really all that newbie-friendly, other than the willingness of the crews to explain everything and anything. It's the sort of event where having a mentor/guide/guru with you would add a whole extra dimension.

I'll agree with that. My first time I stumbled upon it accidentally. I was on a motorcycle trip from Houston to Portland. I was eating lunch in a cafe in Colorado Springs and picked up a HotRod magazine to read. They had a list of upcoming events and Speed Week was one of them. I drove to Wendover that night and never made it to Oregon. I was lucky that I was alone and made friends easy. I was only 18 and made a lot of instant friends that toured me around and I stuck with one underdog crew that needed some manpower.

thanks for the pics keith, those are very cool. so any talk next year of elivs or your rally car being taken out for some fun?

Great photos! Every single thing about that place looks fantastic. The ingenuity, the insanity, the sheer coolness of most all the machines...etc.

there is so much creativity there...why oh why cant the big 3 send some of their design folks out there to just soak some of it up?

Anyway, thanks Keith, thats good stuff...I liked the "first M on the moon" shot, nice

Keith, Can you post a link to your photobucket account so we can see more?

Thanks for sharing the great pics! The description with each pic was a good touch. It made it more enjoyable to know what I was looking at (like knowing the Saab was still front drive).

Thanks for the pics. Very nice. I too would like to make it out there one day.

Any pics of the blue RX7 done by that japanese tuner DANDY? A guy i met at tokyo auto salon was supposed to be heading down there to hang out with em, and I heard the car is currently a total loss.

That's actually a VolkVairRod...

...I am pretty sure that was the same guy who posted on a Corvair forum looking for cooling advise. The engine has no shrouding around it and we were a bit concerned it would overheat. Looks like he made it.

Obiwan wrote: By [URL=http://profile.imageshack.us/user/weslake]weslake[/URL] at 2010-07-17 I'm the seriously unhinged person. Just wanted to say it helps no end when it comes to riding "Screwball" the sidecar (So named by a friend who declared it "an effin screwball idea").

Welcome! And congrats on the records, dude! That thing is seriously cool.