Bonneville Salt Flats

Up early and on the road at 6.30am we were excited to be heading to Bonneville Speedway, our aim being to get there early for the start of Speed week before the day got too hot.  But 7 miles out of town while doing 75mph, we had a blow-out on the right front.  The delay saw us reach the salt flats at 11am so we plastered ourselves with 50+ sunblock and crunched our way through the pits.  The salt looked like ice but was very grippy and stuck to everything.  There were cars of all shapes and sizes, standard street types, big rocket looking dragsters and motorbikes.  We viewed the start line and tech inspection areas and then decided to see how long the pits actually were.  The air con in the truck was very welcoming as we cruised the 6 mile length of pits!  People had their RV’s and trailers set up all along the edge of the race track, with shelters covering their homemade garage dreams.  The men huddled over engines while the women prepared American hot dogs for lunch.  The rat rods were there along with the rednecks and their pickups, one lot had a stuffed fox sitting on the roof.  As far as the eye could see there were cars and tow wagons and when they left the start line it wasn’t long before they disappeared into the white distance.  The heat made the bottom edges of the mountains dance up off the land.  We admired the Americans and their love of automobiles; street cars, classic cars, vintage cars, rat rods, muscle cars……they were all there getting covered in salt but being used and enjoyed.
It was also awesome to think that after spending months or even years in a shed tinkering away, many people were there realising their dreams, just like Burt Munro and his Indian.