Its also murderously hot out on the salt. This is the starting line and yes, the salt is so hard and dry that you can burn rubber. But there is still good representation for the form in all shapes and sizes including this rat rod pickup with a connecting rod gear shift. Rat rods peaked out here on the salt flats a couple of years ago it seems. This year we had lots of smoke in the air due to all of the fires consuming the American West. There is a reason that so many companies come out here to shoot commercials as its one, big, sparse and featureless terrain. More Studebakers! This time a 220MPH pickup truck owned and driven by Norris Anderson out of Jamestown, Kansas that I’ve seen out here on the salt for many years. license plate is someone from Jalopy Journal? I wonder if the ride immediately above with the H.A.M.B. Hot rods and classic cars of all types are represented out here on the salt. This raked coupe, owned and driven by Bill Bess out of Tillamook, Oregon looked great on the salt. I’ve always love the Studebaker automobiles out on the salt going back to the bullet nose coupes. So in the weeks before Speed Week begins, crews come out to the salt flats to survey and grade tracks that the racers will drive on. You can imagine what going over this would be like at 427 MPH. The car was moving so fast, it really was hard to believe.īecause these cars are moving so fast, the track has to be carefully prepared.

I was juggling two cameras for this pass, one on the spotting scope and the other, handheld SLR to grab these shots. One of the first cars of the day was Poteet & Main Speed Demon driven by George Poteet which blew past me at 427 MPH on its way to a new record. I got up before dawn and drove down to the salt flats to photograph some of the first runs of the day.

This year, rather than get up at 4am and drive out from Salt Lake, I camped out the night before some ways North at the edge of the Utah Test and Training Range in the hopes of photographing the Perseid meteor showers. Check out those posts for some history on the Bonneville salt flats, Speed Week and more.

Bonneville Speed Week is something that I try and get out as often as I can, though schedules sometimes prevent a showing.

Bonneville salt flats speed week