With days 3 and 4 taken up with a very entertaining Pirelli World Challenge event at Miller Motorsports Park it was time to hit the road again on Sunday morning, this time with the unfeasibly talented Camden Thrasher riding shotgun, despite portents of packing doom from some quarters the NISMO 370Z easily swallowed the bags needed for the remainder of the trip and with a route plotted we were off at 5am!!
Why so early? Well because 90 minutes down the road from Salt Lake City is one of the most extraordinary places on earth, and it has an even more extraordinary motorsport heritage. Seeing the Bonneville Salt Flats as dawn broke was a double underlined ‘must do’ on this programme!
I have dreamt of coming to this place since, at the age of four I started to collect the much loved Brooke Bond tea cards, in 1968 it was ‘History of the Motor Car’ and the card I treasured more than any other was the one of Campbell-Railton Blue Bird that was the first to break 300mph at, where else, Bonneville.
In the almost pitch darkness then I had a grin as wide as a Cheshire Cat at the 370Z reached the end of the access road and crunched onto the salt, tiptoing along on the surface, pock marked by traffic to the Raceway and by recent flooding it was very difficult to get my head around the fact that this brilliant white surface was not ice! a half mile or so on and there was a gathering of pick-up trucks, trailers and motorhomes. The racers were already here, and had been for days.
This weekend was due to be the scene of the 2014 Mike Cook Bonneville Shootout for the available FIA and FIM world records with a variety of invited teams gunning for glory.
The weather though failed to co-operate, and there were major dramas for a couple of the fancied runners too.
More of that in a wee while though, first it was time for nature’s drama, sunrise, and Camden was all over this task! A bright pearlescent white NISNO 370Z on a brilliant white surface and the biggest sky in the world – What a canvas, what potential and oh my god what would we do if he missed the shot?
As you can see below – He didn’t!
Sunrise was stunning, the sky lighting up, then illuminating first the salt, then almost immediately the mountains beyond. It was one of those moments you cherish, and one which again prompted me to share the moment with the love of my life.
With action due to commence at 9am there was time to catch up with the assembled runners.
We’ve already explained the absence of the much fancied Challenger II after mechanical woes last week and there was drama of an even more extreme kind for the current piston engined, wheel driven land speed record holding Speed Demon, the 2300bhp small block twin turbocharged Chevy powered streamliner rolling heavily on its first run at high speed, the car left without a single body panel and with heavy damage elsewhere too. Thankfully the driver, George Poteet was back this morning after a night in hospital under observation.
I was allowed to see, but not photograph, the wreck, a sorry sight, but this team, whose record of 439 mph over the flying mile, included a peak speed of an astonishing 462 mph, will be back as they look to break the 500 mph barrier and claim the overall wheel driven record from the turbine engined Vesco Turbinator.
Also in trouble was the achingly beautiful Studebaker streamliner of ARP and Alan Johnson, the team found water in one of the cylinders of the car and the days action was over before it started.
Yesterday though did see several world records broke, the fastest woman on a motorcycle sidecar combination, the fastest electric sidecar combination and the fastest sidecar combination records were all claimed by Eva Håkansson on or rather in her streamliner ‘Killajoule’
Ready to go as we had to leave was the ‘Big Red Camaro’ the team aiming to take their 1969 baby to 250 mph “the fastest first generation Camaro in the world.” Several of the team were at Miller Motorsports Park yesterday to see lawson Aschenbach take the current model to Championship success, the petrol in the blood runs deep in these guys
Watching on with interest was a future British contender, ex Manx TT Racer Gabriel Uttley – the bluff Yorkshireman is deadly serious about breaking the overall motorcycle speed record with his project ‘Angelic Bulldog’ – check out the website for the project – www.angelicbulldog.org.uk – for more on his remarkable story.
The current holders of the out right bike record were first on track this morning, the The TOP 1 Ack Attack with record holding rider Rocky Robinson aboard. They were just tuning up this morning but a high speed run looks likely this weekend, look for news on how close they got to their current 376 mph mark.
Finally there was the simply breathtaking pair of cars of the Mariani team, the owner Dennis Mariani standing by the c.250 mph 1934 Ford Roadster and his brand spanking new streamliner, ready for its first ever run today as the team head towards their eventual goal of 400mph – “Not with this motor though,” said a beaming Dennis Mariani – “It only has 900 bhp!”
Mariani was persuaded into the Bonneville fold by his sons after the passing some years ago of his wife. “They thought it would give me something to do!”
There’s perhaps an irony in where the funding comes from for this effort, Dennis Mariani is a world renowned nut farmer!
He’s also by the way, together with every single person we met on the salt today a perfect ambassador for his sport – That includes, in fact it in particular includes, the event organiser Mike Cook who was happy to fill in yours truly and other Bonneville newbies on lots of the teams, the history and much everything else.
You can truly see why this place, and this part of the sport bewitches people – I had to really drag myself away – and I WILL be back!
Just across the Interstate from the flats and indeed just across the State border into Nevada, is the town of Wendover, famed not just for its role in Land Speed Record legends, or indeed for the seemingly inevitable border town casino, but also as a major hub for the US Airforce’s Heavy Bomber training and development during the second World War.
Before we got there though the trip nearly ended very dramatically. As we ran down the approach road to the airfield there was a single track railroad level crossing. The Nissan was on the crossing when the bell sounded, and the barriers dropped IMMEDIATELY, just missing the car. More astonishing still, as I asked Camden to grab a quick shot, the massive freight train passed, certainly no more than 10 seconds after the bells had sounded!
Before popping into the small airfield museum there was a brief opportunity to sample a small part of Hollywood history, the Fairchild C123 transport plane featured in the movie Con-Air, winner of the 1998 Golden Raspberry Award for “Worst Reckless Disregard for Human Life and Public Property”
This is no ordinary C123 though, the cockpit is completely stripped out and fitted with a huge steering wheel, footbrake and gear shifter, the front wheel driver for ground scenes in the move, it was still pretty cool to see it though!
The museum is small but beautifully put together, the diorama of the base in its heyday shows the amazing scale of the operation, more amazing still though is that the majority of it is still basically intact, a goodly proportion of the barracks hut still stand, some fully restored, as do the original hangars.
Wendover trained heavy bomber and fighter bomber crews before being used as a key part of the preparations for the two atomic bomb attacks on Japan at the end of WWII. If you do visit Daytona this is worth a visit.
Then it was time to make up some ground, on Camden’s suggestion we avoided a reverse journey back up I15 and instead cut across country, an excellent piece of advice, wonderful scenery, the first green hills I’d seen on this trip, and some really very charming rural Utah towns, very old school.
The Nissan was still proving an entertaining travel companion, I even got a written commendation from the Utah State Police to tell me just how good it was!
The end of the day came in Beaver Utah, home of the most inappropriate range of local merchandising I think I’ve ever seen, and home too (according to the massive roadside sign on the approaches to the town) to the nation’s best tasting water – We back to back tested it agains Coca Cola and Heineken and can confirm that it was the best tasting water in our test.
Lots more miles in store tomorrow, and some of the most astonishing scenery in North America too. This is proving to be quite a trip, and the little NISMO 370Z is proving to be a very entertaining travelling companion.
