Bonneville Speedway

Bonneville Speedway (also known as the Bonneville Salt Flats Race Track) is an area of the Bonneville Salt Flats northeast of Wendover, Utah in the United States, that is marked out for motor sports. It is particularly noted as the venue for numerous land speed records. The Bonneville Salt Flats Race Track is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Available racing surface is much reduced with just available

Track layouts

thumb|left|[[Salduro, Utah|Salduro is a ghost town located on the south boundary of Bonneville Speedway, next to the Western Pacific Railroad. Salt Lake City newspapers ran an advertisement in 1914 for a special train to Salduro where the "fastest machines in the world will compete for the world's record on the famous salt beds, which afford the finest races in America. No dust." Salt Lake City mayor Samuel C. Park and Utah Governor William Spry attended. A rest area on Interstate 80 was built on the former settlement, and a plaque there commemorates the land speed records.]]

Historically, the speedway was marked out by the Utah Department of Transportation at the start of each summer. Originally, two tracks were prepared; a long straightaway for speed trials and an oval or circular track for distance runs, which was typically between long depending on the condition of the salt surface.

Since at least the 1990s, track preparations have been the responsibility of the event organizers. Days or weeks in advance, the track preparers identify an area best suited for their track layouts and begin grading the tracks. Surveyors are brought in to survey the timing trap distances. A day before racing begins, the track markers are added.

Originally, the straightaway was marked with a broad black line down its center. This was eventually changed to lines down either side, as the center line wore out too quickly. As the costs for painting the lines has gone up, organizations have switched to flags and cones as track markers. The last event to use black lines was Speed Week, August 2009.

The number of tracks and the timed sections for each track are set according to what is most beneficial for each event. Large public meets such as Speed Week run as many as four tracks with several timed miles, usually starting with the second mile and running to the fifth mile. Smaller meets that typically only run world record attempts will utilize a single track, with one timed mile and one timed kilometer in the middle of the track. Additional marks and cones indicate the end of the track and the position of timing equipment.

Deteriorating track conditions

thumb|[[Bureau of Land Management|BLM interpretive sign at the Bonneville Salt Flats Rest Area on westbound Interstate 80, September 2015]]

The annual Speed Week was cancelled in both 2014 and 2015, as were many land-speed racing events, due to deteriorating track conditions. and Bonneville Nationals Inc. organize Speed Week, the largest meet of the year, which attracts several hundred drivers who compete to set highest speed in a range of categories. Bonneville Speed Week has been taking place since 1949.

In late August, the Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trials are held.

thumb|thumbtime=2|USFRA Test-n-Tune event in 2024

In September each year is the World of Speed, (similar to Speed Week) organized by the Utah Salt Flats Racing Association (USFRA). The USFRA also hosts a "Test-n-Tune" event in the summer prior to the World of Speed.

In October, the Southern California Timing Association puts on World Finals, a scaled-down version of Speed Week. This event tends to have cooler weather and often drier salt than Speed Week does. There are less spectators and it tends to draw serious racers, as this event is the last chance to break a land speed record and be in the SCTA record book for that year.

Each year, there are usually a few private meets that are not publicized scattered among the larger public meets.

Land speed records

Numerous land speed records in various vehicle categories and classes have been set on the Bonneville speed way. In 1960, Mickey Thompson became the first American to break the barrier, hitting and surpassing John Cobb's 1947 one-way Land speed record of . Other notable examples of Bonneville speed records include:

thumb|right|Gabelich's [[Blue Flame (car)|Blue Flame, December 2004]]

thumb|right|Dick Beith's Pepco Supercharged VW Lakester, August 1963

{| class="wikitable sortable"

! Year !! Driver !! Vehicle !! Speed mph !! Speed km/h !! Class (category) !! Notes

| 1935 || Sir Malcolm Campbell || Blue Bird ||301.129||484.620 || [data needed] ||

| 1947 || Don Waite || The Edelbrock Special ||192||309 || [data needed]||

| 1954 || George J Smith || Harley-Davidson knucklehead ||152.02||244.652 || [data needed]|| Modified 91 ci knucklehead / alcohol

| 1963 || Craig Breedlove|| Spirit of America ||407.447||655.722 || [data needed]||

| 1963 || Dick Beith|| Pepco 36 hp VW Lakester ||129.68||208.700 ||K36 Unlimited || Pepco supercharged 36 hp based engine in a "Lakester" style car fashioned from a WWII aircraft belly tank

| 1964 || Art Arfons || The Green Monster ||434.022||664.694 ||[data needed]||

| 1965 || Craig Breedlove|| Spirit of America — Sonic 1 ||600.601||966.574 ||[data needed]||

| 1967 || Burt Munro|| Indian Scout V-Twin||184.037||296.179 ||under 1,000 cc||

| 1970 || Gary Gabelich|| Blue Flame||622.407||1001.67 ||[data needed]||

| 1971 || Warner Riley || Harley-Davidson Sportster||206.544||332.400 || APS-AF 2000|| S&S Modified 96 ci Sportster/nitromethane

| 1985 || Dan Kinsey || Tenacious Streamliner||276.51||444.999 || S-F 2000|| S&S Modified 114 ci shovelhead/nitromethane

| 1991 || Dan Kinsey || Tramp III Harley-Davidson||226.148||363.949 || APS-AF 2000|| S&S Modified 114 ci Evolution big twin/nitromethane

| 2001 ||Don Vesco||Vesco Turbinator — Turbine Engine||458.443||737.395 ||[data needed]||

| 2004 ||R. Schroer||Buckeye Bullet — Electric Vehicle ||314.958||524.930 ||[data needed]||

| 2006 ||Andy Green||JCB Dieselmax — Diesel Streamliner||350.092 ||563.418 ||FIA A-III-13|| World's Fastest Diesel

| 2006 ||Laura Klock||Harley-Davidson Road Glide||143.659 ||231.197 ||MPS-PF 3000|| "World's Fastest Bagger"

| 2007 ||Erika Cobb||Buell Blast||107 ||172.2 ||MPS-PG 500||

| 2018 ||Shigeru Yamashita|| Kawasaki Ninja H2 || 209.442 || 337.06 || P-PB 1000 || Fastest street-legal production motorcycle

| 2020 || George Poteet || Speed Demon 715 streamliner || 470.733 || 757.571 || AA/BFS || 557 CI twin-turbo Chevy

|}

Cycling records

thumb|right|A [[Suzuki Hayabusa at Bonneville Speedway, September 2009]]

Several motor-paced racing speed records have been attempted at Bonneville.

In 1985, American cyclist John Howard set a then world record of .

On 15 October 1995, Dutch cyclist Fred Rompelberg achieved , using a special bicycle behind a dragster with a large shield.

In 2016, Denise Mueller-Korenek claimed a women's bicycle land speed record at . She was coached by Howard. It is not clear which authority was supervising the record attempt.

In 2018, Mueller-Korenek broke her own women's record and the men's record at a speed of .

In popular culture

In the 2003 film The Brown Bunny, Bud Clay races his motorcycle at the speedway.
In the 2005 film The World's Fastest Indian, Burt Munro and his highly modified Indian Scout motorcycle sets a world record.
In the 2015 series finale episode of Mad Men, Donald Draper drives a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS muscle car in the races at Bonneville Speedway.

References

Utah Salt FlatsRacing Association
Southern California Timing Association/Bonneville Nationals, Inc.
"One Out Of Three Smashes Up." Popular Mechanics, August 1954, pp. 65–70/240, see page 70.

External links

Speed Record Club

fr:Bonneville Speedway