Bonneville: Further Offerings to the God of Speed

May 18

May 2020 • By Tony Thacker

On May 16, on their Facebook page, Bill Lattin, President of the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) announced, “We have more good news! Our permits from both Tooele County and the Utah Health Dept., as well as the BLM have all been approved.” He went on to say that the salt conditions looked good and that the salt was drying out after heavy winter rains.

***George Poteet set the fastest speed of the 2019 meet in his Blown Fuel Streamliner ‘Speed Demon’ at 369.533 mph but he was almost 100 mph off his best.***

Of course, things could change. Nature is fickle. In 2019, as we arrived on Thursday night before the annual Speed Week a storm blew through that devastated the fragile surface and shortened the Week to just a couple of days. Some runs were made and George Poteet managed an event top speed of 369.533 mph in his ‘Speed Demon’ but he was way down compared to his usual 450 mph runs.

Nobody else managed to break the 300 mph mark, the closest being Tom Flattery’s astonishing looking, 427 LSX-powered ‘Salt Shark’ at 290.568 mph. The only other teams to hit good numbers were Marlo Triet’s Target 550 driven by bike racer Valerie Thompson who managed 270.762 and the Cummins-Beck-Davidson-Thornsberry ’34 Roadster that hit 243.706 with Dave Davidson driving—at one point he was going backwards—that’s how bad the conditions were. Stewart Bassett, owner of USAutomotive.co.uk and sponsor of the H&H Motorsports’ ’84 Dodge Charger traveled all the way from the UK for his annual taste of salt and said, “It’s the worst conditions I have ever seen in all my years of Bonneville racing.”

Because of the speeds and safety requirements Bonneville is more of a participant sport than spectator sport, that said you can get very up-close and personal with all the vehicles and drivers except when they are on the track. Besides, just the experience of going to this otherworldly environment is worth the trek 120 miles west of Salt Lake City. Put it on yer list.