![]() deep and covering more than a third of Utah some 17,000 years ago, receded and evaporated. ![]() The salt flats were created when Lake Bonneville, more than 1,000 ft. ![]() In the last couple of years, excessive spring rainfall has caused mudslides, impacting the twelve-mile-long by five-mile-wide racing area and putting a halt to the annual event. Salt, as you can imagine, dissolves in water. Weather (and other factors) can have an obvious impact on the quality of the salty speedway. And the salt, as opposed to sand, has a solid surface that doesn’t leave ruts. The extreme speeds attempted at Bonneville require a long distance for deceleration. Entries have included everything from a sleek machine going up to 400 mph to a vintage motorcycle cruising at 55 mph, or even the Jacuzzi Car that sloshed its way to a record no matter the speed, since nothing like it had ever been entered before.Īs the name implies, it is hard-packed salt that makes Bonneville Salt Flats an ideal location for land racing. The entrants seek to garner a record from the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA). And for nearly 70 of those years, the Bonneville Salt Flats have been the amateur testing ground for unique hot rods of all sorts at Speed Week. For more than a hundred years, racers have descended on the Salt Flats with hopes of setting some sort of record with their vehicles. And the flats are not your usual geological region. Racing at the flats is not your usual motorsport experience. The questions are “Why?” and “What the heck can be done about it?” There is no doubt that the salt flats are diminishing. But, despite this year’s celebration, the future of the salt flats is uncertain. After two years of cancellations, the land racing fans of Bonneville Salt Flats finally saw a return to action this past summer.
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