Your First Speed Week?

Saturday, August 8th kicks off the SCTA’s Bonneville Speed Week, and if you’ve never been, I can’t think of a more perfect Hot Rod event to break your pandemic blues with. You can stay as socially-distant as you want on the massive salt lake bed, and their are some interesting entries already on the list. Without a doubt, Speed Week will be the best trip you’ll have for all of 2020, and maybe even of all your life.

My first Bonneville trip was in 2007, and although it had been on my Bucket List for a good decade at that point, life kept getting in the way. The stars finally aligned that year so I could make the trek of my dreams. I threw my ’52 Schwinn Red Phantom in the back of the pickup truck and followed a trail of Tardel hot rods out from the Bay Area, through the Sierra Nevada mountains and in to the tiny ghost town Austin, Nevada for the night.

The next day we drove right to Bonneville as a pack, just to place our tires on the salt, and call the journey there complete. It was such a special moment as the sun set over the mountains that evening, talking and laughing with these wonderful road trip buds, and I decided in that glorious moment to return to Bonneville the next year in my ’29 A Roadster, by hook or by crook. The rest of the week just kept getting better with amazing cars, plenty of great racing, and so many epic moments spending time with the Tardel-McKenzie and Hop Up teams.

So are you ready for your first Speed Week?