This was my first trip to the hallowed salt. Pulled out of Pomona early Saturday in the DD and headed up thru the Eastern Sierras and across to Wendover from Bishop, this a new piece of the Southwest I have never been thru before. God bless the beautiful land we live in and America's wide open spaces. Those that say it's a boring drive are missing the point of the journey, along with the ability to set your cruise control at some pretty cool speeds! Slowed down long enough to take a pic of @squirrel in the Hudson, and made it in time for the car show at the Nugget, running into squirrel and meeting up with the crew I was going to hang with for the week. Hit the salt for the first time Sunday morning. What a sloppy mess...thought I was back in Northern Wisconsin in March, except warmer. I was invited to be an unofficial crew member for a couple of Forever Fours racers from SoCal...which meant basically hanging around as we didn't even pull the cars out of the trailers til Monday for tech inspection. A couple of great old race cars...The Model A finally ran 84 mph on Tues when only the rookie course was usable. The belly tanker never got in line, as John just didn't want to wait 6 hours to go slow. So...I took pictures of a lot of cars sitting still that day. And the next day....as the salt wasn't any better on Monday. Toured the Wendover air museum which was pretty cool. More to come....
Tues morning finally brought some racing, but it was sloppy and traction was minimal from the get go. But I loved the excitement at the starting line. But it was slow going with one main track open, and a line of cars a mile long...no joke.
Decided to head out Wed morning, as the salt was not getting any better. Disappointing, but I am so glad I was able to finally experience some of what I have imaged since I was a kid in Wisconsin reading about Bonneville. Everyone on the salt is friendly, patient (sorta), and having fun. Heard a ton of stories. Shook hands with 300 mph club members. Laughed with my friends, and met some new ones. I was hoping to get more usable photos for my art projects, but did get a better feel for the vintage photos I've been working with. @colorvintiques on Instagram. I felt sorry for some of the racers that came from way further than I, including Europe and down under for limited racing. I'll be back. Maybe with a car I can have fun driving on the salt?!!
Thanks for the great pictures. I have only been there once in 2006. I remember the long lines and it looks like they were even longer this year. This thought comes to mind about the long line.....Why don't they have the teams draw numbers in the morning of a race day, then they call up 20 cars and line them the first time and have them line up in two rows of 10 cars 90 degrees to the starting line when it is there turn to run they move the starting line without all this stop and go crap.When they get down to 10 cars they call up another 10 and so on through the day. I think it would be much better to wait it out in the pits under your shade than constantly moving one car at a time for 6 hours. You could still work on your vehicle until you were within an hour or so to your line up time. If you are not ready when they call up your group of 10 you just forfeit your place in line. It has probably already been considered.... but I just hate waiting in long lines.
I'm thinking that they planned on having 3 and maybe 4 course running including the rookie course. They were down to what should have been the long course and the rookie course. Still we have had a few times in the past 20 or so years when it rained so much right before the meet that no one got to even get out on the salt for a photo op let alone race.
You got a nice shot of my Dodge coupe. Thank you! It was a blast driving it around the salt. I'll have to bring it again. Sent from my Pixel 2 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
The Jalopy Journal
