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The Race |
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Each August thousands of race fans travel to “The fastest place on earth” to witness the seven days of extreme vehicles racing at extreme speeds. From hot rods to roadsters, belly tankers to laksters, motorcycles to streamliners, if you can imagine it, it has raced on the salt flats. There is no side by side racing or 5 wide out of turn 4, each and every team and driver goes to Bonneville with one hope; to get the slip of paper that states they’ve gone faster than anyone else in the world (in their class).
The event is overseen by the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) and the Bonneville Nationals Inc. (BNI). http://www.scta-bni.org
Each October a smaller group of “hardcore” racers gather for
world finals week. Here the goal is not only to beat BNI
speeds, but to set world records. For this there are a few
changes in the rules. The set up of the course is a bit
different with “the flying mile” as the only timed mile.
More importantly though is the turn around time. From the
time a vehicle crosses the beginning of the timed mile it has 60
minutes to cross it going the opposite direction on its backup
run. This setup is recognized by the FIA to set official
international records.* As such the team is left with less than
45 minutes to service the vehicle as opposed to 4 hours and a
night to sleep, as in the national records. For the bullet
this meant only a half hour of battery charge time instead of
four, greatly limiting its onboard power for the return run.
The bullet 2 will not have this trouble as it is capable of
being refueled well within the time limits. |
The Buckeye Bullet (2) competes in land speed racing at the
Bonneville Salt Flats in Wendover, Utah. While there are
several venues for LSR in the United States, there is no place
in the world like Bonneville. The flats themselves were named
after explorer Captain B.L.E. Bonneville, whose expeditions in
the 1830s proved that the area was part of a huge prehistoric
lake that once covered one-third of Utah. 51 weeks out of the
year the flats are a desolate barren land with barely a sole to
be seen for miles. 
For national records the race itself consists of a 7 mile
long, 100 foot wide course. The fist two miles are for
acceleration and are not timed. The elapsed time through each of
the middle three miles recorded and used to get an average speed
for that mile. The final two miles are for breaking.
If a car beats the speed record for its class in any of the
timed miles, the team is given four hours to service the vehicle
and then it is put into impound until the next morning. A
backup run takes place first thing the next morning and the
speed from the fastest mile is averaged with that of the day
before. If that average is faster than the existing
record, and new record is established. Records set over
200 mph qualify the driver for admittance in the Bonneville 200
mph Club and a similarly records at 300+ for the 300 mph club.
Roger Schroer became the 60th member of the 300 mph club upon
setting the EIII record with the Buckeye Bullet (1).