Bonneville « Go Big or Stay Home

Words and Pictures by Bob Jobe

Ever want to do something just because you could? Finally act on a crazy dream that bounced around in the back of your head for years, popping up every so often to make you say. “One of these days I’m going to do it!” Maybe you always wanted to stand on top of a water tower that you pass every morning on your way to work, or sing the national anthem at a baseball game, fly a plane, drink wine in Paris, write a book, be on TV. Whatever, it’s your dream and that makes it special.

Me? I wanted to go to the Bonneville Salt Flats. When I was a kid, Bonneville was a mystical place captured in the pages of Hot Rod Magazine. A place so big and so flat that the fastest cars in the world could scream across its pristine white surface for miles. I spent hours looking at the pictures and reading about the cars and the drivers. Only the bravest and the fastest showed up at Bonneville, they stared back at me from the pictures taken as they set out on one more 300 mile per hour blast across the salt. Bonneville, even the name sounded fast.

Unfortunately it was half a world away from my bedroom in Nova Scotia. An impossible distance for a 12 year old to span. The moon outside my window seemed closer but just as unreachable. Plus, it wasn’t like I could enlist any partners in my quest. My world consisted mostly of guys whose life ambition was to be NHL players or Firemen or to make out with a cheerleader. Admittedly the cheerleader angle had merit but all the same, trying to explain Bonneville to this crowd or my parents was simply not in the cards. They’d think I was nuts. Batshit crazy in the words of my old man. Still there were nights when I fell asleep imagining what it would be like to stand on the black guide line that the racers paint on the surface. A line that stretched all the way to the horizon.

The pressures of the world don’t leave much room for childhood daydreams and my idea of going to Bonneville was soon buried beneath the day to day responsibilities we all face. Sure I’d think about it once in a while but not for very long. I told myself that it was probably like so many other things that you expect to be great and then end up being disappointed with. Not worth the effort.

In early 2006 I made my annual pilgrimage back to Nova Scotia to visit my mother who as usual had a list of chores waiting for me. On this visit she had decided that it was time for me to clean up my room although truthfully it ended up as more of a clean out than clean up. One evening I found myself seated at my childhood desk sipping on a rum and coke as I sorted it’s contents into three groups. Things like bottle openers and pens would stay in the house, other things like failed model car experiments were sadly destined for the landfill pile. A small amount of memorabilia would be stuffed into a suitcase to drag back with me. Air Canada’s baggage limit helped me chose wisely. I felt like an archaeologist rediscovering my childhood. Everything had to be examined and considered. I was surprised at how little I remembered about some things and how vivid my memories were of others. There was the usual junk that was easy enough to trash, and surprises like a long forgotten Birthday Card from an old girlfriend falling out of a grade 12 English book. The whole process was taking hours longer than it should have and it was after midnight when I finally got down to my collection of car magazines. I didn’t have enough room left to take them back with me and they were so beat up that there was no point in leaving them in the desk. I leafed through each one as I consigned them to the garbage pile. At one point I took a break and glanced out the window. There was the moon, as big and silvery as ever. It suddenly occurred to me that I was sitting in the same chair, at same desk with the still shaky lamp, pouring over the same stores that had kept me up late at night almost 40 years before. I sat there for quite a while thinking about the past and what was looking more and more like an uncertain future before finally getting back to work. My night held one last surprise, a map of North America torn from an old National Geographic was stuffed inside one of the magazines. There was a line tracing out a path from Nova Scotia to Bonneville. A lot had happened since I’d so carefully plotted out that course. Men had been to the moon, I’d married a cheerleader and was the father of three great kids. Too bad my own father had never lived long enough to meet them. I folded the map up and put it in my suitcase next to the Birthday Card. It was time to go to Bonneville.

After waiting more than half a life time to get there, the thought of simply hopping on a plane and flying seemed like cheating. No it had to be done right and that meant a road trip. On Labour Day weekend in September 2006 my son Dennis and I climbed into a brand new Mustang GT and took off on a 15 day journey across the western US with Bonneville marked out as our final destination. It was, as Gerry Garcia said “A long strange trip”. For me it also became a fantastic voyage of self discovery. But that’s a story for some other day. For now let me tell you about Bonneville.

The Bonneville Salt Flats are exactly as the name implies salt and flat. They’re located close by the also appropriately named Salt Lake City Utah. What neither name coveys is the sheer size of the place, 30,000 acres of pristine perfectly flat white salt. It’s so big that you can actually see the curvature of the earth. In summer the temperature hits over 100f or 38c before noon. Forget about finding any shade. Nothing lives on the salt flats; you won’t find a tree nor a blade of grass or a bug out there. If you need to freshen up, the nearest gas station is 15 kilos away and you should listen to the regulars when they tell you to apply sun screen under your chin and nose. The sunlight reflecting off the surface will give you a nasty burn there in no time at all. Not a good place to wear a skirt or kilt. Basically we’re talking about one of the most inhospitable places on earth and outside of a few film crews shooting car commercials everyone pretty much stays the hell away from it.

But a few times every year it becomes a special place. That’s when the faithful congregate and the magic happens. There’s Speed Week and the World of Speed and the Motorcycle BUB meet. Pick your poison, it’s basically the same. Men, women, their families and friends tow, drive or push motorized vehicles out to the salt flats to see how fast they can go, and most of them go very fast. 300 kilometres per hour is common, 500 is not unusual, and a select handful make it into the rarefied zone beyond 700. Some have gone even faster in jet engine powered monsters. Consider for a moment what it would be like to drive a car at three times the legal speed limit. Small airplanes and many helicopters couldn’t keep up with you. Of course, once you ran out of gas or guts, the cops would ensure that your next few years passed at a much slower pace.

This is pure grass roots motorsports. You won’t find the hubris of NASCAR or F1 at a Bonneville event. There are no VIP suites and media centers overlooking the track. You won’t be shuffled aside to make way for personalities and corporate sponsors and their posses’. No high priced suppliers bustling around, no hotties in tight spandex or beer tents full of slobbering rednecks. There are no grandstands at all. In fact there are more participants than spectators. You park alongside the race cars and bring your own bbq and beer. If you’re hungry or need some water, ask and someone will help you out. The mainstream media and marketing wizards haven’t figured this place out. Hopefully they never will.

There is nothing amateur about the cars, some of which are absolutely wild. When you build it yourself, you get to build whatever you want. If it’s on wheels and powered with a motor, chances are that someone hauled it out here to see how fast it would go. There’s everything from motorized barstools that can actually hit over 90 kilometres per hour to 4,000 horsepower streamliners burning exotic fuels to help them break 700kph. They may be built in small shops or suburban attached garages but the quality and sophistication of the cars is as good as anything you find in any professional series. There are cars here that have been sweated over and refined for generations and the people who build them will gladly tell you their stories. You see, the race cars aren’t separated from the fans by pit walls or fences. You stand right there with them on the starting line. There is no other form of motorsport where just about anybody is able to get this close to so much valuable equipment. You might go to Bonneville intending to just watch, but you’ll quickly find out that you’ve become part of it.

It’s not faced paced. They run one car at a time and if someone needs a little more time to get ready well that’s OK too. Ultimately it all comes down to speed. Getting behind the wheel and holding the gas pedal down until either the car or you decide not to go any faster. It looks easy but it’s very, very difficult.

Usually there are two straight courses laid out in a roughly V shape. Depending on how fast you want to go, you either use the short course which is “only” about 9 kilometres long or the long course which gives you almost 13 kilometres to let it all hang out. An electronic timing system records your speed through the middle section of the course and you get a little slip of paper telling you how fast you went. The goal is to beat the fastest speed ever recorded by the same category of car or motorcycle or barstool. You have to do it twice within a certain period of time to make the claim that you’re the new king of the hill. That little slip of paper is the only prize most racers get. Still, how many of us can say we’re World Record Holders?

It’s easy to get taken in by the laid back atmosphere and forget for a moment that this is serious racing, and going well over 200kph while strapped inside a massively powerful race car is very serious indeed. The forces acting on these cars are enormous and not to be trifled with. Careful design, meticulous preparation, and the best available safety equipment are mandatory elements of this sport. Even so a crash at these speeds is always bad and unfortunately sometimes fatal. You get a sense of the underlying tension as the drivers and crews approach the starting line. It’s quiet and respectful. Children give their dad or mom a good luck hug. Parents and close friends check the drivers safety belts one more time before closing the door. Everyone understands what’s at stake. The last checks are completed and the engine is fired. The Course Starter declares “The course is yours” and points down the track….and they’re off, car and driver skimming across the surface with only a black line to guide them.

I already knew most of this stuff from years of reading magazines and visiting web sites. I wasn’t sure what we’d find once we actually arrived.

We pulled up to the ticket booth and a guy leaned out the window to look at the Mustang. “ Canada? Did you guys really drive all the way out here in that thing?” We said yes and he replied “ Well you’re in luck because today is foreigners get in free day and we might extend it if you come back tomorrow.” When I asked him if it was OK for us to park under the race course sign to take a picture his wife shut down her ticket lane to come over and hold the camera. People leaving the track tooted their horns and waved as they went by.

We rolled out onto the salt and followed the line of orange cones until we arrived at the race course. We were told that wide brim hats and dark sunglasses were a must and it was good advice, you wouldn’t last long without them. A lot of people also used umbrellas to create some relief from the merciless sun and we quickly dug ours out of the trunk. After getting oriented I made my way down to the starting line and there it was; a single black line running off until it disappeared from sight in the mirages. I walked over and stood on it, something I’d only dreamed about doing so many years ago. It was an amazing feeling. I had finally made it. I looked over and noticed the starting line official staring at me and then I realized that there was a whole slew of cars behind me waiting to run. I said a sheepish “sorry” and started to move but he smiled and said “There’s no rush, take your time, enjoy it.”

I went to Bonneville for no other reason than to prove to myself that I could do it. The people I met there understood. They know that Bonneville isn’t really about cars. It’s about dreams.

….and you know what, it was way more fun than I ever imagined.