Bonneville, Day 2

From The Motorcycle Trip: NYC to SF and back

When I left off last night Jeremy and I had just set up camp and were eating dinner. Soon after sunset a pickup truck began driving circles and zigzags in the huge expanse of desert that surrounds our campsite on all sides. After about an hour during which the truck's headlights frequently swept across our campsite, it came close enough for me to shout at the driver, asking him what he was looking for. "I lost my tent, man" he shouted back. He got out of his truck and asked us if we had seen his little blue tent in the middle of nowhere. We hadn't seen it but we go talking and ended up learning a lo from him. He was a veteran crew member on a 32 Ford roadster that makes 800hp, going after a class record around 240mph. The Ford broke an axle so they were twiddling their thumbs waiting for a new one to arrive. He also told us about a driver who had died the day before we got here making a 300+mph attempt. The course, we learned, is actually three separate courses the longest being 8 miles. The race cars, which are geared incredibly high can't get going under their own power (think trying to start you bicycle in the hardest gear). They need a push to about 70 or so where they can finally take off in first gear. Even then it takes a while to get up to speed. Most cars don't reach top speed until at least the 3rd or 4th mile. After talking for a while, our new friend jumped back in his truck to continue looking for his tent. After an hour he found it not too far away from where we were camped. This morning we got up a little late and cooked bacon and coffee for breakfast. Then we headed to the track. After buying our weeks pass at the gate we headed out onto the salt. There were no signs and we were free to drive in any direction we choose, off towards nothing, into the pits or to the staring line. We parked near the staring line and were surprised to find that we could walk anywhere we pleased. We stood on the staring line, next to the loudest cars I have ever heard as they were shoved off for their 300mph runs. After the sonic assault of the starting line we headed half way down the track to the pit area where again we found there was no place we couldn't walk. In fact, the only thing that kept us off the course itself and out of the way of speeding race cars was a line of cones. Instead of getting run over by a supercharged streamliner, we decided to check out some of the cars and bikes as they were getting prepared for their runs. We saw some wild stuff, some of the best have been documented in pictures which I hope to upload tomorrow. At the moment we are back at camp sitting by a fire drinking beer after a delicious meal of charcoal grilled sausages. Before it got dark I drew a line in the ground with my boot, pointing to a little blue tent, just in case our new friend comes around looking for it again.