Salt & Speed: Record number of entries test Bonneville's flats

"But we realized it could go no faster on battery power," said Isaac Harper, one of the student engineers.

So, OSU approached Ford with the idea of creating a hydrogen fuel-cell streamliner. The students have their streamliner and next door Ford has its Fusion 999.

Harper said work on the students' car started in December of last year and consensus is the Buckeye Bullet II is capable of speeds of more than 350.

Both cars are powered by a 770-horsepower electric drive system. Both are run by hydrogen compressed into a liquid.

The Ford team is not the only newcomer to the salt. Tim Manning from Anaheim, Calif., has wanted to come to Bonneville for more than a quarter century.

"I had carpal tunnel and got that fixed so I could sit for longer than 10 minutes on a bike," he said as he leaned against his motorcycle. "I figured I'd better get here before something else goes wrong."

He then recruited Katrina Herbert, also from California, to ride a second bike.

Why? "Weight. I'm 240 (pounds) and can go 105 (mph). She's 120 all suited up and she can go 140. I needed someone lighter than me on this bike," he added.

As for Herbert, she said her first impressions of Bonneville were nothing like she expected. For one thing she said she's "never seen so much flat surface." Her goal is to hit 172 mph in her rookie season.

Tim Billington stood alongside his lakester that was converted to a streamliner and talked records. The car holds two records in the lakester class, and he is now going for two in the streamliner class. He hopes he has better success with this car than he did on an earlier run in his second car, a modified roadster.

He hit 170 mph on his first run. On his second return run he lost fourth gear and topped out at 140 for an average of 155. The record is 156.

"I came within a mile of getting the record. I kept trying to jam it into fourth, but it just wouldn't go, but that's racing," he added.

Two more relative newcomers are Bob Wilson and Tom Bitros of Texas. Driving an eclectic roadster with a 1932 frame and body, a 360 Dodge engine and Dodge transmission, and 1941 Ford pickup rear end, they hope to go well over 170 mph.

"(The car) has the aerodynamics of a brick, but it's a fun car. I was reading about Bonneville when I was a kid, and I always said someday I've got to go there. This is our third year, and it's in our blood. We'll make reservations every year," said Wilson.

A car you might not expect to see on the salt is an old Volkswagen bug. But for more than a dozen years Bob Stahl of Huntington Beach, Calif., has been bringing his 1965 bug to the salt.

After a trip to Bonneville in the early 1990s, he returned home and started work on his daughter's Volkswagen.