Speed week: Vehicles, ingenuity put to the test on Salt Flats

BONNEVILLE SALT FLATS — About the only thing eclipsing speed here on the white flats every August is the ingenuity shown by those looking to go faster and faster.

There is nothing they can't do; no problem they can't solve. Which, of course, is why records fall daily during the weeklong event.

Some things are as simple as changing a gear or putting on new tires. Other things are as dramatic as replacing the old engine with a lighter, more powerful one or redesigning the suspension or chopping the car in half and extending it a couple of feet.

Dave LaFevre and Bill Melville of Lafayette, Ind., for example, used the tear-shaped drop tank off a World War II P-38 for the body of their new entry.

Dan Lemmons of Kelso, Wash., used tires from a 737 jet and an F-15 fighter to keep his 4,000-horsepower diesel truck on the fast track.

Alan McAlister, along with partners Doug Robinson and John Berg of Pasadena, Calif., make their own mechanically driven supercharger to boost the power in their record-holding coupe.

Bonner Denton of Tucson, Ariz., introduced an ice-water, inner-cooled fuel-injection system for his gas-modified car.

And, several cars went with the 2.0-liter Ecotec engine, similar to the stock engine in GM's Cobalt, to unleash a lot of power from a four-cylinder engine.

The 57th annual Bonneville Speed Week officially opened the race lanes on Saturday. They will officially close the lanes after races end Friday.

This year, nearly 400 vehicles of every shape, size, make, model, year, vintage, color and horsepower showed up for one purpose — to go faster than anyone else in their respective classes.

Which could mean anywhere from double-digit speeds to knocking on the door of the fastest wheel-driven car ever to run at Bonneville — 450 mph.

The track is not in the best shape this year, so the serious high-speed records aren't likely to fall. Records in the 200- and 300-mph class likely will.

One driver likened driving conditions to the woop-de-doos on a motorcycle track, "where you go up one and down the backside of another."

Track crews worked long and hard to try to smooth out the rough areas, but soft spots caused some of the veteran drivers to change tactics.