The need for speed

BONNEVILLE SALT FLATS — Hitting 400 miles per hour is very likely . . . 450 is possible . . . 500 isn't out of the question.

And, if all the pistons are firing and all the parts functioning properly — and the snow-white surface on Bonneville Salt Flats stays firm and flat — even faster speeds are possible.

"We're trying to get everything together this week and make a run at 425 (mph)," said Mike Nish, as he checked his Royal Purple streamliner.

A few blocks away, in the Tom Burkland camp, crews were making final adjustments on his twin-engine streamliner.

"We'll try for the low 450s," said Burkland. "All of our computer simulations tell us the car is capable of going 530, and so far all of our earlier simulations have been pretty close.

"For this meet, what we'd like is to get high speed."

Which is more than likely going to be over the 400-mph mark.

On the opening day of Speed Week on Bonneville Salt Flats, Nish took the rebuilt streamliner up to 380 mph through the last of three 1-mile timing zones on its first run.

And then?

"We had a camera mounted on the front and one inside the cockpit fixed on me. They're priceless," he recalled with a nervous smile. "When I popped the chute it went off to the side and spun the car sideways. I popped the second chute and it straightened the car out, but it was intense there for a minute. At that speed all you can do is hold on and hope for the best."

Terry Nish, patriarch of the Nish racing clan, spent the early part of the week trying to find and then solve the chute problem before a second attempt.

"We'd like to run over 400 while we're here. With this engine it's capable of that and more," he added.

Two years ago, at this event, the car crashed. It was traveling upward of 260 mph when a rear wheel failed. The car went airborne, flipped five times and skidded on its side for three-eighths of a mile. Nish spent most of 2005 rebuilding the car.

This week the car was running with a 558 cubic inch Klein Chevy engine, capable of producing around 1,200 horsepower. Back in Nish's shop is the big engine, a 675-cubic-inch Klein Chevy capable of producing upward of 3,000 horsepower. With this engine the car can easily top the 450 mark, "and possibly faster," he added.