Terry Nish and his son, Mike, were on the salt to "shake out the cobwebs," in preparation for a September run on a record they've been chasing for roughly 16 years. The Nishes reserved the salt track the past two years for a special run at a mark of 409 miles per hour set in 1965 and as of yet is unbroken. They have reserved it again this year, starting on Sept. 22.

The 43-year-old record stands as the fastest for a naturally aspirated, wheel-driven car.

Mechanical problems two years ago plagued the crew. On the first pass last year, a rod bent, damaging a $100,000 engine. Last week, with a smaller engine, Mike turned an average speed of 371 mph. His top speed was 377. They plan to use the bigger engine for the next record attempt.

"We hoped for 385, but are happy with the run. Mainly we just wanted to check out the car and get ready for next month. But it was a good run and right now we've got high speed for this meet," Terry said.

"It's not easy, though. You've got to go from point A to point B and try to keep all the parts in the car happy and running at incredible speeds."

Higginbotham, of Nevada, brought an 11-year-old long streamliner to the salt that was originally designed to hold three engines.

"For this meet, for financial reasons, we're running one engine. We've had the car running close to 300 (mph). On a test pass we did 255. The record we're after is 309," he said.

"I've raced boats and airplanes, and one of the reasons I like coming to Bonneville is the camaraderie. My driver hurt his knee, so I asked the man (in the pits) next to me to drive. He did. He didn't have to. It's not his car."

Brothers Ed and Richard Thomason visited the salt for the first time in 1979. Two years later, they were back with a car in tow. Their check-out run last week was 308 mph. The first record attempt was 315. Then, said Richard, "We'll come back in, make a few changes and run on a record of 342. Can we do it? Yes."

It was back in 1957 that John Vesco first introduced his seemingly unstable streamliner to the crowd at Bonneville.

"It was an experimental car," remembered his son, Rick. "They all thought it would tip over, so they made him run in intervals until he got up to top speed, which was 166 (mph) with an antique Model A Ford engine.

"We rebuilt the car last year, the 50th anniversary of my dad coming to Bonneville, painted as close as we could to the original colors and even put on some of the decals my dad had on the car. We put the Model A back in the car and were able to get up to 196 (mph) on the first run. Now we're running the Chevy engine. We'll put the Model A back in when we come back here in September."

Vesco was one of those claiming a new world record. The old mark was 323.126 mph. On Friday, he ran a 323.460.

He said he documented 2,800 hours of work that went in to getting the car ready for new speed records.

Also at the track on display was Vesco's "Turbinator," the turbine-powered car that holds a record of 450 mph with his brother, the late Don Vesco, driving. Rick said he was looking for a driver and hopes to top 500 mph.

There were more than 2,000 timed runs over the seven days and more than 150 new records, ranging from those under 100 to Vesco's 323 mark.

Drivers and crews returned to their respective homes over the weekend, and almost to a person they all pledged to return — better and faster than this year.