The Bonneville Salt Flat Experience- Salt Shaken

"I've been friends with these guys for a decade, and we do a lot of things together between work and fun and reliability runs," Chuck explained. "We went to lunch one day and we were talking about Bonneville, and that I had to come and do it. They said that they'd like to sponsor me for my rookie license.

"I almost dropped dead right there on the spot," Chuck said, marveling at the mere idea. "That's an opportunity that's so rare. Ken summed it up: 'So few people can say they've been to Bonneville and even fewer can say that they hold a license to run.' Well, this was the year, it's the 60th anniversary, it's so historical that I couldn't let them or myself down."

Since his experience with the licensing formalities like the bailout is fairly universal, we'll forego that and cut straight to the run itself. Chuck is nothing if not expressive and he has a mind like a steel trap, so we'll let him tell the story.

"I got my bailout done on Thursday afternoon, so Ken said they'd tow me to get fuel," he began, interrupting himself to add that a racecar can't be driven anywhere at Bonneville unless it's on the course. "Otherwise you have to be towed. So that added to the excitement.

"Also, a car feels completely different on the Salt than on the street. I'd driven this car on the street many times in street trim: Schroeder steering, '40 brakes, and so on, but it was a completely different thing on the Salt: the Salt is sort of slick and the tires are smooth. While getting towed I could feel the steering and the brakes, not that you'd use the brakes on the Salt, but you still need to know what the car will do if you have to use 'em.

"The special course where we were must've been six or seven miles from the pits. Usually there's a three-mile and a five-mile course and they fan out from each other. This one was far away from anyone else. Once we got out there, though, the winds started picking up. I can't put a number on it, but they were enough to cancel racing for the day. All the anticipation, all the anxiety leading up this and getting out there and the car's in line and then everything cancels, well you can just imagine.

"So that's all I could think of all night long. I couldn't sleep. I just kept thinking of the sequences and where the controls were and what I was going to experience. So my mind is racing at 100 miles per hour in that roadster while I'm sitting in that restaurant that night trying to eat and lying down in that bed trying to sleep.

"I think I picked this up from Ken from all the things that he's said to me about Bonneville over the years. He said that walking on that Salt for the first time and that 60 years of heritage is under your feet, accomplishment, joy, laughter, fear, even loss of life is just surreal. He said something to the effect that if hot rodding is our religion, then Bonneville is our church, it's one of the most sacred of places for a hot rodder to experience and feel where all of this has evolved from. I'm surprised I slept at all that night, I thought about stuff like that.

"So I met the guys at six that next morning and drove out. The most intense time was from six to seven. You've still got to have the headlights on; it's still dark on the Salt. It's also cool, later in the day the temperatures can be 95 to 100-plus degrees, but in the mornings it's like 52 degrees. The anticipation is electric. You can feel it coming; you go from darkness with the moon sparkling on the Salt, the low temperature and the fresh air, hearing cars getting fired up, to daylight. To me it was the most amazing time, the early morning when everything comes alive.

"By the time I hit the second mile there was about a 6 mph crosswind, so the car started to dance a little bit. Ken had told me just slight adjustments on that Schroeder (steering box), and just steer it through with little adjustments. 'The car knows where it's going and what it's doing,' he says. 'You're not going to make any motions to turn it, only minor, minor corrections if you get a crosswind.'

"You've got three miles to do, and each one has a marker. The markers are these big, bright orange stanchions with flags and big numbers. By the time I got past those adjustments I saw the three-mile flash by me so I lifted the throttle, put the car in neutral, hit the mag to kill the motor, and just started coasting-you don't touch the brakes. I hit the four-mile mark and just found a groove to go off to the right to the return road.

"I can't remember if it was 90 seconds or whatever, but it was a world of time getting up to that point and then it's over in seconds. By the time I pulled over and got my helmet off, I was just pumping my fists into the air. It was just...incredible.

"When you're in the car you have no concept of the speed you're going because you have no point of reference. Because Ken and Keith have so many passes under their belt they can tell when the car's at a certain speed, but otherwise you don't really know how fast you're going until someone tells you. And then you think 'holy sh_t; I can't believe I just did that.' At least I did.

"Well, I can write about that sort of thing until I'm blue in the face, but now I can understand it a lot more because I've done it. And I can't wait to get back to it again. They call it Salt fever, because it gets in you and possesses you. I still haven't come down from the experience."