Fast and smooth salt, along with record attendance, helped propel a number of entries into the record books last week at Speedweek at the Bonneville Salt Flats.
The 200 MPH Club, which requires its members not only to make a pair of passes above the double-century mark, but to break a record in the process, accepted 21 new members during the course of the week – five of them into the 300 MPH chapter. Two of those new members entered twice. Jimmy Barton set a record in C/MP on Sunday at 203.807 mph, then broke that record on Tuesday with a 224.082 mph run. And George Poteet, famed street rod collector and builder, set a record in F/BGS at 262.449 mph on Monday in the Ron Main Ecofire, then made a 325.934 mph pass on Wednesday in the F/BFS class.
In all, 92 records fell to the 500-plus entrants. Reasons for the high number of racers ranged from the glass-smooth salt, on which few racers spun this year, to the popularity of The World’s Fastest Indian, last year’s hit movie featuring land-speed racing.
One accident did occur this year, involving the GM Performance Division’s HHR, prepared by So-Cal Speed Shop. While attempting – and apparently succeeding in – breaking the 226.835 mph record in G/BFCC, GM engineer and driver Jim Minneker pulled the chute and lost traction at the five-mile mark of the long course, rolling the HHR. According to a GM press release, Minneker’s terminal speed at the time of the crash was 249.793 mph. He walked away from the crash without injury. One of GM Performance’s other entries, the E85-powered Ecotec Cobalt, with Mark Dickens in the driver’s seat, did set a record in G/BFALT, with a 246.849 mph run.
For full results, visit the Southern California Timing Association and Bonneville Nationals Web site at scti-bni.org.
(This post originally appeared in the August 24, 2006, issue of the Hemmings eWeekly Newsletter.)