Why Bonneville Is Important?

Why Bonneville Is Important? So asked the boys from Jalopnik a few days ago. And with the close of this year's speed weeks at the famed location it's pretty easy for me to answer that question. I love the whole idea of land speed record racing. Bonneville has been near and dear to me since I was a kid, so why is Bonneville important?

That's easy: It's totally wicked!!!

If you look at the rule book in almost any other form of racing, it's the size of the Singapore white pages and complex as the Talmud. There are so many i's to dot and t's to cross that you almost go into a coma reading it. Bonneville is the exact opposite of that.

By and large, there are no rules at Bonneville, apart from those concerning safety. Cars are broken down into various classes, mainly based on speed potential and types of engines, but other than that, it's run what ya brung. You want to take out a bone-stock Civic? Have at it. You want to build a "car" around a surplus Saturn V rocket engine, go right ahead.

No other racing event in the world is as wide open and crazy as this, and very few locals are as wide open or crazy either. The Bonneville Slat Flats are so expansive, and so, well, flat, that you can literally perceive the curvature of the Earth while standing on them.

The salt surface is whiter than white, and although it looks like beach sand when viewed from a distance, when you walk out on it, it's as hard as concrete. And it stretched for literally miles in every direction. It is, in short, the perfect location to answer the question "How fast can you go?"

Other forms of racing used to be more wild and wooly years ago. At Indy, for example, you'd see all sorts of crazy stuff: Turbines and side car racers and there was even a diesel that sat on the pole in '58 or '59. But those days are long gone, and they're also missing from most other forms of racing as well.

Why Bonneville Is Important? Because Bonneville is the last place on Earth were there are very few, if any, limits.

Source: Jalopnik. Photos from Flickr users ThreadedThoughts, markhillary, alanwoo and Dan Bock.