Automotive American – Classic Vintage & Modern
Tag: Bonneville Salt Flats
Come along as Paul tells us the story of how he acquired this amazing and original ’29 Model A race car, and his goal of preserving its past. He’s also looking for more information on its past, as its a bit of a mystery
The Bureau of Land Management’s Salt Lake Field office reported that the Bonneville Salt Flats welcome sign has been stolen.
According to a Twitter post from the BLM, the sign was discovered stolen on June 11. The Bonneville Salt Flats, located in Tooele County, are listed as “one of Utah’s most iconic landscapes,” with 30,000 acres of hard salt crust on the western edge of the Great Salt Lake Basin.
On June 11, BLM Salt Lake Field Office discovered the Bonneville Salt Flats sign had been stolen. If you have info to help locate it, contact (801)977-4387| utslmail@blm.gov. Theft of federal property: Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to 12 months in prison/fines up to $1,000 pic.twitter.com/AHCp07cnCK— Bureau of Land Management Utah (@BLMUtah) June 16, 2021
Individuals can report any information they may have on the theft to 801-977-4387. The crime is classified as a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to 12 months in prison with fines up to $1,000.
Variously known as belly tank, tanker, or drop tank race cars, they’re associated with vintage dry lakes racing.
Little lozenges with wheels and a view port zip along a dry lake bed. They show up in drawings and logos. They pop up at local car shows and land speed events. People call them belly tanks, tankers, or drop tanks, and they are associated with vintage dry lakes racing. But where did they come from, and why do they look the way they do? Belly tank racers are a mix of WWII aircraft leftovers and hot-rodding ingenuity. They’re part of the early days of hot-rodding but are still in use today. Let’s start with where they came from. Answer: the sky.
The drop tank was designed to extend flying time by acting as a portable fuel cell that could be dropped once empty. That way, the pilot could more nimbly engage the enemy. They’re also known as belly tanks or wing tanks depending on where they were attached to the plane. During WWII, they were available for the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, Lockheed P-38 Lightning, North American P51 Mustang, Northrop P-61 Black Widow, and other combat aircraft.
After the conflicts ended, thousands of the tanks languished in military surplus yards, and racers soon noticed. They snapped up the slickest shapes that would work the best as race machines. They were, and are, fast little suckers. Before WWII, streamliners ran just over 100 mph—today, more than 360 mph!
In early dry lakes racing, the Southern California Timing Association only recognized roadsters and coupes. They soon accepted streamliners because racers wanted to test new theories of aerodynamics. This morphed into many classes, and lakesters got their own game when they split from the streamliner class.
The attraction was that exposed-wheel lakesters were much easier to build than enclosed-wheel streamliners. The tank gave you the whole body, you could stuff bits of a Model T frame and a flathead motor inside and add Ford axles on both ends, and you were nearly done. That’s what the builder of the first recognized postwar tank, Bill Burke, did.
For one so young Clayton has made a real splash in the Model T and particularly the hot rod aspects. Not everyone can build a T that cruises at 65mph for under $7K!
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Clayton came back to my attention recently in a David Conwill article in Hemmings, where David described how Clayton will be helping him with his T
Going back a few years Clayton and his T were featured in an episode of Jay Leno’s garage
Jay enjoyed the experience so much that he ended up visiting Clayton in Oregon
You can see the article here
Clayton’s build blog can be found on the Model T Ford Forum
First Start
Engine spec
’26-’27 block, bored .080 over
’26-’27 “EE” series crank
Egge .080 pistons
.300C full-race cam
289/302 Ford SB V8 valves
New babbit bearings (rods/mains)
fully balanced engine/transmission
Chicago Transmission
A former road and oval-track racer, Larry Wilson decided to move to a racing discipline with less wheel-to-wheel contact. Land speed racing seemed appealing and, as a fan of ’60s muscle, he decided to search for a classic car that could scratch his racing itch and get his family involved as well. Having grown up owning Falcons, Mustangs, and Corvettes, Wilson was quite familiar with compact performance cars. Although he admired Ford’s larger performance and muscle cars, he’d never owned one. For this venture, though, they seemed like the perfect cars.
Wilson is old enough to remember Ford’s NASCAR homologation cars and Mopar’s winged response. The pointed noses and tall wings of the Superbird and Charger Daytona may have brought superspeedway success, but they didn’t win over the hearts and minds of new car buyers. That’s where Wilson thinks Ford got it right.
The Flathead ‘Stang went on to Bonneville and set a world record for the XF/BFALT class by reaching 142.822 miles per hour!
The current crop of Mustangs from Ford has definitely set a new standard for power and performance within the model’s many years of production. And with companies like Roush and Shelby American unveiling pumped-up versions, the potential for serious domination on the track and on the streets seems almost limitless.
But the Mustang has also been a favorite for backyard builders and home mechanics to live out their dreams of wrenching on epic builds. Case in point is a Fox Body Mustang land speed record holder that’s featured on Engine Swap Depot with a turbocharged flathead V8 under the hood.
Where Cars Try to Hit Mach 1, the Salt of the Earth Is Crumbling
The Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah have hosted speed chasers for decades, but the course is distressed. An advocacy group has a plan, but not the money.
Credit…Pete Farnsworth Collection
Not even 30 years after Karl Benz built what is said to be the first automobile, Teddy Tetzlaff climbed into a Blitzen Benz racecar and blasted across the snow-white surface of the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, clocking in at 142.8 miles per hour and setting an unofficial land-speed record.
This 1914 effort certainly generated publicity for Tetzlaff, a California-born racer, and the German automaker, Benz & Cie, that built his car, but the locale was most likely a mere footnote at the time.
The automotive legacy of the salt flats wasn’t cemented until 1935, when Malcolm Campbell rode his Blue Bird past 300 m.p.h. and into the record books: Bonneville was extremely well suited to high-speed driving
Where Cars Try to Hit Mach 1, the Salt of the Earth Is Crumbling
Related – Debate over future of Bonneville Salt Flats
Debate over future of Bonneville Salt Flats
For more than 100 years, the Bonneville Salt Flats have been one of America’s most famous speedways. The salt that stretches for miles and miles in northwest Utah makes the place look like a different planet — one that is uniquely suited to making vehicles go very fast. But today, the salt that is essential to racing is going away, and a bitter debate is raging over how that should be handled. Jeff Glor reports.
Debate over future of Bonneville Salt Flats
Read the report here
Related – Salt 101 – Bonneville Racing Guide – David Freiburger
