Bonneville Speed Week - anyone been?
Discussion
I've always been interested in Bonneville and last week's Top Gear certainly reawakened my interest.
I've always wanted to go and as I'm planning to head to the States next year, I'm very seriously considering adding the Speed Week to my to-do list!
The 2009 dates are 8-14 August and my thoughts are a week in New York (somewhere I've always wanted to go!) then across country to San Francisco with time out from there or Vegas for the Grand Canyon (has to be done), Monument Valley and of course Bonneville. You might be able to tell that I've been an avid Stephen Fry viewer these past few weeks too!
So what are the practicalities of such a trip? Getting to Bonneville, entry tickets for spectating, the cost of getting there and getting in and for me another important factor; are there any forums/clubs to speak to competitors, enthusiasts and anyone with knowledge of Bonneville so I can fully immerse myself in it all when I get there??
I seem to remember some photos on the Photography forum from a couple of past attendees and it looked stunning.
So over to the floor, thoughts, experiences, practical tips, time I think to fulfil another ambition or two!
I've always wanted to go and as I'm planning to head to the States next year, I'm very seriously considering adding the Speed Week to my to-do list!
The 2009 dates are 8-14 August and my thoughts are a week in New York (somewhere I've always wanted to go!) then across country to San Francisco with time out from there or Vegas for the Grand Canyon (has to be done), Monument Valley and of course Bonneville. You might be able to tell that I've been an avid Stephen Fry viewer these past few weeks too!
So what are the practicalities of such a trip? Getting to Bonneville, entry tickets for spectating, the cost of getting there and getting in and for me another important factor; are there any forums/clubs to speak to competitors, enthusiasts and anyone with knowledge of Bonneville so I can fully immerse myself in it all when I get there??
I seem to remember some photos on the Photography forum from a couple of past attendees and it looked stunning.
So over to the floor, thoughts, experiences, practical tips, time I think to fulfil another ambition or two!
Edited by v15ben on Sunday 16th November 22:14
I went there once, the week before speed week! Amazingly you can just drive on, they love public access in the US. After thrashing the rental on the salt for a while I got nabbed by a grizzled old petrolhead who warned me off as I was damaging the surface. It's not far outside Salt Lake City. If you're going there then Moab (Arches/Canyonlands) is worth a visit too on your way south. Have fun.
There's quite a few Brit's from the Hot Rod community that go out for speed week......a few I know were there this year....I had planned to be one of them, but alas....
Anyway, I would suggest that a visit to the UK NSRA forum or the US based H.A.M.B. forum would be best to do a search on the many Speed Week threads for info.
Uusanlly getting accomodation in Wendover is pretty hard, although they have built a few more hotels IIRC.
Don't be fooled by that TG episode about them staying on the salt in a camper......that's not allowed.
So, RV's are a good idea in the
many RV parks, but you will need transport to and from the slat from the Wendover RV parks.
Sadly, logistics for doing Speedweek aren't the easiest thing in the world.
Anyway, I would suggest that a visit to the UK NSRA forum or the US based H.A.M.B. forum would be best to do a search on the many Speed Week threads for info.
Uusanlly getting accomodation in Wendover is pretty hard, although they have built a few more hotels IIRC.
Don't be fooled by that TG episode about them staying on the salt in a camper......that's not allowed.
So, RV's are a good idea in the
many RV parks, but you will need transport to and from the slat from the Wendover RV parks.
Sadly, logistics for doing Speedweek aren't the easiest thing in the world.
Yeah, went to Bike Week this year, 1st week of September. Flew into Vegas, hired a Shelby Mustang, spent a few days in Vegas (http://www.thegunstorelasvegas.com/ was brilliant, do the $500 deal - 10 different current machine guns and hand guns in your own private range with one-on-one tuition on firing, loading etc. I'd add a pump riot shotgun as well) then drove to Wendover (which is where the Salt Flats are, its not called Bonneville really). Vegas is generally a commercial nightmare, and the only two things i can recommend are the gun store above, and go see one of the Cirque de Soleil shows at one of the big casinos. We went to the Bellagio and saw the Beatles Tribute, Love. Amazing, best live show i have ever seen. Highly recommended, almost as good as firing a belt-feed M249 SAW on full auto. We were also recommended Stratosphere, a huge tower with three fairground rides on the top, one of which hangs you over the strip. We ran out of time though.
The Hoover Dam is fantastic. Make sure you stay long enough to do the extended tour, book it and wait(an hour at most). Its worth it. We ran out of time and only did the short one and i was gutted.
Grand Canyon is also stunning, but DO NOT go to the West Rim, the one run by the Hualapai Indians. Shabby commercialism, and a 'tribe' that exist to fleece you for every penny. Downturned eyes and tacky souvenirs. Distasteful. Not mentioning the 14 mile dirt road (yes, really) that you have to drive along to get to it. If you were to try drifting in a car that has fixed-on traction control you may find that you'll hit a dirt bank hard enough to pull the tyre off the bead and stuff stones in the gap, making all the air come out. Then you may find that the hire car has no spare, or anything else. You may then meet a guy whose job it is to look after the 56-mile water pipe that feed the reservation, who happens to have a machine shop in the middle of the desert, who also has a tyre machine and a huge range of tyres and makes all his money on the side helping tourists with tyre problems after no-one has told them there is a 14-mile dirt road to get to the sodding canyon. $20 to re-seat the tyres, and you may be on your way. Ahem. Anyway, we tried that side of the canyon, left feeling it was all a bit shabby, went to the South Rim and it was much better. Amazing restaurant built on the edge, like a log cabin but huge, with windows that look over the whole thing. Great food, worth booking and waiting for (they serve from 12 or 1 I think, we waited the hour for it).
There is nothing between Vegas and Wendover. Six hours of dull desert. Just like the Top Gear episode (which i guess is why you are asking). Don't bother taking the detour down the Extra-Terrestrial Highway as there is nothing on it (so said the copper who was nicking us for speeding). He was OK, though the Forest Ranger who nicked us for taking the Mustang off-roading was a right grumpy tosser.
Do not stop at a redneck-looking diner on the right when you are about 3 hours out of Vegas (because you stupdily didn't eat breakfast and thought you'd get something 'on the road'....there isn't anything on the road), you can spot it as it used to be a petrol station but isn't any more. The worst meal i have ever had put in front of me. I took two mouthfuls, felt sick, and left. the 'beef' was rainbow-coloured, looked like it had fish scales. My mate had a 'freedom burger' (nasty thing with overcooked patty that looked like it had been cooked the day before, blob of yellow mayonnaise in the middle if you lifted the bun, one piece of lettuce the size of a fifty-pee coin, and an american flag stuck in it). He ate all of his and spent all evening on the bog. 5 minutes down the road there is a brand new petrol station with fresh food and nice people. You live and learn.
Wendover is the most depressing place in the world. It is a true s
thole and exists only because of the Salt. The State Line (Utah and Nevada) is half way down the main street (it is painted on, so you can stand with one foot in each state). Do not go there early, and you'll leave the moment Speed Week finishes. The Utah side is dull as ditchwater, poor, staffed by mexicans. The Nevada side is stuffed full of casinos, that start next to the state line (which runs through the car park of two, stopping at the door). You go to Wendover if you can't afford Vegas (or Reno, apparently, because that looked waaaay better than here...). Most accommodation is casino; no internet in the rooms (they don't want you to be comfortable in your room, they want you spending downstairs). We started in a casino but left after the first night and went to the Days Inn motel in the Utah bit; free wireless and a swimming pool.
Good luck finding decent food and a drink in the evening that doesn't involve sitting in a casino, wondering at the mindless dullards sitting in front of fruit machines on stools. My recommendation is a tiny mexican restaurant, across the road from the Days Inn and slightly up towards Nevada. Inside, the windows are plastic and someone has used a brush and painted childlike pictures of cacti and horses and such on the inside of the windows so you can't see out of them. Yes, really. Great food though. No alcohol mind, as its in Utah. Flirty teenage waitress who asked me to come back and take her out for a drink at 11 when she finished. She was 19. Her parents owned the place and when i left the mum (who was our other waitress) and dad (the chef) were giving me proper evil looks. I didn't go back. I sent the 21 year old son of a kiwi competitor we met and were eating with. Apparently he got home pretty late.
The salt. What can i say? All that stuff about 'you'll spin out' and 'the car moves about a lot' on Top Gear was bks. If you were to take your hire car on the salt, which we obviously didn't, and do 150mph every morning on the four-mile approach to the pits, you'd find it just like driving on dry, hard-packed dirt. I used to race dirt bikes so maybe i have a higher threshold of 'moving about a bit' but it didn't concern me at all. I was told by the organisers that if i didn't have special salt tyres we couldn't go over 70mph or we'd spin and die. I just nodded, and didn't show them that morning's video of the speedo as it passed 145, with the sound of us giggling like children in the background.
If you were, unlike us, to take your hire car on the salt, you may want to go to the Wendover jetwash (up the Nevada end, near the very helpful post office that you send your speeding fines off from) and spend a lot of time and money getting it off the underneath of the car, where you will be amazed and the hunks of salt the size of your head that come out of the suspension and nether regions of the underneath of the car. For half an hour. They also have a vacuum cleaner for the inside, which you may want to use. Or you may get an $800 surcharge from the hire company when they find salt on, or in, the car. While you are there you may meet what is obviously the local badass mexican drug-dealer with the nicest car in town, a completely restored '67 Impala low-rider with deep (deeper than pictures can ever show) metallic paint in multiple colours, and full air suspension that goes up and down when you press buttons. Very cool. Nice guy, once we stopped thinking he was going to shoot us. He paid for the car wash with this huuuuge roll of dollars held by a rubber band.
We flew home out of Vegas so we needed to get back there. the same road didn't appeal so we went across to Salt Lake City (the largest urban sprawl i have ever seen, half an hour on the freeway at 80mph and we were still next to it), then south. Much of a muchness really. Like the Top Gear crew thought, its cool for about an hour....
On your way back into Vegas you may, if you take that route, drive past the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. You may notice they do run-what-ya-brung drag racing every friday night for $10. When it gets dark they turn on the lights and keep going. You may wish to enter your hire car. We didn't, obviously. But you might. It makes a great 'last night'.
cheers
Andy
Oh, the accent will get you laid, by the way. If you have lower morals than me. All the girls who thought mine was 'awesome' and had that hero-worship look in their eye were in their teens
The Hoover Dam is fantastic. Make sure you stay long enough to do the extended tour, book it and wait(an hour at most). Its worth it. We ran out of time and only did the short one and i was gutted.
Grand Canyon is also stunning, but DO NOT go to the West Rim, the one run by the Hualapai Indians. Shabby commercialism, and a 'tribe' that exist to fleece you for every penny. Downturned eyes and tacky souvenirs. Distasteful. Not mentioning the 14 mile dirt road (yes, really) that you have to drive along to get to it. If you were to try drifting in a car that has fixed-on traction control you may find that you'll hit a dirt bank hard enough to pull the tyre off the bead and stuff stones in the gap, making all the air come out. Then you may find that the hire car has no spare, or anything else. You may then meet a guy whose job it is to look after the 56-mile water pipe that feed the reservation, who happens to have a machine shop in the middle of the desert, who also has a tyre machine and a huge range of tyres and makes all his money on the side helping tourists with tyre problems after no-one has told them there is a 14-mile dirt road to get to the sodding canyon. $20 to re-seat the tyres, and you may be on your way. Ahem. Anyway, we tried that side of the canyon, left feeling it was all a bit shabby, went to the South Rim and it was much better. Amazing restaurant built on the edge, like a log cabin but huge, with windows that look over the whole thing. Great food, worth booking and waiting for (they serve from 12 or 1 I think, we waited the hour for it).
There is nothing between Vegas and Wendover. Six hours of dull desert. Just like the Top Gear episode (which i guess is why you are asking). Don't bother taking the detour down the Extra-Terrestrial Highway as there is nothing on it (so said the copper who was nicking us for speeding). He was OK, though the Forest Ranger who nicked us for taking the Mustang off-roading was a right grumpy tosser.
Do not stop at a redneck-looking diner on the right when you are about 3 hours out of Vegas (because you stupdily didn't eat breakfast and thought you'd get something 'on the road'....there isn't anything on the road), you can spot it as it used to be a petrol station but isn't any more. The worst meal i have ever had put in front of me. I took two mouthfuls, felt sick, and left. the 'beef' was rainbow-coloured, looked like it had fish scales. My mate had a 'freedom burger' (nasty thing with overcooked patty that looked like it had been cooked the day before, blob of yellow mayonnaise in the middle if you lifted the bun, one piece of lettuce the size of a fifty-pee coin, and an american flag stuck in it). He ate all of his and spent all evening on the bog. 5 minutes down the road there is a brand new petrol station with fresh food and nice people. You live and learn.
Wendover is the most depressing place in the world. It is a true s
thole and exists only because of the Salt. The State Line (Utah and Nevada) is half way down the main street (it is painted on, so you can stand with one foot in each state). Do not go there early, and you'll leave the moment Speed Week finishes. The Utah side is dull as ditchwater, poor, staffed by mexicans. The Nevada side is stuffed full of casinos, that start next to the state line (which runs through the car park of two, stopping at the door). You go to Wendover if you can't afford Vegas (or Reno, apparently, because that looked waaaay better than here...). Most accommodation is casino; no internet in the rooms (they don't want you to be comfortable in your room, they want you spending downstairs). We started in a casino but left after the first night and went to the Days Inn motel in the Utah bit; free wireless and a swimming pool. Good luck finding decent food and a drink in the evening that doesn't involve sitting in a casino, wondering at the mindless dullards sitting in front of fruit machines on stools. My recommendation is a tiny mexican restaurant, across the road from the Days Inn and slightly up towards Nevada. Inside, the windows are plastic and someone has used a brush and painted childlike pictures of cacti and horses and such on the inside of the windows so you can't see out of them. Yes, really. Great food though. No alcohol mind, as its in Utah. Flirty teenage waitress who asked me to come back and take her out for a drink at 11 when she finished. She was 19. Her parents owned the place and when i left the mum (who was our other waitress) and dad (the chef) were giving me proper evil looks. I didn't go back. I sent the 21 year old son of a kiwi competitor we met and were eating with. Apparently he got home pretty late.
The salt. What can i say? All that stuff about 'you'll spin out' and 'the car moves about a lot' on Top Gear was b
ks. If you were to take your hire car on the salt, which we obviously didn't, and do 150mph every morning on the four-mile approach to the pits, you'd find it just like driving on dry, hard-packed dirt. I used to race dirt bikes so maybe i have a higher threshold of 'moving about a bit' but it didn't concern me at all. I was told by the organisers that if i didn't have special salt tyres we couldn't go over 70mph or we'd spin and die. I just nodded, and didn't show them that morning's video of the speedo as it passed 145, with the sound of us giggling like children in the background. If you were, unlike us, to take your hire car on the salt, you may want to go to the Wendover jetwash (up the Nevada end, near the very helpful post office that you send your speeding fines off from) and spend a lot of time and money getting it off the underneath of the car, where you will be amazed and the hunks of salt the size of your head that come out of the suspension and nether regions of the underneath of the car. For half an hour. They also have a vacuum cleaner for the inside, which you may want to use. Or you may get an $800 surcharge from the hire company when they find salt on, or in, the car. While you are there you may meet what is obviously the local badass mexican drug-dealer with the nicest car in town, a completely restored '67 Impala low-rider with deep (deeper than pictures can ever show) metallic paint in multiple colours, and full air suspension that goes up and down when you press buttons. Very cool. Nice guy, once we stopped thinking he was going to shoot us. He paid for the car wash with this huuuuge roll of dollars held by a rubber band.
We flew home out of Vegas so we needed to get back there. the same road didn't appeal so we went across to Salt Lake City (the largest urban sprawl i have ever seen, half an hour on the freeway at 80mph and we were still next to it), then south. Much of a muchness really. Like the Top Gear crew thought, its cool for about an hour....
On your way back into Vegas you may, if you take that route, drive past the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. You may notice they do run-what-ya-brung drag racing every friday night for $10. When it gets dark they turn on the lights and keep going. You may wish to enter your hire car. We didn't, obviously. But you might. It makes a great 'last night'.
cheers
Andy
Oh, the accent will get you laid, by the way. If you have lower morals than me. All the girls who thought mine was 'awesome' and had that hero-worship look in their eye were in their teens
Andy
Thanks for that very detailed reply. It is very interesting to see the good and bad aspects in such great detail. I had also totally forgotten about the Hoover Dam, something I've long been amazed by and will definitely be doing the long tour to appreciate fully!
I guess a flight from NYC to Vegas is probably the best way forward then around a week over that side of the country! As for the accent getting us laid, as they said in Team America, "fk Yeah!"
I might well be emailing you when I've done some more costings for the trip to get some more details,
Thanks again,
Ben
Thanks for that very detailed reply. It is very interesting to see the good and bad aspects in such great detail. I had also totally forgotten about the Hoover Dam, something I've long been amazed by and will definitely be doing the long tour to appreciate fully!
I guess a flight from NYC to Vegas is probably the best way forward then around a week over that side of the country! As for the accent getting us laid, as they said in Team America, "f
k Yeah!"I might well be emailing you when I've done some more costings for the trip to get some more details,
Thanks again,
Ben
Bonneville Speed Week should be a 'MUST-DO' on every gearhead's list. It is simply extraordinary.
I've been every year for the past five years, and certainly won't be missing it again this year.
Rather than try and express it in words, I hope my pictures paint a clearer story.....
www.fluidimages.co.uk
I've been every year for the past five years, and certainly won't be missing it again this year.
Rather than try and express it in words, I hope my pictures paint a clearer story.....
www.fluidimages.co.uk
ROADRUNNER3 said:
Bonneville Speed Week should be a 'MUST-DO' on every gearhead's list. It is simply extraordinary.
I've been every year for the past five years, and certainly won't be missing it again this year.
Rather than try and express it in words, I hope my pictures paint a clearer story.....
www.fluidimages.co.uk
You've done this photography lark before, haven't you? Thanks for sharing - stunning.I've been every year for the past five years, and certainly won't be missing it again this year.
Rather than try and express it in words, I hope my pictures paint a clearer story.....
www.fluidimages.co.uk
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