Bonneville Salt Flats
Every August, 300 of the planet’s biggest speed addicts head to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah to drive as fast as they possibly can. We dropped in at this year’s event to find out what they were driving – and how fast they went
Now in its 61st year, Bonneville Speed Week has a mix of high-tech race cars and modified 1930s and ’40s hot rods. Thousands of spectators dust off their best street rods to cruise alongside the seven-mile course on a dry salt bed. All 48 square miles of it.
Flat out, the fastest cars cover a mile every ten seconds! Crashes are thankfully few and far between but at such high speeds the consequences are grave; this year streamliner driver Barry Bryant, 46, was tragically killed when he lost control at 200mph. And Arizona's Jim Kirk also lost control, spinning his 4-litre Chevy V8 (pic 5) at near to 200mph.
Click on the images and savour the characters and entrants...
