Bonneville Salt Flats|Utah Motorsports
The history of Utah motorsports is peppered with a variety of
classes and styles of competition from grassroots drag racing up to
nationally recognized stock racing. However, the greatest of these
is the long tradition of competing for land speed records on the
Bonneville Salt Flats. The following is from a postcard [P0591]
about the famous Utahn Ab Jenkins and the salt flats; "The
Bonneville Salt Flats is a salt deposit left by the receding of
ancient Lake Bonneville. This deposit covers about 159 square miles
extending some nine miles along U.S. Highways 40 and 50 and the
Western Pacific Railroad. The salt is white, crystalline aggregate,
porous, hard and rigid so that it supports loaded trucks. In 1912
this area was tested as a race track and has since proved to be the
greatests automobile speedway in the world. In 1931 Ab Jenkins of
Salt lake City broke all former world speed records." In the years
that followed, especially the 1950s and 1960s, the salt flats were
a motorsports mecca. Today, hundreds of competitors arrive twice
every year to attempt to break records. The following photographs
and sounds document some of the work from the 1930s up to
Speedweek, 1996.
The way the salt flats looked from U.S. 40 in
1924 is remarkably similar to how it looks today from I-80.
[THOMAS ADAMS Collection, P0043]
Ab Jenkins next to the tail of his record setting
Mormon Meteor, 1931.
[GEORGE ALBERT SMITH Collection, P0036]
Color postcard of the Mormon Meteor.
[UTAH POSTCARD Collection, P0591]
Meteor rolling out to begin another record
attempt, 1931.
[GEORGE SMITH Collection, P0036]
John Cobb's Napier-Railton which held the record
of 134.85 m.p.h. for a 24 hour period.
[ALVIN G. and LENA M. PACK Collection, P0500]
Sir Malcolm Campbell in 'Bluebird', circa
September 1935.
[[ALVIN G. and LENA M. PACK Collection, P0500]
Captain G.E.T. Eyston's vechicle making a record
run in 1938.
[UTAH POSTCARD Collection, P0591]
Hard work often pays off with more hard work.
[CLYDE ANDERSON Collection, P0158]
"On August 26, 1939, John Cobb became the world's
automibile speed king by driving his car 369.74 mph."
[UTAH POSTCARD Collection, P0591]
On October 23, 1970 The Blue Flame set a world
land speed record of 622.407 mph driven by Gary Gabelich.
[UTAH POSTCARD Collection, P0591]
Photographs from the 1996 trials. Click on the picture for a larger image. Special thanks to Jay Mumma for use of his photographs!
Sounds of the Salt Flats
The following links will connect you to two .wav audio files. The sounds bites are taken from the Salt Lake City's KSL radio news coverage of Captain Eyston's land speed record attempts on the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1938. The radio program was recorded onto 17 inch glass based acetate records by the "instant recording" method. The particular runs recorded were attempts made on August 24, 1938. A mere three days later, Eyston's "Thunderbolt" broke the land speed record by topping out at an impressive 345.489mph! Click on the front of the vehicle for the first run, (567k) and on the rear of the vehicle for the return run, (385k).
Click on the images above to play the sound.
