Need help with an English Research paper. Gotta question for yall.

[Bitch'nBronco]

Im doing a research paper on the Bonneville salt flats and i am supposed to do an interview with someone who knows somthing about it. Well, most of the people I tried contacting think Im trying to sell somthing so they dont say anything. So, heres what I need. What do you know about Bonneville? Have you been to Bonneville? Have you competed there? What is Bonneville like? Why do you think Bonneville is so popular over places like El Mirage? Any other information is greatly appreciated. This is my semester long research topic, so the the more information, the better.

Thanks!

[Steve]

Been there. Haven't raced there. It's popular because it's very large, very flat and a very hard surface. Perfect for long fast straight runs. Because it's salt and moist there's essentially no dust either.

[AMMOtj]

Don't discount online journals. Your school should have a subscription to most of them online. When I write papers, that's were I get 75% of my sources. Infotrac, LexisNexis and Ebsco are probably the 3 most popular.

[scottycards]

I've been there and El Mirage. Probably your best contacts would be the City of Wendover UT, or the Chamber of Commerce there. They should be able to put you in touch with someone.

Also, the Southern California Timing Association. They'll have info for El Mirage and Bonneville, since they're the sanctioning body.

http://www.scta-bni.org/

There is just an awesome history of racing and motorsports at both places. Here's a photo I took a couple of weeks ago. We were at a guy's car collection, and he does a little racing there. These are the tires used at Bonneville- notice how the middle is actually lower than the edges of the tire.
That isn't the case at 300+ MPH. Check it out:
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u47/scottycards/SORC%20Party%202008/P2090035.jpg

[scottycards]

Here is some tire info.

http://saltflats.com/traction.html

Maybe more at that site, you'll have to look around.

Good luck, post up your report when you're done- I'd like to read it.

[Bitch'nBronco]

Thanks! I will contact them over the weekend and see what I can find out. I dont know much about the event itsef yet, but I know the more famous cars like Goldenrod, Challenger 1, the So-Cal Bellytank and some of the other ones. Wish I could ask those guys some questions. M/T is dead, One of the Moss Bros is dead, maybe I could call the So-Cal speed shop. I will definately post it up when I am done. It wont be finished until May. Thanks for the help so far! Those tires are awesome, I didnt know they did that. Makes perfectly good sense.

-John

[LONEWOLF]

I set the Hertz rent a car record there. Me and three buddies were skiing in Utah for a week Decided to go to Nevada from Park City to do some gambling
Got to the salt flats and we were in a rental, got on them and buried the speed o meter. pretty cool place, And Wendover is in Nevada on the line thats where we gambled.

[scottycards]

The whole Mickey Thompson story and that of his death, could be a topic for another paper.

Very shady circumstances around him and his death.

[Bitch'nBronco]

Yep, I've heard a lot about it, and that is a whole nother paper all its own. Maybe next semester...

[Tom N]

Watch the movie "The worlds fastest Indian". It's based on a true story.

[Scooter]

Watch the movie "The worlds fastest Indian". It's based on a true story.

Love that movie!...:cool:
You might get on other boards and ask them as well.
This is a site I frequent www.clubhotrod.com
or possibly www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/
Go there and check in, have fun!

[ZooMad75]

Call up The Kenz & Leslie Shop up in Arvada. They are a big BG distributor to Denver auto repair shops/dealers. But they started out racing at the salt flats back in the 50's and 60's.

Kenz & Leslie Distributing Co.
P.O. Box 1066
Arvada, CO 80001
1-800-342-5445

http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/bville-cars-3/777-1956.html

Car #777 was thier ride. There were others from Colorado that raced there back then, but this team is probably the best known from our state for the time.

They still got the car at the shop too. The car is used on all the business logo's as well so it's thier hallmark. Leslie even was one of the few to run the first Flip top Mercury Comet funny cars too.

Ten minutes of web searching will get you a lot of info on them so you can get to know the details before you call and ask the questions. Better yet see if you can go do an interview in person. Get some good pics with the man and the machine if they will let you.

[ZooMad75]

I've got some pics of Goldenrod from my last vist to the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit. It was right after they finished cleaning the car up. The car is absolutely huge in length. It's crazy they managed to stuff all those Hemi's in there. You want the pics, just let me know and I can email them to you.

[GPP33]

Sounds like a good excuses to load up a couple of buddies on a nice weekend and head out there to see it in person. It?s only about 10 hours away. Best thing you can do if you want to write about it is to live it. I?m sure you?ll find a few people out there who have some history with the place.

[Bitch'nBronco]

Hey, thanks everyone. Yall have been a big help! I really want to go to Bonneville, but I just cant get the time to go. Maybe in August, always wanted to see what it was like, especially sicne I want to go set a record out there when I get older. Worlds Fastest Indian is one of my favorite movies, its so much fun to watch. I would love to see the pictures of Goldenrod! I have the Hot Rod Magazine from a while back that has the full story in it on the resto. Its really pretty amazing what they did. My e-mail is johnathan.hardin@asu.edu.

Thanks!

-John