BACK TO LANDRACING.COM HOMEPAGE
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Bonneville also has a lot of first timers that had no racing background or much if any automotive knowledge come to the salt and set records the first time out. Someone with his creds knows exactly what their doing and may even hurt some peoples feeling that have been doing this type of racing a long time. One of the last well known drag racers from back in the 60's who was a drag racing 426 Hemi guru and icon mixed it up and built a land speed Flathead Ford that went over 300 MPH not that long ago. That's about as polar opposite as you can get with both engine design and racing genre's. I think he'll do exactly as he claims or come very close. He's not called the Professor for nothing.
Swamp Rat 33: I had always wanted to go to Bonneville and run on the Salt Flats, but never had the time to build a car. So when Rich Venza called me and asked if I would pay to build a car, he oversee the project, borrow an engine and maybe I could get into the “200 MPH Club”. Rich said that there were several records right at 200 that were “soft”, so to speak. Rich and friends built the car, Pat and I flew to Salt Lake City, rented a car and drove to Wendover, Utah, home of the Bonneville Salt Flats. I made a couple of warm up runs, got my Streamliner license and then broke the record in FX/GS class. The timed two way record was 217.947 and was set on August 18th 1988. I never had time to go back to the salt, even though I built a 300 CID Hemi to go 300 MPH in the car. Rich and the boys ran the car for several more years and then returned the car, less engine, to the Museum and we put it on display, sans the original blown flathead Ford engine that I set the record with in 1988. Then a few years later I secured the engine from its original owner and placed it in the booth with the “Saltliner”. It is an awesome display and I had the time of my life making the runs!
