50 Years at Bonneville - Scott Guthrie Remembers

[Old-N-Slow]

50 YEARS AT BONNEVILLE:
Scott Guthrie Remembers

Chapter one: Mickey Thompsons Challenger, and the dreams of youth

1959

I slipped quietly into the room, moved silently to a rear corner,
and sat with my back to the wall. I could see the two doors opposite,
and the entire room of 50 people. My Friend Ace Fogarty
slipped me a paper bag, not looking as he did so.

I palmed the bag into my hip pocket.

Ace would go on to become a legend in the car world
at an early age. In his junior year in high school,
Ace would take 2nd in the national Soap Box Derby
in Akron Ohio, winning in 1959 dollars a $4,000
college scholarship. In his senior year, Ace won 2nd
in the Fisher Body model building contest, and securing
 another $4000 scholarship. He was the quiet force
behind our young hot rod group.

It was a bright cool Florida morning in 1959.

Today was an important day to our small group of maybe
eight friends. Today, we would happily call each other ?nerds.?
We had all gravitated to this back corner of the classroom
where we could pass notes unseen and could not be
approached unknowingly, especially from the rear.

Today was the day that fresh magazines hit the newsstands.

A distant bell sounded, and the study hall was immediately quiet.

I moved my large American History book to my wooden desktop,
and eased Aces bag into the concealed space, unseen behind the textbook.

Ace gave me small knowing look.

From the smudges on the bag, I knew my hand was
not the first to remove the magazine inside.

While facing my textbook, I moved only my eyes down to look at the cover.

HOT ROD Magazine, December 1959.

Mickey Thompsons 4-engine car, in white, on the white Bonneville Salt.
Mickey standing beside the car, right hand on the handle
of the big floor jack, ready to lift the car. The Salt flat, smooth
and appearing like white concrete.

Many men in attendance, and most working.

If that 60-year-old picture was on the cover of a magazine today,
it would not appear immediately to be a vintage picture. Maybe
something about the clothing and haircuts;
but that could be overlooked as a hipster style.

That photo and magazine cover was my first, and most indelible 
image of Bonneville, and it has carried me through
all my nearly 50 years on the salt.

Small groups of casually dressed folks working on home-made vehicles,
making ready for historic deeds, in the face of deadly peril.

Someday, I dreamed, I would be in that place and time.

PHOTOS:  In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that.  IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........

[saltwheels262]

Hoping that there are many more chapters to come.

Franey

[ratpatrol66]

I hope you are planning on going in 2020

[Old-N-Slow]

Chapter two:  An unlikely path to speed

I had learned to ride a motorcycle in 1958, and to drive a car in 1960.
I was not particularly good at either effort. On the bike, I could barely
get around corners, and in the car, fear kept me from going very fast, 
Probably not qualities one looked for in a future Bonneville racer.

My teenage eyesight was so bad that in two (2) seasons of little league,
I had a combined average of zero (0).  In two seasons, I never got a hit. 
My on base average was a little better, since I was so little, pitchers
often hard a hard time finding my strike zone,
and I would wind up with a walk.

Intent on a college education, I left Sarasota, Florida in 1962 for
Florida State University.  Car ownership, even just possession,
was forbidden to undergraduates.  However, I could, and did,
buy a small motorcycle for simple and inexpensive transportation. 

Top speed MAYBE 25mph. 

Powered by a 2-HP Briggs and Stratton flathead engine, this was
basically a lawn mower with two wheels.

Sometime in 1966, I wound up with a 1955 700cc made-in-England
Indian twin-cylinder motorcycle project, which was WAY beyond my
mechanical level AND my riding ability.  My GOD, that thing must
have had more than 30 horsepower !

I had time, but no money.

I also had no English sized (Whitworth) tools.

My dad had only American size tools.

Easy problem to solve.  After somehow removing any nut or bolt
from the poor bike, I would step to a borrowed bench grinder
and grind the hex to American size.

Presto !  An English bike, marketed as an American bike, using
a mixture of Whitworth and American size fasteners.

My life to that point had been pretty plain vanilla.  Ballroom dancing classes
in junior and high school.  Never had a real date until after
high school graduation. Hung with the physics club guys. 

I needed something a little on the wild side.

After re-assembling the Indian, and getting it running for the street,
I found all the cars a little threatening.  I reconsidered, and took
off the lights off the bike, and went riding off-road.

The sand was softer than pavement, and while cars moved,
the trees generally did not.

On a whim, in March of 1967, I entered a scrambles race event,
and took a 1st place.  No-one was more shocked than I was.

After a brief moment of glory, I reviewed my abilities and (mostly) my weaknesses. 
I sold the bike, made a down-payment on a 2-door 1957 Ford; and got a job
teaching shop in a rural Florida junior high school.

My dreams of Bonneville put aside for more practical matters, like eating.

However, late at night,
the Bonneville dreams persisted.

PHOTOS:  In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that.  IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........

[Koncretekid]

"HOT ROD Magazine, December 1959.

Mickey Thompsons 4-engine car, in white, on the white Bonneville Salt.
Mickey standing beside the car, right hand on the handle
of the big floor jack, ready to lift the car. The Salt flat, smooth
and appearing like white concrete."

I actually remember that issue. I was 12 years old and my oldest brother at 7 years my senior had a subscription to Hot Rod Magazine and I would steal them away and read them till the covers fell off.  A couple years later, I built my first bike, a 2 hp REO lawn mower motor in a bicycle frame.

Can't wait to hear the rest of your story.

Tom

[salt27]

Scott, I'm enjoying this.

Kind of like William Finnengan's "Barbarian Days" only instead of boards it's bikes.   

 Don

[Jack Gifford]

I can't remember if it was that Dec'59 issue or not- that included a photo with young Danny Thompson kneeling by Challenger's front wheel. Truly invaluable image.

'59 was when I became a Pontiac fan (60 years so far?), based at least somewhat on Mickey's exploits. By December I had acquired my first Pontiac engine- a '57 Tri-Power 347- and was terrorizing the roads with it in a '37 Buick opera coupe.

[4-barrel Mike]

I can't remember if it was that Dec'59 issue or not- that included a photo with young Danny Thompson kneeling by Challenger's front wheel. Truly invaluable image.

'59 was when I became a Pontiac fan (60 years so far?), based at least somewhat on Mickey's exploits. By December I had acquired my first Pontiac engine- a '57 Tri-Power 347- and was terrorizing the roads with it in a '37 Buick opera coupe.

Pictures, Jack, or it never happened! 

Mike

[Koncretekid]

" '59 was when I became a Pontiac fan (60 years so far?), based at least somewhat on Mickey's exploits. By December I had acquired my first Pontiac engine- a '57 Tri-Power 347- and was terrorizing the roads with it in a '37 Buick opera coupe."

Jack - - You and I must have been thinking alike, although mine was a '37 Chevy with a 347 Pontiac motor.





Tom

[Old-N-Slow]

SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 YEARS AT BONNEVILLE

Chapter three:  The dream becomes  a goal


In 1968 ? against everybody?s judgement - I sold my last Indian, and bought a used 1967 Harley Davidson 883cc Sportster ? with electric starter.  The electric starter was a must have.  In years of swimming competively in breaststroke ? including in the NCAA National Championship meet in 1966- my knees were so torn up, I could not reliably kick-start a big motorcycle.

The Harley was available for take-over payments from my acquaintance Richard ?Dickie? Betts, a guitar player who found himself in need of money for newer musical equipment.  His wife Dale, who was pregnant at the time, was a high-school friend of my wife Ellen.  They were expecting a child, and the bike had to go. Dickie would later play for a southern Rock music group called the Allman Brothers Band, based in Macon Georgia.  I still own that bike my first Harley.

By 1971, I was earning a little money in the evenings, having taught myself a little more about how to wrench on bikes, while working a day job teaching in a rural high school in lonely South Georgia. 

The vague possibility of Bonneville again made a distant call.

At about that time, I was looking at an older issue of CYCLE Magazine, and saw the results of the August SCTA Bonneville Speed Trials.  I read that someone had set a motorcycle WORLD RECORD (The promoters, the SCTA, called them national records  then and now) on a Harley Davidson Sportster.

I owned that 1967 Harley Sportster, and I thought I had made it fast. 

Could this be the beginnings of Bonneville Glory?

This being the early 1970?s, I felt the need to do something a little dangerous before I turned 30 years old.

Was that to be Bonneville ?

I remarked about the dreams of my soon-to-be-lifes obsession to a friend, and he gave me a long, cold look: You, in the outback of North Florida and South Georgia, could build a world?s fastest motorcycle. Sure !

Well, he had called my hand, and I was holding nothing !

The short background of this was: in the CYCLE article,
it seemed POSSIBLE that a no-talent rider, (such as I) with primitive
mechanical skills (Yours Truly) could actually SET A WORLD RECORD !..............

Being less than studied on the subject, I didnt know ANYTHING
about how altitude figured into the equations of power, or how
aerodynamics (that?s something about airplanes, right ?)  affected SPEED. 
Most importantly, I didnt know enough to NOT try it !


Boy, was I heading for an education FAR more interesting AND EXPENSIVE than college??..

Over the next 18 months, I studied all sorts of things about
making bikes fast, hiding from the wind, and staying safe.


I set to work.

PHOTOS:  In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that.  IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........

[jacksoni]

Though this is about the salt and bikes, I am glad you mentioned the swimming. Having competed with you (avoided the same events when you were there ) I can attest to your expertise in that endeavor as well. I am still at that and having just aged up and am after all the Maryland state records. Miss seeing you at meets. Best of luck and keep up with the remembrances. 

[Old-N-Slow]

Hoping that there are many more chapters to come.

Franey

Thanks for asking, my racy friend....there are ENDLESS episodes to come !

[Old-N-Slow]

I hope you are planning on going in 2020

I always PLAN to go, but sometimes the weather resists...............

[Old-N-Slow]

"HOT ROD Magazine, December 1959.

Mickey Thompsons 4-engine car, in white, on the white Bonneville Salt.
Mickey standing beside the car, right hand on the handle
of the big floor jack, ready to lift the car. The Salt flat, smooth
and appearing like white concrete."

I actually remember that issue. I was 12 years old and my oldest brother at 7 years my senior had a subscription to Hot Rod Magazine and I would steal them away and read them till the covers fell off.  A couple years later, I built my first bike, a 2 hp REO lawn mower motor in a bicycle frame.

Can't wait to hear the rest of your story.

Tom

How cool TOM that we share that history !

[Old-N-Slow]

Scott, I'm enjoying this.

Kind of like William Finnengan's "Barbarian Days" only instead of boards it's bikes.   

 Don

I never quite know what I am going to remember when I sit down to the keyboard !......By all means keep reading and positing positive thoughts.... You can PM the negative stuff, though.