All right, boys and girls, gather ‘round and let me tell you a story about what has become the single-biggest social event during SpeedWeek. It’s called Salt Talks.
Salt Talks is the annual gathering that Jon Amo, the racer that owns and operates landracing.com, started offering eight years ago. It was meant to be a chance for those racers that hang out online – to get together in person after racing has ended for a day during SpeedWeek. That’s still the idea – but Salt Talks has grown to host hundreds of people these days, many of whom aren’t on-line. That’s dandy – the idea is to give us a chance to meet in person when we’re not in the pits, or in line, or in impound.
Salt Talks ’07 will be held Sunday evening, the 12th of August, at “The Bend in the Road”. That phrase right there is a mystery to many folks – mostly those that haven’t driven out to the Salt yet. The access road to where we race is a paved road about 5 miles long. It goes straight north for a mile or two from I-80 and then turns 90 degrees to the right and continues for a couple of miles. That turn is the only turn in the whole dang road – so it’s easy to use as a point of reference. And there’s also a nice area there where many folks choose to camp, so attendees don’t have far to go from their luxury tent suites to the Salt Talks Gathering.
Back to Salt Talks ’07. Festivities will begin after racing has wound down for the day on Sunday. Nancy and I host the event, and we don’t plan to take our race bikes out of the trailer ‘til the day AFTER Salt Talks – so we’ll be setting up early enough that the food should be ready before you all get there (I mention this ‘cause last year were had a bike in impound Sunday and were late getting the charcoal started). For food we’ll have quarter-pound hamburgers (I use my nitrous scale to weigh the patties – this is a race-related event, remember), big hot dogs, bratwurst, and a food that we bring all the way from Marquette – “pasties”. Last year we brought 85 – and they went quickly, so if you want one – make sure to get there early before the gourmands scarf ‘em all up. There’ll be pop to drink, too. Other than condiments – whatever else is supplied is what you’ve brought to share. Want potato chips? Bring ‘em! Ditto beer. Ditto coleslaw. Ditto steaks, etc. We’d sure appreciate it if a few of you brought coolers into which we can toss the pop and your other refreshments. We’ll try to have enough ice on hand – especially if you find us BEFORE Sunday evening and let us know so we can have the ice ready and waiting.
Salt Talks is not only a gathering – it’s a fund-raiser for landracing.com. It’s also a self-liquidating operation. With all that in mind – we’ll do a couple of things to generate bucks. There’ll be a can or two for donations. There’ll be Salt Talks ’07 t-shirts for sale*. Last year we tried having a drawing/raffle/50-50 – and it worked out pretty well. The gifts we gave away in the drawing were donated by many, many racers, so if your team has some t-shirts (for instance) we’d be happy to give away a couple of them as prizes. We had jewelry donated, we got a bushel of apples to give away, we had all sorts of stuff – something like 100 gifts in all. It was cool – the idea worked out well, so we’ll try to do it again this year. If you’ve got stuff to give away – please think about letting me know in advance so we can keep track of what we’re getting. You might as well just keep it with you ‘til you get to SpeedWeek – unless you want to ship it to me so we have to store it in our trailer. Anyway, we spend a couple of thousand dollars in advance to buy the shirts, buy the food, and so on – and last year we gave away $500 to the ticketholder whose number we drew. The money that’s left after the bills are paid – goes to landracing.com. Salt Talks is your chance to help Jon keep the site running – and to get something more than the satisfaction that you’ve sent a check his way.
So – some important details: Salt Talks ’07 will be Sunday afternoon, 12 August 2007, at the Bend in the Road. We’ll likely get started around 6PM or so, and things’ll wind down after dark (if we get lucky we’ll even have a fireworks display like we did last year). There’s likely to be hundreds of people, so plan on having a sore throat the next morning (from all the talking you’ll be doing). Bring chairs if you want to sit down. We’ll have a lie detector available in case (just in case, you understand) some racer makes a claim about “how fast I really went, but Glen must have missed something in the timing tower ‘cause the timing slip only showed a speed that was way lower than what I was going through the lights.”
Got it? Oh, yeah – I put one of those * marks up there about t-shirts, didn’t I? Here’s the story: We order scads of shirts, getting mostly large and extra-large. We get a few in other sizes – but if you want to be sure your size is in the mix, please get in touch with me BEFORE I order. We can get everything from kid’s sizes to 3XL, and we can get ladies styles (string tops), too (even though those shirts don’t have room for art on both front and back, but we can get ‘em). Let me know what size you want. Let me know by either email to jon@infodestruction.com or buy contacting me at the office: Star Industries, 906 249 3342. I’ll take your name and order request and try to fill your needs with the right shirts.
More later, no doubt. In the meantime – WE’LL SEE YOU ON THE SALT!!!!
Signed:
Seldom Seen Slim
a/k/a The Potentate of Porta-Potties
a/k/a Jon Wennerberg
