138 Volunteer workers – 3108 runs in seven days!!

That’s the total through the end of SpeedWeek.  One of the newest “banquets” is held on Thursday, being one of the most laid-back, too.  It’s put on by the City of Wendover, Utah, in conjunction with the SCTA and BNI.  It’s the Volunteer Appreciation dinner, and attendance is open to not only the workers – but to folks from the community.  We all know that SpeedWeek brings lots of folks to town for a short time – and so the City lays out a big spread of food, donates some give-away gifts (so do some racers and businesses, too), and lets all of us eat and party in the Community Center building.  There were at least 200 of us there last night.  Everyone won at least one prize in the drawings, too.

Okay – at the dinner, where we had burgers, spicy hot dogs and sausages, chicken, and good trimmings and desserts and salads and all that stuff – at the dinner Mike Waters, BNI Chair, and Roy Creel, SCTA president, thanked everyone for the work and the fun.  138 workers – really!  And most of us have been doing our own particular jobs and helping with other folks for long enough that we put a city on the Salt together in about three days.  Well, except for the dragging and surveying of the courses, which starts in July or so, and the basic planning, which starts the day after the previous SpeedWeek ends.  Thanks to everyone, for sure, for sure.

How about the total of 3108 runs?  Decent!n  The Special course was, once again, a super-big help, with many folks that might have run even on the long course – preferring do make runs over there beyond the dike.  The course is great not only for traditional short course needs, but also for licensing upgrades and tuning runs and so on.  I hear that Wes Hutchens and the rest of his crew got a total of 934 runs off on the Special course.  Not bad, hey?  I’ll get tallies for everything as soon as I can – but right now, as I type – most of the workers are poolside at the Quality Inn getting some well-earned R & R.  But – whenever you get a chance to do so in the next weeks or months – give a tip of the hat to all of the SCTA/BNI workers that put together SpeedWeek 2009.  We enjoy putting it together so you all can go fast safely and in an atmosphere of conviviality.  

Jon Amo, the racer that founded this website – www.landracing.com -- was named the Bonneville 200 MPH Club “Person of the Year” at the Club’s annual banquet during Speedweek 2009. He joins dozens of others that have, in the opinion of the board of directors of the Club, made a significant contribution to the sport of land speed racing. Congratulations, Jon.

Some of the previous awardees have been members of the Club – but many haven’t been so. That isn’t a requirement for this honor. Rick Gold, from ERC Racing Fuels, and Cris and Ed Shearer, aren’t even racers per se – but they’ve had significant impact on l s r. Other winners of the award include Wally Parks, Burke LeSage, Mike Waters, Dan Warner, the SCTA volunteers (as a group), and on and on – down the list of people that have truly given deeply to land speed racing. Jon’s idea of creating a website that allows the news, events, and excitement of the avocation to be spread instantly across the world – and to allow the folks that share our enthusiasm – is now formally acknowledged to have made a significant impact in furthering our way of having fun.

Jon’s website began in the mid-1990’s, providing reporting from events, along with photos, and a Forum where members can interact directly and share their concepts and skills. He instituted a live chat room, where (on Tuesday evenings, at 7 Mountain time), we can get together and chat in real time. Nobody else has built such a wide-ranging and well-accepted website for land speed racing. Thousands of folks see the website each day – tens of thousands see the Forum.

Jon Amo has made his mark in racing, and this website (now owned by Seldom Seen Slim, a/k/a Jon Wennerberg) is just one of his legacies. Best wishes and congratulations.  Now, Jon -- go out and get your red hat in your new race car!