Landracing Forum
Bonneville Salt Flats Discussion => Bonneville General Chat => Topic started by: bharmon77 on June 03, 2011, 02:16:45 PM
-
This will be my first trip to Speedweek with a motorhome. I need some advise, I understand that you can camp overnight at the bend in the road, do you need a reservation to do this? Also can you park your motorhome next to your race car in the pit area? Any other help would be appreciated.
-
yes and yes.......but you can't stay in the motorhome on the salt at night. you have to go back to the bend.
-
There is absolutely unlimited free parking for campers, RVs, tents, and anything else at the Bend in the Road. NO FEES of any kind. No services, either -- save for a few porta-potties and dumpsters for garbage (please use both as appropriate).
You may drive your RV to your pit at any time the course is open - if you've got a pit area access button or tag for it. Otherwise you'll have to park it in the spectator parking area and hoof it the remainder of the way.
You may leave your RV at the pit overnight -- but you may not occupy it. NOBODY is allowed on the salt at night -- except security people. Patrols scour the entire race course area at closing each night to make sure that there's nobody remaining.
-
Also can you park your motorhome next to your race car in the pit area? Any other help would be appreciated.
Or... you can use your motorhome as your race car! It cuts down on space requirements: :-o
(http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/uu248/gyronaut/travoyatspeed-1.jpg)
(http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/uu248/gyronaut/travoyroostertail.jpg)
(http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/uu248/gyronaut/speedcert.jpg)
-
Streamliner I am sure glad that my brother doesn't frequent this site it's his motorhome and he would probably try it!
-
I can't imagine how much tubing he'd need for the cage inside to meet the current rules!
Stan
-
Streamliner, thats just tooo coool, that big tub got right along!!
Check this out, entertainment plus from the Pom's.
Sid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohkAxbeMxVo
-
Kiwi Belly Tank....that's some funny sht!
-
I really like the moho packing the left front. Did ya check out the bus racing??
Sid.
-
If you take any pride in your motorhome at all DON'T drive it onto the salt. You will find salt has gotten to places you won't know about and it will eat your MH up. The salt is damp and mushy in places and sticks to everything. We left ours in Wendover and drove our Samurai toad onto the salt each day after spraying Salt-Away all over the underside. That was in 2006. I still have rust from salt showing up.
Jim
-
A while back maybe 5 yrs ago? At WOS, there was a GMC motor home that actually raced. It seems like I remember it going almost 100 mph, I would say it was a 28 foot not for sure about that, kinda cool though.
Clay
-
World of Speed last September an early GMC motorhome with BBC power. 120 mph. Loud and looked cool at speed. Ran in the 130 club competition. No cage needed.
-
Imagine rolling one up in a ball on the salt, it'd put down a lot of tooth pics!!
Sid.
-
I saw a motor home like that in the median off of I eighty in 1971, three hundred yards of tooth picks and aluminum, just before the SF exit.
Steve
-
Kiwi Belly Tank: Great video. The "no bumping" rule reminds me of my brother and I, as pre-teens, chasing each other on our minibikes around and around and around the house. Similar endings to our races, too! We'd race until either something or someone broke. :-D
The GMC looks like it was called the project TVS-4 (‘Travel Vehicle Streamlined, model 4’). For maximum grunt, it dropped in a mighty 455ci V8—an engine that also powered the ’68 Toronado. It looks like it was the 23' model, but I'm not sure. In 2007, it looks like it went 106mph. (Google info, so it may not be accurate :?)
Tremulis' 26' Travoy was powered by the identical engine, so the similar results is not surprising. Here's a quick build-up:
(http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/uu248/gyronaut/travoy1.jpg)
(http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/uu248/gyronaut/Travoy2.jpg)
(http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/uu248/gyronaut/Travoy6.jpg)
(http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/uu248/gyronaut/Travoy4.jpg)
(http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/uu248/gyronaut/Travoy7.jpg)
(http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/uu248/gyronaut/Travoy8.jpg)
(http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/uu248/gyronaut/Travoy9.jpg)
Yada, yada, yada... Then here's a couple full-size prototypes:
(http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/uu248/gyronaut/travoys.jpg)
Yada, yada, yada... The next thing you know, you're in a brochure illustrated by famed futurist Syd Mead:
(http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/uu248/gyronaut/travoybrochure.jpg)
-
Streamliner, thats just tooo coool, that big tub got right along!!
Check this out, entertainment plus from the Pom's.
Sid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohkAxbeMxVo
Sid
I laughed all the way thru that clip
But if you watch it closely, for the most part, when James May is driving, he has an egg in his hand, except for at 6:27 when he is hitting the other van with a frying pan out the window.
The DLRA had a record for a bus,
2002 Club Animal #151 Ford Bus BUS 66.57
however it seems to have been retired
G
-
And here's Alex Tremulis' account of the run. He was always good for an entertaining story, and some of you guys are mentioned in it, as well... :cheers:
ps: I tried resizing, downsizing, upsizing, etc., but the pics still came out sized as you see them. To get a bigger view so it's easier to read, magnify your window view by clicking the magnify button in the bottom right hand corner of your explorer window. :|
(http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/uu248/gyronaut/impressions1.jpg)
(http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/uu248/gyronaut/impressions2.jpg)
(http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/uu248/gyronaut/impressions3.jpg)
(http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/uu248/gyronaut/impressions4.jpg)
And Alex Tremulis on that day...
(http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/uu248/gyronaut/astatelmirage.jpg)
-
So the Travoy literature said: "A new world speed record for motorhomes, set at El Mirage Dry Lake, California 97.613mph."
I think this may technically be in error, as it doesn't look like a two-way run, etc, etc. It may have been the fastest officially timed speed, but not a "world record". What would have been the class at that time, and what was the record for that class in 1970? The early 1970's GMC looks like it did run at Bonneville in 2006 and had at least its first sanctioned record at 99+mph(?). What record did it run against?
Is this even the right way to look at motorhome records, or is there even a motorhome class??? Where do you draw the line between a shorter and a longer motorhome?
Just curious and wanting to get the facts right...
-
ps: I tried resizing, downsizing, upsizing, etc., but the pics still came out sized as you see them. To get a bigger view so it's easier to read, magnify your window view by clicking the magnify button in the bottom right hand corner of your explorer window. :|
The website restricts picture height to 400 pixels, so the fault is not yours. Perhaps you could save them pdf's and attach them in full size?
Mike
-
There are no motorhome classes. Any one can say anything they want. Ain't America grand, free speech and all that, what a country.
There are no two way runs at El Mirage. If I remember correctly the Bonneville speed for the motorhome was a courtesy pass. None of it means a thing.
DW
-
Six or eight or so years ago John Szaly was trying/hoping to run his motorhome at World of Speed. He was hoping to make it a "class", or (as I remember) if nothing else, get a timing slip to show to others so he could have some kind of bragging rights about the fastest motorhome. (John and his wife helped Nancy and me with some crew duties then). I don't think he ever go to run the mh, though. He hasn't been active on the land-speed list in quite a while - and I don't think he's ever been here. John -- if you're reading this, please let us know the "real" story of what went on, okay? Thanks.
-
Mods - for the love of God, please lock this thread!
DW
-
Are you talking to me, Dan?
Yeah, I think the subject has been flogged enough. Anyone interested could, I suppose, search the Forum looking for this or other thred that mention motor homes.
It'll go locked pretty quick. First - a bowl of strawberries.
-
NHarmon, please forgive me -- but as DW pointed out, this thread has strayed quite a ways from your original query - about taking a motorhome to visit SpeedWeek. So -- I'll stop the thread since most of us are only goofing around with it. You've been offered some good information, and if you still have more questions to ask -- well, go at it again. That's your privilege here, and I sure won't stop you. But if it gets goofy again - I'll stop it again. Might as well leave the forum for real land speed racing stuff, not the what if's about motorhomes.
Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but this thread is now kaput.