salt vs. black rock

[manifest]

Is there a reason black rock desert isn't used for lsr events?  I have not been around lsr very long but mainly all I have ever heard of Black Rock is thrust ssc run there and some tv commercials.  I did a search on here and came up with some other threads about it but not much in the way of why there isn't a yearly race there.  I just get a little trigger happy being in the hills here in TN and to know there is a dry lake that isn't being ran on makes me wonder.  If the salt keeps thinning from the mining would black rock be the next move for the scta speed week event?

Zach

[dw230]

I am sure others will jump in but, here is the short story.

Black Rock surface is a thin dirt crust that is broken through after the first run over it. Thrust SSC ran on many parallel tracks. It has been reported that the Burning Man as had an adverse effect on the course too. There are ruts, depleted area and left over trash among other issues.

The reason Thrust SSC ran there is that they are a thrust, duh, car vrs. our wheel driven cars. The lack of accomendations in the area would be the first thing to abort a Speed Week size event.

Many more answers to follow,

DW

[fastman614]

Ed Shadle would be better able to give details about this... but the major problem that has "bedevilled" Black Rock is that it needs several inches of rain in order for the surface to set up correctly.... and it has not been getting anywhere near enough precipitation in the past several years.

We were there in Oct 2007 ... We had laid out a course and during the days that we were there, the wind blew incessantly - not high winds but winds.... The "moguls" (dust drifts) that we had attempted to smooth over kept reforming... whether or not there has been any changes in the prevailing weather along with increased precipitation since then is debatable. As it was then, I do not think that the surface would support a day of a hotrod event let alone a week of it.

And, as Dan also alluded to, it is a long way from anywhere that would support the crowds a Bonneville Speedweek sized event would draw.... with Reno/Sparks being over 90 miles away. There is accommodations for perhaps 150 people in the Gerlach area....

[BIGHORN]

i recall reading about environmental complaints- either about or from the burning man guys

[fastman614]

The Burning Man event... hmmm... Let's put it this way.... when you have a 3 week long event that attracts upwards of 40,000 people (and the attendance may well be more than double that).... and the whole thing turns into a glorified rock festival environment.... the participants are erecting 3 storey tall replicas of pubs in European cities and stuff.... all for the purpose of setting it all on fire at the end.... and it is in an area that is a dry desert lakebed..... there is going to be some sort of disturbance....

At Bonneville, if nothing else, the salt is sort of "live".... metals get corroded to nothing and other stuff seems to rapidly biodegrade.... not so to anywhere near the extent at Black Rock....

I don't begrudge the Burning Man people doing their thing .... it is just that, with what seems to have been drier years over the past decade or so, the dry lake surface is not like it apparently used to be as recently as the late 1990s... it is actually difficult to describe with words... the surface is similar to El Mirage dry lake when it has been rejuvenated with the proper amount of moisture but it is not as "strong"... the jet car cuts way deeper ruts at Black Rock than it did at El Mirage... and it is not from traction either... just the weight of the car.

[Bob Drury]

  If memory serves me (and often it doesn't) I seem to recall that the logistics cost (race vehicle not included) were over $5,000,000. for the brits.
  Not only did they have to lay out and groom a new fifteen mile course for EVERY run, but they were required to have several helicopters in the air to ensure someone like Seldom Seen Slim didn't wander onto the course with his burro.
  Then keep in mind what the base camp must have cost..........  food, showers., toilets, sleeping quarters for maybe 50 to a hundred crew and support.
  Water, Fuel, Canopy's, etc.
  And I would bet that the BLM permits and environmental protocol were not cheap.
  I don't know this for a fact, but lack of sponsorship was probably not the only thing that kept Craig Breedlove from staying in the game.  I would bet that the Brits probably had a fleet of lawyers making it all happen.                                 Bob

[F104A]

Yes to all that. If the surface could hold up, we'd run there this summer. Nothing like hitting a hard spot of dust (they call them sand serpents)
that launches the car so hard it leaves the surface. It does one good thing, it tests the suspension system! We're looking at some other
locations to run the NAE. To run an event like El Mirage on the dry lakes with lots of miles, would be really good to find. If we do, I'll let you all know.

[wobblywalrus]

There can be some nasty dust storms on the Black Rock in the summer.

[Tman]

Slim has a burro?

[dw230]

From back in his gold miner days.

DW

[Seldom Seen Slim]

Ah, busted!  Dan's correct - sort of. . .  That is -- the "real" Seldom Seen Slim was Charles Ferge, a hermit/gold miner out in Ballarat -- the town (now ghost town) in the Panamint Valley west of Death Valley.  His personal motto, if you will, was something along the lines of "Hell, I'm half coyote and half wild burro". 

He'd spend months up in the hills looking for gold - and whatever else he wanted to find - and then head to Ballarat with his burro in tow to spend his poke of gold dust getting liquored up and whored out, then get supplies and head back to the hills.  Because he was a skinny old fart he was mostly known as Slim.  Now and then someone would get to looking for him and, upon asking his whereabouts from townsfolk, the reply would be "Slim?  He's seldom seen in these parts".

Seriously -- that's from whence cometh the name.  And now, as Paul Harvey used to say, you know the rest of the story.

[Tman]

I know the story but the thought of you hauling a burro in your black trailer had me chuckling

[manta22]

In the late '60s I was in Riverton, WY and met a grizzled old guy walking down the street who thrust out his hand and boomed "I always shake hands with a man with a beard". He was a real mountain man called "Lumberjack Joe" and his trusty Indian companion (no kidding!). He told us (our climbing party) about places to go in the mountains to find artifacts, etc., and about another mountain man there called "Seldom Seen Slattery". He then said "It's too warm down here, let's head back up into the mountains" and off they went.

I guess there are probably more "Seldom Seen..." out there.

Regards, Neil  Tucson, AZ

[Elmo Rodge]

When I was a goofy little kid I had 2 Burros. I also had a large pile of "burronium".  Wayno

[SaltRat]

Burronium, eh?  I know my brother had a rabbit when he was a kid.  My cousins came to visit and one asked about the little pellets in the cage.  Brother Pete says they are smart pills, try one!

Cousin Mike did try one.  Amazingly, he got smarter . . . .