Photo: KillaCycle/Facebook
Almost a year after Bonneville’s famous Speed Week had to be canceled, the Southern California Timing Association says racing should be able to resume this year.
The Bonneville salt flats are synonymous with land speed racing. For decades, motorcyclists who want to know just how fast they can go have flocked to the Utah desert to set records, blow up their bikes, or both. Perhaps they are most widely famous for being the backdrop for the Burt Munro biopic The Word’s Fastest Indian, starring Anthony Hopkins, but it’s a place that’s been in the collective consciousness of in-the-know motorcyclists since at least the 1950s. Many Canadians have traveled south to compete at the flats.
In recent years, the flats have fallen on hard times. Weather (flooding in the desert!) meant several prominent events, including the SCTA’s Speed Week, had to be canceled in 2014. In 2015, it got even worse: Organizers said there wasn’t enough salt to race on. The world-famous salt flats were unsuitable for land-speed events, and prestigious races like Speed Week had to be canceled again.
But now, there’s good news. According to the Southern California Timing Association’s Facebook page, racing should be able to resume this year. They’re saying “As of right now we have an 8-Mile Long Course, a 5-Mile Short Course and a 3-Mile Rookie Course. Course Prep is in motion and the 5-Mile & 3-Mile courses have been groomed. ” That’s good news to anyone who’s invested the funds in a race bike and taken the time off work to head for this year’s event, and hopefully we’ll see more records set and broken again this summer and fall. Until then, you can kill time watching Jamie Robinson’s $300 assault on Bonneville below.
[…] Source: SCTA via Canada Moto Guide […]