Bonneville Salt Flats and the Speed Week. It is like nowhere else on earth, they tell you….
Yeah, sure……….but they are right………..there IS nowhere like it.
The pure speed, the free spirit, the sense of freedom and the almost infinite space………………I hear that salt gets into your blood…………….I tested positive for Sodium Chloride…………
One day I will go back to the remote salt flats, perhaps you never leave…………..
Ry Cooder caught the mood of the addiction to speed on the salt………..
Three o’clock, this morning, I woke up in a dream.
Thought I heard a FlatHead motor roar, I thought I smelled gasoline.
A feeling came upon me, that I ain’t had in years.
Something like a hot dry wind, whistling past my ears.
Saying “Time, Time, Time is all you got”.
There’s a memory that’s still burning, way down in my mind.
And that’s why, I’m going out and trying, a FlatHead one more time.
I ain’t seen my racing buddies in thirty years, or more.
One by one I lost them, out on the dry lake floor.
We learnt to push those FlatHead cars as hard as they could go.
Just like old Whiskey Bob, down on Thunder Road.
I hear their voices calling, just across the finish line.
And that’s why, I’m going out and trying, a FlatHead one more time.
I’ll get back to you baby, don’t you have no fear.
‘Cos I been there, and I wrecked that, and baby I’m still here.
But I can’t take you with me, when I cross the finish line.
And that’s why, I’m going out and trying, a FlatHead, one, more, time.
Time,
Time,
Time is all you got………………………………….
John Brooks, October 2013
Re your April edition on Vale Special.
I am very interested in these cars, and wonder if you know the owner of the car in your photo.
In hope,
George Niblett