Here are some pics my 13 year old nephew took of No.77 He was sitting at the edge of our pop up (we were just shy of the 3 mile mark) taking pics of the cars being towed to and from the starting line. I didn't have the bigger lens on the camera so taking pictures of cars racing really wasnt in the cards since they would be a little small to look good on "film" No 77 was on the track racing and went out of control. Let me tell you it was incredibly surreal. The car was coming right at us and you just couldn't tell where the heck it was going to stop. All the spectators in our area started to scramble out of the way. Dalton was sitting next to me and we both jumped up ready to bolt. Wyatt was still in his spot where he had been taking pictures. It was coming at us incredibly fast, but almost in slow motion if that makes any sense? But it was over as quickly as it started. All of us spectators that hadnt peed our pants were talking about it. A bunch of us had been to Bonneville many times and no one had ever seen a car come that close to the spectators. I asked Wyatt if he was OK and he said yeah ... I took a bunch of pictures of it as it spun past! The still pic is of it at its apex right in front of us ... the other pics are the ones Wyatt took of it that I strung together in a 4 second video. Forgot how to imbed video ... Ill work on it
It was my first time back to speed week since 2001. Way too long. I was blown away by how many people were there......racers and spectators. Crazy. Anybody have a number count of how many entrants there were?
At the drivers' briefing on Saturday they said there were 516 pre-entries. I'm not sure how many actually turned up, but it was pretty busy for the first three days. Thinned out a lot the last couple of days, but still plenty to see. I think if you want to see all the cool spectator cars that show up, then you need to be there between Saturday and Monday. If you want to see the racing and get close to the cars, then Tuesday on is probably your best bet.
Here are a few more. Three fellows from France running their bikes of which one held a record, the "Love Machine", an Offy powered Indy car and a "Stagecoach".
Sweet to see some hummers out there, BTW the 1st year was 1948(really it was 1955 they when they renamed the model 125 after the dealer dean hummer) .... I was pretty heavy into restoring them when I was in elementary thru middle school
I think those are the first spin shots of Hammond posted anywhere online!? Damn that was close! You must have been sitting next to Terry?
Spoke with Ruth and Erik. She did 217 mph in her 1st pass. Was shooting for 221 or better on her 2nd run. Heard she only ran 195. Don't know what her final results were. He told me they were running a Model A banger motor with a Volvo head on it. Lot of background noise on the starting line so I may not have heard him correctly.
What a beautiful car. Met the owner and crew at the Motel 6. Finally got to see and photograph it in impound Wed. 230 Buick straight 8 with dual Holley 500 cfm 2V carbs. Left for Flagstaff early Thurs am so don't know if they sucessfully backed the qualifying run up for a new record.
Yep they were two spots down from us. I really like that area. We had always set up just at the far end of the pits, but they keep making the pits longer and narrower. Damn near to the checkered flags this year so we tried something new and it paid off since we didnt get mowed down lol. Wyatt will pretty happy so many people are digging his pics. The full sized ones are better than the little movie. If those people need them for any reason Id be happy to email them to them if they contact me.
How cool is it to run an AMBR contender on the salt? Great pics everyone, thanks. Incredible machinery.
I reposted that on landracing.com so they could see his awesome shots! Many pro photogs wait for years to get those shots! Tell the kid he might want to look into photography classes in school.
Wow, Who the hell is this guy who pretty much cloned or copied my paint scheme on my '32. Apparently he does not have the creativity to come up with his own paint job.