I just returned from the ECTA’s inaugural Bonneville landspeed racing event. I’ve always dreamed of taking a car to race (not just spectate) on the salt, and the salt has always had a sacred place in my heart. I was born in 1967 and I spent most of my lunch breaks in junior high in the school library, which had a great subscription list of hot rod titles, paging thru page after page of magazines. Lil’ John was all the rage in that decade, and I was never really a billet guy, but those pages and photos lit the flame. HAMB has kept the fire hot as I went thru my working years, and I retired last fall by simply being careful to spend carefully and save small dollars routinely and big dollars when those blessings came my way. I purchased a stalled Model A coupe on deuce rails project from eBay back in 2016. The guy had done a really nice job chopping it and rebuilding the door glass channels, but of course starting a project and getting it on the road are 2 different things. When I was working, I made progress in binges, but wiring, brake lines, and actually getting it running always seemed like too great an obstacle to tackle. Well, when I retired, my excuses were removed. But, I needed a goal-a mark on the calendar-to force me to focus and get it done. About this time, Steve Strupp, the owner and operator of ECTA announced that after years of racing at Speedweek with the big boys, that he was going to add a racing event on the salt to introduce the members of his team to actual salt racing. I have participated with ECTA intermittently since 2015 in other cars (my LS-powered 240z (174mph) when it is running, and my tow vehicle truck (140mph) when the Z is broken or set up for left and right turns) and knew they run a safe, good event. I tried to have my coupe ready for the May 1 event in Arkansas as a shake down, but I couldn’t get all the safety (mainly a rear firewall) finished in time, though I exhausted myself and got pretty sick trying. I forged ahead to be ready for the July Bonneville trip, but the car was going to have very little time for shake down miles. I “finished” the car, put 200 shake down miles on it around town, then I loaded up my buddy, Jeff Hall, as co-driver, packed as many tools, spare socks and undies into the truck as would fit-and off we went! Starting with 200 miles on the odometer, the car made the trip from Alabama to Bonneville, raced (8 passes finishing at 149mph) and drove back. I’m now cleaning up the car and fixing the few small issues that were an aggravation (but not an impediment) on the trip. Here’s my attempt at a photo dump. I’ll post this intro and add photos after. It needs to be credited that this trip was largely inspired by Brian Bass and the fantastic photo blog that he posted here on HAMB. Thanks for keeping the fire lit, Brian.
Thanks for writing about your adventure and sharing great photos. Taking a street driven hot rod to 149 mph takes way more nerve than I possess. I can proudly say I've driven my rods more than 170k miles, but my terminal highway speed is somewhere about 85 mph. Happy rodding,
Quite the accomplishment! Great story and pictures. For others that also might not know the acronym, the title, post and pictures refer to East Coast Timing Association.
Congratulations! That took a lot of work and some guts! You went out there without a support vehicle? That was balsy. Well done.
Congrattts on your run down the salt !! Where was this run on the salt ?? It does not look like ECTA shares the SCTA course ?? $1650.00 to make some runs ?? How many runs did you make ??
@Nacifan , I believe both organizations select their event course on setup day, based on where the best salt surface is located at that time.
Steve set up a 1.5 mile course 100 yards east of the culdesac at the end of the paved access road. There were less than 15 participants, so we used the culdesac as our pits. I got there on Friday night before sunset, but after racing had concluded. I think it was only intended to be kind of an “intro” to the salt, but our records still stand in the ECTA record books. 2 cars went over 200 mph on day 1 before I got there. There’s always a faster kid on the block, so I wasn’t after a specific speed, but I wanted to do a “respectable” job, and I’m happy with my little street coupe. My car was very un-sorted, and I learned a lot. I learned that even on the salt, suspension matters. I made 2 passes before lunch and two more after lunch on both Sat and Sun for a total of 8 time slips. I didn’t care if it cost a million bucks-I would have sold a kidney for the experience to participate in timed speed trials at Bonneville. By keeping it down to a weekend and getting in and out of the car while on a paved surface, there was very little cleanup required. The salt does not like copper. My nicop brake lines on the back half of the car (the portion of the car in front of the front wheels was spotless), and the copper crush washers on my 9” chunk show the only real corrosion on the whole car. If I ever build a car specifically for salt racing, I’ll do stainless brake lines. Watch ECTA Motorsport FB page and come out next year! I plan to go to the Fall event in Arkansas in October 1-3.
The Jalopy Journal
