MOTOR RACING : Cars Will Get Another Chance at Salty Records

For the past 20 years, the cry at Bonneville has been “Save the Salt.”

It’s no different this year as the Southern California Timing Assn. prepares to hold its 42nd annual Bonneville Speed Week on the salt flats of western Utah next month.

“Last year at this time I didn’t think we’d have enough race track to run this year, but the winter weather really helped,” said Jim Lattin, chairman of Bonneville Nationals, Inc., which is responsible for SCTA activities at Bonneville. “It’s still a major crisis, though.

“The crust was so thin last year that vehicles were breaking through. This year, when we dragged the flats, there were more than a thousand pot holes where mud was oozing up. Back in the ‘50s, when Bonneville was at its best, the top crust was an inch thick. Now I’d say it’s not much more than a 10th of an inch. We would like to get it back to a half inch, at least.”

The Bonneville season will start with Speed Week, Aug. 18-24, followed by the Utah Salt Flat Racing Assn.’s World of Speed in September and the SCTA’s World Finals, Nov. 1-4. Several land-speed record attempts will be made during these events.

The source of the deterioration of Bonneville--in the minds of land speedsters--has been the firm that mines the salt for potash, which is used to make fertilizer. The process has been going on since World War I, and in the last two decades racers have complained that the leeching was reducing the quality of the salt flats.

In 1977, the Bureau of Land Management, which owns the land, undertook a two-year study at a cost of $100,000 to determine what could be done to preserve the salt. The result was a 250-page report but no plans to implement the study.

Two years ago, the Riley Chemical Co. purchased mining rights from Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Co. and has said it will cooperate in saving the salt. If finances can be arranged, a restoration plan would involve pumping brine from Riley’s salt pond to be spread over an 18-mile area where it would form a crust of salt. The thickness would depend on how much water the BLM would allow to be flooded.

The racers need a straight stretch of 12 miles--five to six for the approach to the measured mile and four or five to shut down.

“Riley has offered to pay half the cost, which has been estimated at around $400,000,” Lattin said. “That means the SCTA and other friends of the flats must come up with another $200,000. We have already saved $50,000 and are hoping to make some more money selling Bonneville memorabilia.”

Former racer Dean Hensley will hold one of the memorabilia sales Aug. 1-4 at 244 Pasadena Ave., South Pasadena.

Bonneville has been a haven of speed for the SCTA since 1949 when Speed Week was initiated with a record of 189.745 m.p.h. by Dean Batchelor and Alex Xydias in a Ford-powered Special Streamliner.

This year, several Streamliners are expected to challenge the wheel-driven land-speed record of 409.695 m.p.h., set in 1965 by Bob Summers in the Summers Bros. Goldenrod, powered by four Chrysler V8 engines.

Al Teague of San Gabriel warmed up last week at Bonneville at 377.123 m.p.h. on a course shortened by heavy rains and will be back for a serious shot at Summers’ record next month. Other challengers include Chet Herbert of Long Beach and Nolan White of San Diego.

Art Arfons, who has held the unlimited record on three occasions, is coming from Akron, Ohio, in his latest version of the jet-powered Green Monster to take a shot at Britain’s Richard Noble’s record of 633.468 m.p.h., set in 1983. Arfons, 65, who set the record at 434.02 m.p.h. in 1964 and increased it to 576.553 a year later, was at the World Finals last year but only reached 350 m.p.h. before a vibration forced him to shut down.

Noble was the first in nearly 50 years to set a land speed record--the average of two mile runs made in opposite directions within an hour--at a site other than Bonneville. Noble, finding the Bonneville salt too rough for his jet-powered Thrust 2 car, ran on the dried mud flats of the Black Rock desert, near Gerlach, Nev., about 100 miles north of Reno.

The Land Speed Authority, a group made up of racers and speed equipment manufacturers, will sanction the record attempts. In the past they were sanctioned by the French-based Federation Internationale de l’Automobile.

More than 350 vehicles, from cut-down coupes and Model A roadsters to the streamliners, are expected to make runs during Speed Week.

Motor Racing Notes

DRAG RACING--Gary Ormsby, 1989 Winston top fuel champion from Auburn, Calif., is undergoing treatment for an inoperable malignant intestinal tumor. Because of the debilitating effects of radiation, Ormsby, 49, is not seeing visitors or taking phone calls. His run of 4.881 seconds at 296.05 m.p.h. in September at Topeka, Kan., is the quickest and fastest in NHRA history. The Castrol team decided against putting a substitute driver in Ormsby’s car for the California Nationals this week at Sears Point Raceway. Starting with the National Hot Rod Assn. race in Seattle on Aug. 4, the car will be driven by Gordy Bonin.

The Nostalgia Nationals, featuring a reunion of Santa Ana drag-strip competitors, will be held Saturday and Sunday at the Los Angeles County Raceway in Palmdale. Competition will be for 1974 and older vehicles.

SPRINT CARS--The California Racing Assn. race Saturday night, scheduled for Kings Speedway in Hanford, has been moved to Manzanita Speedway in Phoenix. The Aug. 30 race in Hanford also has been moved. The CRA will run that night at Bakersfield Speedway in Oildale. When former champion Brad Noffsinger won last week at Santa Maria, he became the 15th winner in 29 races this season.

SPEEDWAY BIKES--The four U.S. qualifiers for the world championship semifinals will be split for the first time this year. Sam Ermolenko, Kelly Moran and Ronnie Correy will be at Aabensberg, Germany, for one semifinal Aug. 11, and Billy Hamill will race in Rouno, Soviet Union, on Aug. 18. That should help Hamill get to the World Finals Aug. 31 in Gothenburg, Sweden. Eight riders advance from each race, and the Soviet field is not considered as strong as the one in Germany.

With no racing Friday night at the Orange County Fairgrounds because of the fair, a group of Southern California riders will compete in Auburn, Calif., against a Northern California team.

STOCK CARS--Winston Racing Series sportsman competition will continue Saturday night at Saugus Speedway, Cajon Speedway and Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino. Saugus also will have a destruction derby. . . . Mark Reed, in a Pontiac, is defending champion in the Skoal Bandit late model race Saturday night at Mesa Marin in Bakersfield. . . . Dirt cars will run Saturday night at Santa Maria Speedway. . . . Ventura Raceway will feature street stocks with a demolition derby Friday night.

NECROLOGY--Jim Pisano, 62, a drag racing pioneer from Long Beach, died last Friday of a heart attack in the pit area at Bandimere Speedway in Denver. Pisano, who developed the all-aluminum JP-1 nitro race engine, owned the Oldsmobile Cutlass funny car that set the NHRA record at 286.25 m.p.h. last March.