Located in the Great Salt Lake Desert, the Bonneville Salt Flats are both a geographic and land-speed marvel. The crusty yet perfectly flat strip measuring nine miles long by just 80 feet wide, was formed 50,000 years ago when a 45,000-square-mile sea receded in what is now western Utah. Since 1909, Bonneville has hosted hundreds of races and speed trials featuring scores of remarkable cars, motorcycles, and drivers.
This photo history features all of the marques, both automotive and motorcycle, that have campaigned the Bonneville Salt Flats over the past nine decades. Represented are the four general racing categories associated with the venue -- special construction, vintage, modified, and production -- with special emphasis on the postwar years from 1950 through the 1970s, and such legendary drivers as Craig "Land Speed" Breedlove and Gary Gabelich, the latter of whom gained fame by driving the rocker-shaped, hydrogen-powered Blue Flame to a land-speed record of 622 miles per hour in 1970 -- one day before a storm dropped five inches of snow on the Bonneville course.
