Speedless – Bonneville Salt Flats Covered With Water

It has been a rough couple of years for those with a need for maximum speed. The end of August (this year’s dates were to be August 26th to 31st) usually heralds news of record attempts run on the wide open salt flats but 2023 will see no such attempts, again as 2022 was also cancelled, at the AMA Landspeed Championships/ FIM Landspeed World Records. The problem this year is water – too much of it after Hurricane Hilary dumped additional rain on the salt prior to the event. Course organizers state that there is an average of 1/4 inch to 1 inch of water on the flats with many deeper potholes scattered around the surface which made preparations for both a course and an access road problematic. The salt flats, an extension of Utah’s Great Salt Make, really did become a shallow extension of that ancient body of water.

The salt needs to be dry to hold speed runs and the outlook for that suggested that it just wasn’t going to happen. Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trial’s website features some good images of just how wet the salt was: https://bonnevillemst.com/bmst-2023-cancellation/

Let’s hope that 2024 proves to be a better year for record attempts. If you have been saving up for your record attempt, you have another year to raise the $1045 early registration for a FIM Word Record, $695 for an early registration for an AMA National Record, or $200 for an early entry run-what-you brung. Those are of course in US$ and the 2023 rates.

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