Utah’s famed Bonneville Salt Flats is a 30,000 acre salt bed so long and flat you can see the curvature of the earth.

This desolate surface comes alive twice a year when hot rodders, infected with a need for speed, rev it up to break records. The fascination with Bonneville started before they were first allowed to race there in 1949.

In the early days, Hot Rod Magazine fueled the interest in this land of high-speed exploits. It’s still a tradition for those at the magazine.

“I came to Bonneville the first time in 1992 with Gray Baskerville.  I was just like a cub junior editor there at that time but Gray really taught me what the Salt’s all about – the heritage and what goes on here.  And between that, the horsepower and the speed, this is to me the ultimate car event,” said Hot Rod’s Editor in Chief, David Freiburger.

It’s an ideal setting for speed trials.  Miles of flat, unobstructed land allow the racers to get their cars up to maximum speeds.  But it’s no longer quite big enough for the rocket-powered cars, the ultimate land speed record vehicles. Today’s Bonneville racers look for other records to break.  There are plenty.

People like Freiburger come to Bonneville to test their mettle and take a stab at breaking the 200-mile per hour barrier.  Joining the 200-mile club is considered to be quite an honor among these die-hards and it’s gotten harder to find a record in a class that you can break.

“I wanted to get into the 200 mile per hour club and it used to be that to get into the 2 club, all you had to do was break a record over 200 miles per hour.  But now, in fact, the club sets a minimum at which you must go faster that the minimum to get in the club.  For example, the record in the class might be 210 and I set a new record at 211.  The 200 mile per hour club might look at that and say in that class, the car really needs to be going 240 for you to be somebody and so they set a minimum of 240,” explained Freiburger. 

He was gunning for a record in a class where he needed a minimum of two runs at 225 miles per hour.  “It’s not easy, but it’s attainable and I think we’re going to do it,” he said.  We’d find out later that day.