Bonneville

Ah well, we've been there and done that now! Didn't get the T shirt though. Spent 2 days at Bonneville, in northern Utah – the mecca of land speed records. A very bizarre place – 44,000 acres of salt flats formed from the evaporation of ancient Lake Bonneville. Mirages in every direction and white ground as far as the eye can see. Apparently the salt used to be 3 feet deep, but thanks to the local salt mining company, it is now a mere inch thick in places. It's a bit of a contentious issue with the racers. The place that everyone stays overnight is called

Wendover, just down the road from the salt flats – and it's just over the border in Nevada. We got a super-cheapo motel there (owned by possibly the fattest man I have ever seen). Being in Nevada, and just across the state line, it is FULL of casinos and naughty girly bars. Nevada has very relaxed gambling laws compared to the states around it, so this is the first stop-off point for any deviant Utahns busting for a session on the pokies (or something else, for that matter).

Anyhow, the first people we bumped in to on the Bonneville start line were from NZ – random! They pointed us in the direction of a bunch of other kiwis who were working and racing at the event. So had a good old chinwag with them. One guy was the head car scrutineer (had a car number plate 'B Munro') and he took us on a tour of the pits, and gave us an insiders view on the event. Another dude was in the car, called Mike, who must have been about 80 but he showed us a photo of him with Burt Munro – Mike used to be his little helper in the pits! Cool! All sorts of vehicles, and heaps of different classes – a lot of these machines were made by normal guys who just tinker away in their garage and try new innovative adjustments to get their vehicle to get it to go as fast as possible

 (and also a few millionaires by the looks of things). They have 3 miles to race and get the vehicle up to speed, at which point their speed is measured. One group of chaps we spoke to had set a new record in their class – 325 mph! Holy smokes! Brent was in car/motorbike heaven, and was loving chatting away to like-minded enthusiasts and engine-boffins! Have to say that I did get bored after a little while, but was neat to see the event. Was very low key, not flashy, and definitely not there for entertainment (no cheerleaders!), unlike the Bandimere

Drag Racing we went to back in Colorado. Bonneville Speed Week is purely for car and motorbike enthusiasts who like to go fast – and there is no song & dance act about it. No fuss and no flashy stuff. Brent would probably write a more technical and engineering-focussed blog entry than me, but hopefully you can get the idea of what the event was like! (we were very good and didn't get sunburnt either)

On the way to Bonneville, we stopped at the Kennecott Bingham Copper Mine, near Salt Lake City. A bit of an unusual stop, but we read about it in the Lonely Planet and it sounded cool. 3 miles wide and ¾ mile deep, this was the largest man-made excavation in the world – and is visible from space! It has produced the most amount of copper in the world from a single open pit mine, and has been going since the mid-late 1800s. Obviously the landscape has changed considerably, so was amusing listening to the visitor centre video describing all the generous community projects they've been involved in, plus how much they support the environment and local flora & fauna. Propaganda and excellent PR! Actually, the visitor centre was very interesting, and showed how complex it is to extract copper. The ore only contains 1% copper which is unbelievable, but the metal is so valuable (it is used in everything that has an electrical current) that it is worth having 99% by-products and waste! Was an impressive site, with huge trucks that were the size of houses, and massive shovels that can pick up 98 tons of rock in 1 scoop. The scale of the business was phenomenal. They don't do things by halves here in the States! (as we have also learned by some of the meals we have eaten here too) :-)

So we are now on our way westwards, overnighting in Austin, Nevada - which is literally in the middle of nowhere.  Saw bugger all on the way apart from some amusing signs:

1) Report people shooting from highway

2) Look out for scorpions and snakes

3) Prison Ahead: Hitchhiking Prohibited

Funny!