The Road to World of Speed: A Multimedia Recount Part 1
By Chuck Johnson
Photography by Joe Lu and Adam Bendig
The 2014 season has been a tough one for land speed racers in general, with high winds cancelling events at El Mirage and thunderstorms flooding the Bonneville Salt Flats. On the home front, Team MotoIQ has had its own series of struggles to overcome with Murphy’s Law wreaking havoc every step of the way. Nevertheless, we managed to overcome the odds and set a new H/PS land speed record at Bonneville. Recounted through data logs, videos, photos and of course text, here’s our World of Speed story.
Upon arriving at Bonneville, we were greeted by the remnants of Mother Nature’s devastation of Speed Week. The first mile of the salt flats was covered with vast sections of standing water over a foot deep. With standing water at the entrance, we knew that the course conditions would be pretty bad.
The one good thing that came from the cancellation of Speed Week was that it gave my elbow the extra time that it needed to heal. In other words, I was back in the driver’s seat again. Sorry Annie Sam, next time.
During Speed Week 2013, we had secured a new H/PS class record of 178.984 MPH. However, after the fact it would be reduced to 173.329 MPH. Without getting into too much detail, 173.329 MPH was the average speed of Project 240SX LSR between the two and three mile markers on both runs. According to the SCTA rulebook, a record less than 175 MPH must run against on a three mile course. We had done our 178.984 pass in five miles.
What this meant for us, was that we either had a mere three miles to reach 200 MPH or we had to first bump the record over 175 MPH so we could go to the longer, 5 mile course. After much deliberation amongst the team, we decided to try to push hard and go for the 200 MPH mark during the first run.
