Photos: SCTA

A first trip to Speed Week on the Bonneville Salt Flats can leave you a changed person. Everything that you thought you knew gets tossed up in the air and lands in a new place for you to deal with.

Take the environment, for example. Out on the salt, the landscape is about as alien as anything you’ve ever encountered. Yet, the rise and fall of the sun delivers breathtaking vistas and the daytime light creates whites as pure as anything north of the Ross Ice Shelf.

Then, there are the cars. The array of competitive vehicles runs the gamit from contemporary muscle cars to rat rods, and from motorized bar stools to 650+ mph streamliners. The Cambrian Explosion could barely match the diversity of machines on call for their run at the salt.

The potential for racing on the salt was first recognized in 1896 by W.D. Rishel. Scouting a bicycle race course from New York to San Francisco. Rishel went home to convince daredevil Teddy Tezlaff to attempt an automobile speed record on the flats. Tezlaff drove a Blitzen Benz at 141.73 m.p.h. in 1914. Tezlaff had previously competed in the first four Indianapolis 500 events, finishing second in 1912.

There is a measure of that daredevil in every racer who shows up and this forms a common bond among the participants. It is a bond that you’ll be hard pressed to find at any other sporting event. Videographer Josh Clason attended this year’s Speed Week and presents his interpretation of the experience. He is left as dazzled as any other visitor.

In his own words, “How can you aptly describe it? The barren land, the salt, the sun? The people, the camaraderie, the cars? You might not understand until you experience it.” Are you packing your bags yet? The next event is the World Finals, runing October 6 – 9, 2010.