Utah Joins In To “Save The Salt” At Bonneville

The Bonneville Salt Flats has long been known for its unrivaled high-speed surfaces. Perfect for speed and great for safety, it’s drawn racers from all over the world to Northwestern Utah.

It, along with many other dry lakes, was a primary proving-ground for industry veterans when testing new products back in the day. In the ‘30s and ‘40s, the largest names in the industry such as Edelbrock, Isky, Hedman, Mooneyes, and more, took advantage of its perfect surfaces–testing, tuning, and improving upon their products to ultimately create the next generation of performance parts.

Bonneville has played a huge role in the community and industry for a long time now, and we hope this doesn’t stop anytime soon. It’s a landmark. It’s a piece of automotive history.

For the past fifty years or so, its once 13-mile long race track has been decreasing in size due to salt erosion. Now less than eight miles long, an organization dubbed the “Save the Salt Coalition,” has stepped up to draw awareness. Even though it’s listed on the  National Register of Historic Places and deemed an area of critical environmental concern, previous efforts have been somewhat overlooked by the BLM (Bureau of Land Management).

Now, Save the Salt is turning to state and federal lawmakers for assistance. Nevada had stepped up to the plate along with U.S. Representatives and, just recently, Utah has also called upon the BLM to take action. The state alone has appropriated five million dollars toward a 10-year program to dramatically increase the amount of salt pumped onto the flats. While the program, “Restore Bonneville,” is contingent upon securing federal funds, it comes along with a plan directing the BLM to restore the international race track to its original 13 miles within ten years.

SEMA is hard at work, along with Save the Salt, to draw the attention of the U.S. Congress and the BLM, in hopes of a commitment to turn Bonneville’s goal into reality.