Category: Joe Gresh

It seems like tents get larger the more time they spend exposed to sunlight. But the thing is, man, camps were made to be broken. As much as I liked the hot sun, dusty gravel lot and 4-mile walk to the KOA facilities, we had to go.

I’m good with the two days we spent on the salt. I feel like we got a really good idea of the situation and the Southern California Timing Association had their hands full. They didn’t need me prowling around stirring up the troops. The salt was in no mood to be trifled with and we left it to bake and heave, a different salt from a few hours ago and different from that salt in a few more hours.

There’s no good route east from Bonneville except for the hard slog on Interstate 80. From there it’s a long hot day south and the Husky beat out a steady tune all the way to Moab, Utah. The place was an endless parade of tourists, every one one of them healthier than the last. Their bodies were so chiseled they looked like they subsisted solely on finely ground pumice. Their smiles were stretched over perfectly dazzling teeth. I felt like Quasimodo lurching among this mob of Fits.

We swung through Monticello, Utah, a place where 11 years ago me and Hunter left Dave at a motel room with a broken foot and two hamburgers on his night stand. The past days and present days are crashing together on this ride. If you let your mind wander it’s easy to lose track of where you are on the continuum. The hamburger place where we stocked Dave’s nightstand is still there. Maybe Dave is still in that room. 11 years has gone-and-went representing one tiny tremor of time. What happened?

I rode away from Monticello on Godzilla back then. It was a hard pull up the grades.  Sometimes the old two stroke held 55 mph. Now I rip up the same hills with the Husky spinning free. So much air pumping past 500 CC’s of modern 4-strokery. I’d still rather be on Godzilla. You earned a hill with that bike, man.

Tonight we’re giving Switchblade, the panhandler with a pickle, another shot at my ribcage in Window Rock. I wonder when I will be back to remember this place, to remember Switchblade. I wonder what the last place will be?

Get it while you can, boys.

The rough wet salt did not bode well for the speed trials this year. After seeing how the situation unfolded yesterday Mike and I were in no hurry to get out to Bonneville and in fact it was almost 11:00 a.m. before we paid the SCTA man another $20 entrance fee.

The ticket man told us to avoid the start area as it was getting churned up and the competitor’s vehicles were getting stuck. It was kind of a pain because the start area was where we wanted to go. One thing I’ve learned in my short life is that there’s no sense in railing against mushy salt.

My hamburger-stand-at-noon meter told me there were fewer spectators and contestants than yesterday. Bonneville isn’t spectator friendly to start with as the courses are far in the distance. You pay to be surrounded by the ambiance: great things are happening just over the horizon.

The pits are very open, you can go bug the racers all you like. They really seemed to appreciate my helpful suggestions for grabbing that final 1/10 of a mile per hour.

I don’t know why my motorcycle brothers were being so obtuse on the track today. They consistently failed to clear off the course after their run much to the dismay of the hundreds of waiting competitors.

Even without the motorcycle guys gumming up the works wait times between runs stretched to 15 minutes. Multiply that by 100 or more competitors and you start to get at the immensity of the problem caused by Mother Nature shutting down three courses.

Bonneville is one of those events where it’s easier to compete in than spectate. After one really lengthy pause in the action we decided that racing may be over for the day. We headed back to camp feeling ill-used for our $20 entrance fee but it all goes to a good cause: The pursuit of speed.

Unrelated to anyone’s efforts on the salt, one of the bolts holding the luggage rack to the Husqvarna had fallen out somewhere on the trip to Bonneville. I removed the opposite side bolt for a sample and took the thing to Ace Hardware where they had no metric bolts. The next place I tried, CarQuest, had two of the small, 4mm bolts.

As soon as I located the correct bolts I should have known I was in trouble. The Husky uses those captivated-nut type of deals where a threaded nut is crimped into the aluminum frame tube. It gives you something sturdy and steel to screw into.

When the sample bolt was removed the captivated nut became a free range nut and it wandered off into the frame tube. Of course I had no idea any of this was happening.

I kept trying to screw the sample bolt back onto the Husqvarna. The thing would not start. As I became more confused I became more irrational. It was hot, Mike was making suggestions and I was not wanting to hear them: “I just took the bolt out of the F-ing rack minutes ago! Why won’t it start?” Semi-blind from sweat I removed everything off the back of the bike and it became clear that the bolt was never going to thread into the hole because there was nothing to thread into. It was a void, man.

Back to Ace hardware for a $35 drill motor, a $14 drill bit set, and assorted 1/4″-20 bolts and nuts. That bastard rack was going to be secured by any means necessary. I drilled all the way through the frame tube and into the plastic inner fender. Now the longer bolt was slotted through into a locknut on the other side.

This all sounds simple but it took three separate trips to the auto store and hardware store to achieve. I gave Mike the new drill motor hoping the shiny bauble would make him forget all that he had seen earlier. I spent the remains of the day sitting by the KOA swimming pool and drinking gin & tonics. Tomorrow we break camp and start heading back to God’s country: New Mexico.

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A Ukrainian guy crashed his 900-volt electric bike at 150 miles per hour. He’s okay but the bike is a bit bent. It’s been a hard day on the salt for motorcycles and not much better for the cars. The course is rough and soft.

I hear the grumbling as I cruise the pits. “No records this year.” “We might as well go home.” “They should call the whole thing off.” Conditions have restricted the racers to one course for experts and one course for rookies. At the start area the blue course lines are close together and they get wider apart the further down course you go.

A Buell rider was 5th from the start line when racing was called for the day. He’d been in line since 7:00 a.m. and the line is a mile long. It takes patience to go fast.

The Bonneville speed trials are spread out over 8 miles. There are thousands of rebars pounded into the salt and miles of yellow plastic tape denoting areas but it all seems so random. We ride over and under the tape. No one bothers us. The tape is just to give your mind something to work on in the featureless white plains. Mostly the pit area is near the middle and the course is a quarter mile away. Bring binoculars or all you’ll see is a tiny object speeding from your right to your left.

Walking the pits is a 6-mile proposition. It’s huge and the blinding white salt burns your skin from underneath. You really need two hats: one on top as normal and one with the center cut out and the brim circling your neck like a Queen Elizabeth collar.

The place is solid enough where compacted. Out towards the edges and further north the salt gets crunchy and damp. It feels like the water table is a few inches down.

2:30 p.m. and racing is over; spectators and racers wander away from the salt in dribs and drabs. It’s a slow exodus with a heavy flat head V-8 feel to it.

Old Salts tell me attendance is down this year but that guy who waited all day for his run thinks that there are plenty of people. I’m a rookie so it looks fine to me.

The track radio announcer who is from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is also in charge of the Porta Potties. There are 74 plastic potties spread around the 8 miles. I told him number 68 out by Mile Marker 7 was not sitting level and could he shim the thing properly. He wants to set a record with a ZZR Kawasaki but has run out of money. Announcing is a slow business with 75% of the track closed but he makes a good job of keeping it interesting.

I met a chick with a turbo CB125 Honda. She was in the empty impound area where the record setters await a second pass to make it official. She said the track was rutted and bumpy but she managed 57 miles per hour. Somehow that was a record. The soft salt sucks power. It’s like racing through sand.

On the ride back to town you’ll pass hundreds of campers parked alongside the road. It’s a free camp area but the facilities are zero. It’s primitive but for the guys watching TV in motorhomes it all looks the same.

My buddy Old Iron says that to find a good restaurant in West Wendover look for salt in the parking lot. The more salt, the better. If there’s a turbine powered car parked up you’re golden. It works, my brothers.

West Wendover, Nevada.

Where else can you find an old flathead Ford Hot Rod and a 27-foot long turbine powered Liner parked up at the cafe?

So many talented builders are in Bonneville. The trailers are works of art, their suspensions complex links and air bags. It’s like a superior race of mechanics from another planet has landed on Earth.

We can’t go a block in the mini-casino town of West Wendover without stumbling on something cool, something Rod-ish.

Right now, in this town, the combined brain power could accomplish any task. And it would be accomplished with glossy paint and many, many holes drilled for light weight.

Salt is everywhere. The cars are covered in it. It falls off in fist-sized chunks and then the salt chunks are pulverized by passing cars.

But back to camping: my tent has changed shape in the 6 years since I last propped the thing up. The poles are all the wrong length and I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to cut large sections out of the walls to assemble the thing.

The tent is standing but it looks more like a pile of dirty laundry rather than a house. All these geniuses surrounding me. How do I tap into that knowledge?

The Husky is getting a bit cranky. At low speeds It’s stalling frequently. The clutch is dragging a bit and with no flywheel the thing will just pop and die. I think I’ll check the intake manifold rubber for tightness.

Had a great dinner at the Prospector Cafe: fried chicken with salad, bread and iced tea, cheeseburger and a Modelo dark beer totaled $20. A guy could get used to casino living.