Straight-away racing and my involvement... 1- THE HISTORY OF OUR SPORT: Early 1930s - individuals went to Muroc to test their cars. 1939 - Southern California Timing Association was formed, and started organized events at Muroc. 1941 - The military closed the area to the public, forcing the racers to find other places to run their cars. Rosemond, Harper, and El Mirage Dry Lakes were tried, El Mirage was chosen as the safest area to run the events. April 1996 saw the return of Hot Rodding to their roots at Muroc Dry Lake (Edwards Air Force Base) we ran four consecutive yearly meets and were kicked off again.. The Muroc course is 1.5 Miles long & the El Mirage course is 1.3 Miles… both have a 132 foot timing trap at the end. At the Lakes any run that exceeds the class record is a new record if, upon inspection, the car is verified legal for the class. 2- BONNEVILLE: 1949 the SCTA and NHRA combined influence and resources to run the first Bonneville Speed Event open to public participation. From 1949 to present there have been yearly events with the exception of 1982 & 83 when the race course was under water. Over the years the racers have seen a deterioration of the quality of the salt’s surface. The Utah Salt Flats Racers Assoc. (USFRA) was formed in 1988 to give more opportunity to race and to give us more clout when talking to the government about the conditions. The mining of Potash takes brine, through a ditch, from the north side of I-80 to evaporation ponds on the south side. The salt is then processed to extract the potash and left on the south side. The racers raised over a quarter million dollars to fight this process and there is now in place a brine pumping project in place that will move millions of tons of salt back to the north side of I-80 where it was originally. About a half inch of salt is laid down over a 26 sq. mile area each year. The pumping starts in November and goes through April each year. We are seeing good results from this project already. At Bonneville, there are three sanctioned meets a year scheduled at present. The SCTA/BNI sanction two meets, Speedweek in August, and The World Finals in October. The UFRA sanctions the World of Speed in September. The race course at Bonneville is five miles long. Streamliners and cars that have qualified over 175 MPH may use the full course; others are restricted to the first three miles. The same rules and records apply to all meets and all records are the average speed of two runs over the same mile. The opportunity to set International Records sanctioned by the FIA is available at some of the meets for an additional fee. 2- MY HISTORY IN LANDSPEED RACING: 1954 - Started ¼ mile racing in at Santa Ana 1956 - Joined the Road Runners, a SCTA Club and started running the Lakes 1957 - went to Bonneville as spectator and had the opportunity to drive a stock Chevy Station Wagon at 120 MPH, - I was hooked! 1958 - First entry at Bonneville ran every year since but 1968 & 69, (my first two years in Redding) until the crash in 2009. Since the early days of my involvement in the sport, my cars have been called “The Tom Thumb Special”. Ak Miller, one of my early heroes, had a motto, “There is no substitute for Cubic Inches”. He called me “Tom Thumb”, because I ran a small engine. The nickname has been with me since that time.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Jul 2013 21:24:41 +0000
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