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Show 4 SALT FLAT NEWS, SEPTEMBER, 1970 by Richard Menzies ' The salt flats, that vast,' inscrutable void, blank space on the map, has challenged man since first he put himself on wheels and set about to cross . the great American desert. The challenge, insofar as the average motorist is concerned, lies in keeping awake. A sort of geo- -, graphical soporific, the long, long straightaway has a way of transporting even the most vigilant of drivers to dreamland. Along the way, green and white DONT DOZE signs nag at him; tire tracks striking off into the soft shoulder, a radio antenna tip protruding from the salt marsh bear mute evidence of the hazards involved. Veteran truck drivers who cross the space at night, isocabs lated in their green dial-l- it like astronauts in their capsules, tend to regard small Nevada towns as friendly planets; to pass without stopping to tank up on black coffee is suicide. At the cafe the teamster lingers over his cup; not hungry, he rescues an aging slice of lemon pie from the humidor, plays a juke box tune like the death rattle of the Old West, flirts with a red-hair- ed dream car. Beside it waitress wearing ten or twelve year-old'- s pounds of real Indian turquoise a chromed and polished Califor- on her fingers anything to delay, nia roadster, pretty girl in the the inevitable confrontation with rumble seat, prepares to tow a that vast, empty passage. The torpedo-shape- d motorcycle. A mere thought of it makes him sleek, streamlined Corvette seems to be moving two hundred miles yawn. But once a year the great salt an hour even while standing desert awakes; the season is late still Then, at the starter's signal, summer and the water table is they take off not all at once, as down. The salt is hard and we had hoped but one at a smooth, and from all over the time. The push car pushes, or the world, including California, come tow car tows, and some miles men' of a hardy breed, bound away the great engine finally and determined to conquer the catches, runs roughly through, salt. Their purposes are many: the first and second gears, then to go faster titan ever before, to screams away into oblivion, endure, to risk their lives and where somewhere out there, on fortunes but above all, to stay the measured mile and quite awake. alone, its driver communes with The machines they drive are his particular god. Speaking as one ignorant byunique, like none found in other forms of racing. Tuned and stander, left far behind in the geared to run only fast, the salt salt dust, I cannot heartily rec-- . flat racer has but two speeds, ommend it as a spectator sport. off and on. Most will not even Without benefit of national telestart wihtout a push or a tow, vision to distill from it the thrill which is perhaps the only charof vidtory and the agony of acteristic they share with your defeat, what remains is more or less just a lot of people standing car and mine. At the starting gate these around waiting for something to strange hybrid vehicles await the happen. In the pits, of course, timers cue. There is a bright there is the endless tinkering. In orange contraption, one corner several mechanics are d umstanding around a smoldering sprouting a brella from its cockpit, a five- - engine compartment as if viewing i . egg-shap- ed parti-colore- the remains. On the car, the esoteric red, white, and blue letters STP are decalled, front, rear, and sides. The men wear with STP emblazoned . on their hades, and white pith helmets covered with STP stickers, and they are drinking, I think, from cans of STP. Also milling about are their women and children nor widows and orphans as the case may be. The women are lean, brownskinned blondes, cool like Sylva Thin cigarettes; they step gracefully from the latest in aluminized living into the sun, wearing only the merest wisps of a swimsuit, covered over by the ubiquitous STP Touring the salt flats, one quickly fathers the impression that but for the munificence of Andy Granatelli, all these people would be going ts naked. There are teen-agewho have literally grown up here, having spent enforced vacations on the slat for the past decade. They, too, have evolved a unique life style. Young bucks roar around on motorbikes, performing magnificent wheels tands and cutting graceful brodies. Young girls emerge wrinkled and pickled looking from a depressing dip rs -- in a brine canal Sometimes the two sexes play together, beach blanket bingo; they pair off, spending the long hot afternoons writing love letters in the salt, or just sitting quietly kissing once or twice and rapping their Certs together. Here and there we pass a mere baby, taking his first tena-tiv- e laps on a or mini-bik-e, eagerly spluttering his first word, STP. This is the salt flats, Speed Week, unknown and unnoticed by the average tourist drowsing past on U.S. 40 between someplace and elsewhere. Only a small and alert group notices the big green and white sign,. BONNEVILLE SPEEDWAY, NEXT EXIT: And even fewer will bother to investigate. But still a smaller minority will ever come to realize the high purpose and achievement of this inglorious band of asbestos-clagoggled and helmeted, Chiclet-chewin- g racing men. As one of them so aptly expressed it, At two hundred miles per hour, just inches above the surface, in a car that threatens to disintegrate or explode at any second even on the salt flats, its impossible to fall asleep. d, |