Courtesy of Auto Week

One big record was set on the salt, and one big crash sent a rider to the hospital

BY MARK VAUGHN SPEED DEMON

There was good news and bad news at the 72^ndannual SCTA Bonneville Speed Week this year.

The good news: veteran Bonneville racer George Poteet set a new record for fastest piston-powered, wheel-driven land speed racing in his single-engine BFS (blown fuel streamliner) Speed Demon with a two-way average speed up and down the salt of 470 mph. Those runs broke the record set in 2018 by Danny Thompson in Challenger II, who had himself broken Poteet’s earlier records.

Poteet has been racing at Bonneville since 2006, when he was enlisted by long-time B-ville veteran Ron Main to race Main’s flathead Ford-powered Flat Fire, as the car was originally named. Flat Fire was tuned to the nines to make over 700 hp, according to hot rod sage Tony Thacker, writing on torqtalk.com. Main then swapped in a Chevy Eco Tec four and renamed the rig EcoFire. It was that version of the car which Poteet drove and liked so much that he decided to build something similar and really go racing.

Speed Demon was the result. It was built to compete in SCTA’s AA/BFS class. AA means the displacement of the V8 is over 501 cubic inches and BFS means Blown Fuel Streamliner. The car’s Ken Duttweiler single V8 runs on methanol and is fed by two turbos capable of adding 35 pounds of boost. It makes 3,155 hp and 2,017 lb ft of torque, Thacker wrote. The record runs were made with only 20 psi.Advertisement – Continue Reading Below

Poteet had recorded 400-mph runs on the salt over many years but it was this year that the team dialed it all together and set the 470-mph average, with an exit speed out the top end of the five-mile timed section of the course of 481 mph. Yow! Even better, the tach stopped working on the final run and Poteet had to shift by sound. The 71-year-old Poteet apparently has quite the good ear.

But the crew at Bonneville was also reminded this year just how dangerous racing can be. During a run by veteran motorcycle racer Ralph Hudson, the rider was reportedly jostled by a gust of wind and lost control of his bike at 252 mph, according to the SCTA, the Southern California Timing Association, which sanctions the event. The subsequent steering wobble – known as a tank-slapper – sent the 69-year-old Hudson onto the salt at well-over triple-digit speeds. He was taken by ambulance to a life flight helicopter and from there to Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City. The Bureau of Land Management, which has jurisdiction over Bonneville, said Hudson was in critical condition. SCTA, citing family privacy requests, said in a comment on its Facebook page only that Hudson was “still alive.” Hudson is, by all accounts, a well-loved figure in the landspeed racing community.

That was the bad news. There was much more good than bad at Bonneville this year, though evidence of both prevailed.

Among the usual wide-range of race cars was the “Tesla-powered” Electraliner, which set an electric record of 229.363 mph but was soon engulfed in controversy after a subsequent run; racer Andy Pickett who, in what should be called Pickett’s Charge, took an ancient 50-cc Honda motorcycle to a record 47.316 mph; Got Salt Racing which set a record of 353.514 mph in BFL class, Blown Fuel Lakester; and 81-year-old Jerry Kugel, of Kugel Komponents, whom you’ve seen at the Roadster Show in Pomona, and who wanted to break his own record set 40 years ago of 245.804 in a Model A Roadster but was hampered by licensing requirements and hit only 203. They were all there, and about 200 more, as they are every year.

Look through the rule book at SCTA.org and pick a class you think you could win and start building. And keep Hudson in your thoughts. See you on the salt!