Each winter, flooding draws salt from the ground. Layers of fossilized shells and ancient high-water marks etch the mountainous rims of these flats, whispering tales of a sinking water line, one that is now far below Bonneville’s surface. Remnants of those old bones litter Bonneville. Before that, the region was teeming with life. Earlier still, the lake was an “inland ocean” as big as Lake Superior. Fourteen thousand years ago, when human wanderers first visited, they’d have seen something very different-an expanse of water. To know Bonneville’s present, consider its past. Now, in some places, the salt is no thicker than a golf tee is tall. Racers once counted on a salt surface nearly three feet thick to keep their tires from breaking into the flat’s muddy underbelly. Those minuscule grains of salt that faithfully bubble forth and harden into God’s Own Runway are disappearing, literally. Speed Week has become increasingly threatened over the past decade, canceled in both 20. SIGN UP FOR THE TRACK CLUB BY R&T FOR MORE EXCLUSIVE STORIESįor now, that is. This story originally appeared in Volume 4 of Road & Track. Here, the horizon is the only obstacle to outright speed. Bonneville’s a rare spot where humanity might stare risk in the eyes, skirting safety and sanity to hang it way out past the edge, strapped to one 200-plus-mph rocket car or another. Speed Week has called it home since 1949, and with good reason. Eons of circumstance built this racecourse on Utah’s western edge. Bonneville is holy ground for the speed freak: a flat stretch of ash-white earth running underfoot for more than 12 miles.
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