Bonneville Speed Week

Bonneville Speed Week -- a collection of the craziest, fastest, most surreal races in the state -- starts this weekend. You've seen the Salt Flats in movies and photo shoots, but this lunar world takes on an entirely different milieu when covered with hundreds of DIY dragsters, a bevy of multi-colored umbrellas and the friendly faces of Speed Week's followers.

The Salt Flats are home to several land speed records, made possible by Utah's high desert altitude, and the extremely flat surface that is inhospitable to plant life and other barriers to a racer's ultimate goal. The Salt Flats are no secret (memorialized by an article in The New York Times here, a star turn in "The World's Fastest Indian," and regular features and photos in regional news media), but that makes them no less fascinating.

One of the best things about Speed Week is the DIY culture among racers. The majority of enthusiasts work solo or in small groups to perfect their home-grown cars, dragsters, motorcycles and other vehicles. Trial and error, a dauntless enthusiasm for the Flats, and near-obsessive tendencies combine for one amazing weekend of race after race.

This video from the 2007 races gets really good around the 2:00 mark (it's not ours, so please pardon anything strange -- like, say, the intro song lyrics). It gives a true sense of the DIY culture and life-long ambitions of racers to participate in Speed Week.

But this is the one that held me captivated at my desk -- a handlebars-eye-view of a motorcycle hitting 229 mph on a five-mile course. Once it gets going, you can watch the miles fly by and see the spectators distantly to the left of the course. And be sure to listen to the accompanying audio for the whine of the gears as the drive accelerates through the course.

So if you head out this weekend, be sure to strike up a conversation or five with the racers -- it's been my experience that they'll gladly geek out with you about their projects. You might even pick up a few tricks for the drive back to civilization. Just don't forget your sunblock.