We are on the salt! Finally. Today we passed tech. This is a big deal because if you don’t pass technical inspection, you go home, plain and simple. The inspectors don’t mess around, they check everything and there are many of them. From all the driver apparel: helmet, gloves, arm restraints, suit, shoes, socks… you name it, they want to see it and check the SFI tags on everything. Make sure you wear clean underwear!
They go over the car with a fine tooth comb making sure that anything and everything meets the letter of the Rule Book. Because each vehicle is a custom creation, many of the items are subject to interpretation… and all inspectors err on the side of safety, so if there is even a question about how a part is welded on, or the thickness of the steel, or the age of the component, they can not let you run. As it turns out, they spent a long time looking over every nook and cranny of our car and came up with a couple of very minor easy to remedy items, which we took care of quickly. I don’t think a car has ever been built that didn’t get sent back for “something”.
What a testament to Steve Schmalz and the crew at Performance Fabrication (shameless plug: San Carlos California 650-595-3663) as they built one hell of a car. After tech we brought the car back to our pit and set up our camp. First, the tarp gets bolted to the salt with 8″ long 3/8″ Lag Bolts that are driven in with an air powered impact gun. Then everything goes into place; tables, chairs, generators, air compressors, all manner of tools and devices… think of it as going camping on the moon and bringing everything that you might need to fix the moon buggy should anything on it go wrong.
At around 2:00 pm Ken Rappaport, our aerodynamicist, and I made sandwiches for everyone. The crew has grown to 15 or 16 people. Next was getting Kenny fitted to the car. As we were building it, we made sure that I fit into the car, and I do, barely. Land Speed Racing is a unique motorsport in that in case there’s an accident, help doesn’t show up for a long time… because you’re going 300 MPH, or 400 MPH, and they are traveling in fire trucks and ambulances doing, what, 80? 90? So it takes them a while to get to you, assuming they find you quickly. You can cover a lot of ground at 400, or even 200 MPH, it’s not so nice and neat like at race tracks where they get to you in seconds. The biggest danger from a time perspective is FIRE. So in order to pass tech you need to demonstrate that you can bail out of the car in 20 seconds, give or take. No easy feat, this.
So back to the car; Kenny is shorter than I am, so a lot of time was spend making sure that he fit into the car, could operate all the controls, have a good line of site, and of course be able to bail. We did this so that Kenny who has an unlimited license and is far more experienced than I am can shake the car out, give us good feed back so it’s dialed in and fast. As for me, all I need to do is rip out all of the padding. I fit fine that way, sitting on steel.
At 5:00 pm the car was ready and finished, I placed the remaining decals on it and we rolled it onto the salt. The plan was to place it in line, but it looked so cool out there….. finally!……. that we had to stop and take pictures. We rolled it into tomorrows run line at around 6:30 and went back to clean up the camp site/pit area and get off the salt by 7:00 pm as required of everyone. There are no humans on the salt at night. It is forbidden. Everyone leaves their stuff and gets off the lake. There is probably $100,000,000 worth of cars, tools and equipment out there every night, as safe as can be. Amazing, but also one of the really cool things about Bonneville.
Dinner was a lot of fun… hey, we’re in Wendover in the middle of nowhere. Let’s face it, no one drives out here for the food. Our conversation included talk from Crew Chief Steve who wanted a nice and mellow initial shake down run, maybe in the 150 to 200 MPH range. Kenny, on the other hand, felt that if the car was going in a straight line, and felt stable, he would go much faster then that. I can tell you what I would do if I was driving the car tomorrow… And I think I know what Kenny will do too. We’ll see. We’re already counting the hours to breakfast! Nine to be exact. The car is in line, tomorrow we will make at least one shakedown run, and hopefully there will be time for a second slightly faster run. Can’t wait to see what the car will do.
Thanks,
Amir Rosenbaum #86