Bonneville Speed Week 2019
After successfully completing the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb we had one more challenge lined up for the year. We were going to take the D2EV to the salt flats and compete in the Bonneville Speed Week.
The only changes we made to the vehicle were adding a stronger more robust drivers seat and changing the final drive ratios to give us a higher top speed.
Finding a place to set up the pit area was easy when there is this much space. The challenge here was finding a space that was close to the start lines which were a bit of a drive away.
If there was one way to describe Speed Week, I would say its a lot of waiting punctuated by moments of extreme excitement and a bit of chaos. Fortunately I came equip to handle the down time while we waited in line for everything from tech to getting waved off at the start lines.
One of the rules at Speed Week is you are not permitted to drive your race vehicle under its own power anywhere except for once it is waved off the start line. I spent a lot of time in the drivers seat getting towed around and learned the importance of engineering noise, vibration and harshness attenuation into your vehicle. Despite the vehicle being unpowered I still typically opted to wear earplugs to quiet down the rattling bodywork.
Bonneville Speed Week took place a couple months after Pikes Peak and other than adding a more robust drivers seat, the only change we made to the vehicle was to the gear ratios in the final drive. this bumped the top speed up to an estimated 250mph.
We spent most of the week trying to get the car through tech inspection but eventually we made it to the novice standing mile course where we had to perform a few runs to demonstrate that the vehicle could operate safely. During one of our standing mile test runs we hit 197 mph which was apparently the fastest anyone had ever been on that course. Unfortunately records can’t be set on the short course.
The salt this year was less than ideal so there were only two full course lanes open. That meant that it was an all day wait to get to the start line so we basically sat in the worlds worst traffic jam all day. Electric cars are still novel at Bonneville so most of our week was spent convincing the tech inspectors that we had a safe vehicle. This resulted in only getting one run on the long course and this was cut short when through a series of events resulting from the car blowing up on track ahead of us we ended up having to rush to strap the driver in and get him ready to be sent off and the drivers door latch didn’t close all the way. The door popped open shortly into the run causing the driver to pop the chute and abort the run.
Bonneville Speed Week was a great experience and I felt proud to have built and supported the car through the event. While we never found out how fast the car could actually go we learned a lot along the way.
A great picture on the salt flats. One thing we were all surprised by was how aggressively the salt sticks to everything. Our radiators were blocked by caked salt half way through the week but it was decided that since our run is so short it shouldn’t be a problem and we could just rely on the thermal mass within the system to keep temperatures in check. Months later we would do something like kick the bumper of the tow van and chunks of salt would fall out.
