400mph On Salt: Inside Bonneville Speed Week

Carmen’s is a bar like no other. It’s ostensibly a dwelling on the edge of Wendover airport in Utah, but the line of hot rods and muscle cars outside betrays its game.

This is a speed-obsessed speakeasy bedecked with posters, flags and photos of the heroes who’ve set records on the Bonneville Salt Flats across 78 Speed Weeks. And it’s thriving. The queue for the bar is enormous.

Even land speed record holder Andy Green has to stand in line for a beer, a static target for selfie-gatherers yet gracious to their requests. It’s the perfect place to wrap up a day on The Salt and meet the friendly faces behind the barely fathomable speeds achieved earlier. Helmets off and pints in hand, it takes little more than a smile or nod to uncork their best stories. 

You also hear some juicy tales on The Salt itself, and that’s where I find myself now. One car to quickly grab the attention of travelling Brits is the glorious mint-green MGA owned and driven by Mike Wagner. He’s in the car as I approach, laser-focused on the run ahead, so I chat to a member of his crew. “It’s running a supercharged Ford Coyote V8 with 600 horsepower,” I’m gleefully informed.

“We’re trying to hit 200mph in this car.” What’s it like pointing arrow-straight at a finish line eight miles away – invisible from the start line thanks to the curvature of the earth – targeting the double-ton on a loose surface? “At 130mph it’s like you’re in a washing machine,” the crew member replies.

“It’s intense. The whole time you’re debating your decision to take part. Then once it’s done, you’re like: ‘I’m ready again!’” Next I meet Corey, a stand-in driver for the clown-shoe-shaped Santa Fe Roadster, who tells me that its 88-year-old owner, Herb Gehlken, has surrendered the seat this year due to a hip injury.

“He’d be in the car otherwise,” says Corey, grinning. “We want to hit 300mph for him.” Some competitors achieve greater speeds still. While the big-budget JCB Hydromax went on to grab the headlines after the event when it topped 400mph for the FIA adjudicators (see last week’s issue), it was beaten at Speed Week by Danny Thompson, who hit 396.949mph in the Ferguson Streamliner to claim the 2026 trophy.

But there’s no tense rivalry here. The high-adrenaline time trialling echoes that of the Isle of Man TT and the Bonneville drivers and crew are just as neighbourly when mechanical help is needed. Everyone wants to have a good time – and many trailer their cars an awfully long way to Utah to do so. 

Partners Curt and Jen have hauled their slinky little Suzuki Cappuccino kei car all the way from Alberta, Canada. It’s still running its stock 660cc three-cylinder engine, a true palate cleanser among a paddock awash with LS crate V8s.

“The course is rough, and if the wind gets you, it will throw you around a little bit. It’s not like driving on asphalt, where you can just find traction. If the wind throws you, you’re thrown. You can’t correct or you’ll spin,” says Jen, who scored herself a record this year of 105.257mph. 

There’s a greater gender mix here than at any motorsport event I recall attending. Cheri Howard has been handing out the official Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) paper slips for 38 years now, her granddaughter in the trailer alongside her, primed to eventually pick up the baton.

And should you ever frequent Carmen’s, seek out the many anecdotes of Tonya Turk. Her 241.414mph run of 2004 propelled her into the hallowed Bonneville 200 MPH Club alongside Stirling Moss, Henry Segrave and Craig Breedlove, gifting her the official club baseball cap and the chance to sign her name on the bar walls.

She soon tells me about the Chevy Camaro her family runs to help relatives, friends and Speed Week newbies into the 200 hall of fame. Proof, if any were needed, that Bonneville breeds a unique sort of driver