For Flojo: Bonneville or Bust

My Dad had an adventure this summer. The end of August he took a trip to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah for "Speed Week." He and 20 friends all drove to Utah together. One of them had always had a dream of building a race car out of the belly tank of an old aircraft and driving it to Bonneville Raceway. A group of the guys, including my Dad, started building the car 10 1/2 weeks before they would have to leave town (Florence, Oregon) for Utah. My Dad used his knowledge and skill of car body work to smooth out the metal on the body of the race car. Below are photos:

It all started with a drawing on a clipboard....

This is Tim Smith in the car he and friends helped him build.

For those of you who like to look at motors! ahhaha All I know is that it was a '54 Oldsmobile engine.

So as a joke, during the build they had this toy hood ornament from a from an Olds Rocket 88 on their race car.

Not much room to sit, plus I liked the choice of gearshift knob....

Front of the belly tank car "Beach Bullet."

Back of car with airplane labeling still on it.

Larry and Dad checking things out.

It turned out that the car would overheat very easily so they tried adding more air vents to the metal that surrounded the engine.

This photo shows the venting behind the drivers seat.

Hats were made for each of the guys, they wore these at the race.

This is an old postcard photo that I found at an antique shop, it shows the Salt Flats back in the 30's or 40's. I sent it on a card to my Dad before he left for the trip. So he took the photo below to show me a comparison!

Road along Salt Flats in the 00's, the salt is a little dirty.....

Dad said, "This is a photo of us our first morning at the Salt Flats driving out to the race site." he said he felt like a pioneer in a covered wagon heading west. There were no lanes, people were just passing them on both sides at all kinds of speeds. :-)

That covered trailer is what they brought the car in. Tim's dream was to drive it all the way there and just show it, not race it. But because of the overheating problem they had to take it to Bonneville in a trailer. When they got there they had the car on display for the 4 or so days they were there.

Another belly tank car that was at the race is sitting on a trailer behind the Beach Bullet in this photo.

I put this photo in because Dad said that the man on the left side with the white hat is Nick Pappas. He holds the Bonneville "altitude" record for a crash he was in years ago while going over 300mph. Meaning, his car flew up into the air the highest of any crash.... yikes! (Bonneville doesn't really give a record for crashes.)
I looked him up on Google and found that he had polio at 2 years of age and so he couldn't participate in sports in school, but racing was something that he could do. From Google: "Despite being physically challenged, Nick Pappas became the family’s first world record holder when he and a partner claimed a land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats in a vehicle that achieved a top velocity of more than 700 kilometers per hour..."
I think this converts to around 425 MPH. ?
Mr. Pappas' son Tom is a World Record holding U.S. decathlete.