“I
T WAS like glass!” enthused David Freiburger
of Roadkill and Hot Rod magazine fame. He was
grinning beside Jack Rogers’s 1968 Camaro,
which he’d just piloted to a top speed of 249mph
(400km/h), and he was talking about how flat the
salt was this year at Lake Gairdner, South Australia,
scene of the Dry Lakes Racers Australia (DLRA) Speed Week.
He’d come as part of Rogers’s land-speed circus – three
Camaros, a massive transporter and crew – all the way from the
east coast of the USA.
If you ever go to Speed Week, you’ll feel like you’ve travelled
halfway ’round the world, too – it ain’t easy, brother. But once
you’ve been there, you’ll go back time and again. You’ve been
bitten, and there ain’t no cure.
A small, devoted team of volunteers run Speed Week, which
means organising an event in a remote part of the country, with no
power, no internet, and flies, dust and rough roads. That they’vekept it running as well as it does is a testament to their dedication.
It can be easy for entrants to get frustrated with the conditions
here, but there’s a sign at the registration van that puts things in
perspective: “Before you complain, have you volunteered yet?”
The condition of the salt at Lake Gairdner is always a cause for
concern; high tides and full moons affect the water table under
the lake and hence how dry the salt is. Some years, the event has
had to be cancelled altogether due to poor salt condition, but
happily, the 2017 event was the fifth in a row to go ahead, with
the salt better than ever.
The weather was as forgiving as the Aussie desert can be; I’ve
been there when it was 47 degrees, and I’ve been there when the
heavens have opened and seemed like they’d never shut again.
This year it topped out at 42, and we got a short, sharp shower
on Thursday that left an inch of water on the southern end of the
track. But the startline was simply moved to the two-mile mark and
it was business as usual.SUPPORT CARS, TRAILERS, WALLETS, EVEN MARRIAGES HAVE ALL
BEEN FOUND WANTING ON THE BIG WHITE DYNO