Dear Wes, I want to thank you for your reports on the
World finals, I wish I had gone so I could have bored a test hole in the salt
and been able to watch for a change in the static water level of the lake below
the surface. I'd be willing to bet it raises higher every night threw out
the meet as the full moon is Sunday, hence the changing salt conditions with
no change in weather. Surely some gradstudent in the geology dept there at U of
U has done a study on this sometime over the years, if not maybe one could be
talked into doing such. L. Kvach Butters
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From: Wester S Potter[SMTP:wspotter@jps.net]
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 1999 9:47 PM
To: land-speed@autox.team.netland-speed@autox.team.net
Subject: World Finals 10/21/99
Hi,
Teague has his AA in, he turned 384 on a good run but needs more room. The
200 Club has a minimum in that open class of 430. Al didn't care, he just
wanted to back up his run in the morning and get a name on that slot in the
record books. He's already in the 2 Club of course.
They had extra length for the FIA cars to get up to speed but the salt was
not good enough to run all the cars from that distance. The Heavy Haulers
were
breaking up and rutting the track at the ends and some damage through the
entire course. It got slick between the one and the three. George Potter
went over several times in the Salt Sonnett. There was green fiberglas,
bondo and black and white checkerboard everywhere. The car went over into
the course they will probably shift to in the A M so George was apologetic
about holding up the meet and didn't want to have the doctor check him over
in town but the ambulance crew insisted. He won't race that car again!
Several other spins in that area but everyone else stayed shiny side up.
Don Vesco got in a couple of 350+ runs but was having fuel delivery
problems. Tom Bryant was having the same trouble that most of the cars
were, trying to guess on jetting. He had a couple of runs in the mid 225
range. For some reason the air was changing rapidly and a car that should
have had the proper jetting was not right after waiting for ten or so cars
to run off the starting line. Earl Wooden and his Crosley coupe were in
impound this morning and got a record, Danny Boy also. Marlo Treit was not
making excuses for the record his lakester got, fractions above the old
record. Dan Warner was busy inspecting in record impound most of the day.
McBride & Moreau have one record but holed a piston today so it turned into
a huge photo-op for them this afternoon.
Dick Rodwell from Salt Lake City went through tech this morning and the
inspector asked what the roadster weighed. Rodwell told him and the
inspector said "better add some ballast, you're twenty minutes from a spin
about now." Last I saw he had the scales out and was evening up the weight
on all four corners.
The most frustrated guy on the salt was Dave Haller ... showed me his timing
slip with a best mile at 198.9. He hopes to be over 200 tomorrow with a
better course.
The sky was cloudless, temperature in the high sixties and the salt was
tricky. Nine or ten cars broke and left this afternoon. Record return runs
will be at eight in the morning unless they can't move the course in time.
There are questions about whether they will run on Saturday at all if a few
more leave.
I couldn't get to Glen Barrett to find out what he thought about the whole
thing. He ran a smooth meet with some prompt announcing on the times as the
cars cleared each section of lights. Made things easy to follow.
I won't be out there tomorrow so someone else will need to give a report ...
please let us know how Dave Haller does.
Wes
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