SPEED WEEK

THE NEED FOR SPEED IS A STRONG URGE, AND LAKE GAIRDNER’S SALT FLATS IS WHERE ADDICTS COME TO GET THEIR FIX EACH YEAR AT THE DLRA SPEED WEEK

We head to Lake Gairdner for our annual fill of salty, salty beautness

“IT 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’ve kept 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

MAIN: Peter Warren is a down-toearth guy who takes a little to get talking. His P38-based bellytank is a simple take on the classic format, with a Top Loader and a Cleveland that he reckons makes a lazy 450hp. Guys like him make this look deceptively easy; the tank is beautifully made, it’s got the stance and this year Peter broke his own record, running 210.342mph in C/GL. He also won the award for Best Presented Car 1: Gary Satara is a club stalwart, one of the volunteers that makes the event run. Long-time SM readers will remember him as the owner/builder of the legendary blown Clevo-powered XA Falcon coupe, OVAKIL (SM, Mar ’86), and later his record-setting 236mph Toxic Green Jaguar XJS salt car with the same engine combo. After taking some time off to take stock and rebuild the Jag, he turned out this EB Falcon in

Mad Max MFP livery and Tickford appointments. Fortunately no one copped a saucepan in the neck 2: NSW hot rodder Mark Dunn has been racing on the salt since 1999 in a variety of cars, including a 170+mph HJ Holden station wagon! He built his 440ci Ford-powered lakester as a way of bringing his family together. He, his daughter Gemma and son Kurt all have red hats in the family car. This year Kurt was poached by Mike Davidson’s Flatattack team to pilot their streamliner, and Gemma sat it out while Mark pushed the family’s tangerine beast past 250mph