Independent Bonneville Racers
The "Little Guys" Bonneville racing is a many faceted sport. To the casual Bonneville
observer, the heavy hitters with the huge speed numbers may be all
they notice or remember. The Burklands car setting top speed of the
meet, Jim Owen or John Noonan setting Top Bike Speed of the meet,
may be enough to overwhelm the senses. But when you get past that
glossy cover and dig deeper into the heart of the Bonneville experience,
you discover a whole ‘nother layer. For lack of a better name,
I call them “The Little Guys”. Now that doesn’t
mean they are small people. It refers to the tiny or nonexistent race
crews they bring with them, and/or the small displacement classes
they choose to compete in. Make no mistake about it; they are obsessed
with speed and competition as seriously and completely as any of the
high speed heavy hitters. In some ways maybe even more so. When you
are limited to a tiny engine, or no support team, there is NO room
for error. Every item, whether mechanical, aerodynamic, or logistic-
simply must be exactly right. The effects of anything out of whack
are magnified by the fact that there is usually no extra help or horsepower
to make up the difference. Even the human aspect has to be spot on.
If there is a mechanical problem, he has to figure it out and fix
it himself. If a driver with a huge engine producing gobs of torque
makes a minor bobble coming up to speed, he can usually rely on the
bountiful engine output to allow him to recover. When there is absolutely
nothing extra, no monster torque curve to rescue some driver error,
no helpful crew to pick up the slack, the man and machine MUST operate
in complete harmony. |