We decided to burn our COVID masks for the day and took a day trip to the Bonneville Salt Flats. It’s only a couple hours from home, so we gassed up the G8 and took off.
Our first stop was just west of Salt Lake City, at a place called Saltair. I’ll let you look up the history of Saltair on the interweb, but we got out and walked around the place thinking this was what was left of the turn of the century (1800-1900) resort. Turns out this is “Saltair III”, and the original Saltair resort was located about a mile west of this one (and is now a State park). The structure is no longer there, however. We’d already got back on the road before we discovered this. While it was an interesting structure, that was disappointing news.
There’s just not a lot to see or report on between SLC and Wendover, UT, until you come upon the Tree of Utah. Since I was driving I didn’t get a picture of the tree, but there happens to be a few on the ‘net so I stole one so it looks like I snapped a pic (don’t tell anyone).
About a mile or so east of the exit for the Salt Flats Raceway, there’s a Bonneville Salt Flats rest area on I-80.
We stopped to take care of a little business and read the marker. If you don’t want or have time to go to the actual track, this is a good place to stop and check out the salt. Those people aren’t ice fishing.
About 10-15 minutes from the rest stop, we got to the actual entrance to the salt flats. And that little BLM sign is all the glory there is.
This is where the pavement ends and the salt begins.
On the salt.
Made the first run in sport mode and with traction control disabled. That turned out to be a little sketchy as the back end drifted out several times. You can see me compensating with steering input in the video. I had to back off a couple times and getting a little drift at around 99 mph, even though very slight, is almost enough to put a potato in your pants.
https://i.imgur.com/EjG2nGq.mp4Sorry about the poor focus near the end of the clip, my attention was directed elsewhere. Also, anyone have a clue how to get the sound unmuted? It's a little more interesting to watch when you can hear the engine whine and the transmission shift.
The factory stock (other than an axleback muffler) G8 GXP topped out at 149 mph. It felt like it had more to give, but it seems to be governed at 149.
Subsequent runs were accomplished in sport mode with the stability system active. “Stability System Assistance” displayed on the DIC up until around 70 mph. It felt much more stable.
https://i.imgur.com/5hY4T5v.mp4The Bonneville Salt Flats is not an awesome place to play hide-n-seek.
The salt itself is rather interesting. It acts like it melts or softens as you drive on it and sprays on the wheel wells much like snow does. Then it hardens. Since I didn’t want to leave the salt under the car, we crafted this undercarriage washer using PVC pipe and 90* sprinkler heads. Cost a little less than $30 and worked like a champ.
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gweg_b wrote:
People think I'm nuts, but Matt proved it.
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TightwadScrew you, Photobucket.