Buckeyes on the Salt

Bonneville Salt Flats, Middle of Nowhere, UT. Parked next to the Buckeye Bullet the OSU land speed electric race car. The Buckeye team have set up a satellite wifi system and it's unprotected so I've logged in.

Other Buckeyes of note are the McMeekin Brothers race team of which we are hangers on. Don and Jane McMeekin are the only family members here but several others are in support. To risk boring most of you I'll describe the race car: Don McMeekin is the chief architect and builder so the car reflects his artistry both mechanically and esthetically. Car number 280 started life in the 80's a a Nissan 240SX, a four seater, semi sporty sedan with exceptional aerodynamic for a production auto. The engine of the year, this is the 3rd in a series of unusual power plants, is a 1947 Buick Roadmaster straight 8... that's 8 (count 'em) cylinders in a row. The more common modern 8 is a V8... two banks of 4 cylinders sort of side by side. The Nissan came with a 4cylinder engine so the Buick is nearly twice as long and fits snugly under the hood necessitating rather lumpy blisters on the hood to clear the taller and longer engine and fuel injection.
The car draws a crowd when the hood is off... this is a very unusual configuration and beautifully executed. The body is a bright orange with silver racing stripes down the center. The engine is painted to match with stainless steel hoses, carefully routed and tied doen wiring and with discrete vintage Buick 8 logos on the valve cover.

The record in the XOGALT class is about 167 MPH and so far the best Don has been able to do is a bit over 150. Today (Tuesday) Don is pulling the fuel injection and replacing it with a carburator which, in this case, may provide more even fuel distribution to that long span of cylinders. As I type Don and other crew members are cutting a hole in that perfectly sculpted fiberglass hood and gringing another hole in the intake manifold to accept the carb plate. All tgus is being don 'on the salt' no electricity except from a small generator, under a make shift tent, all on a bed of salt. Stuff like this is going on all throughout the pit area which extends for more than two miles along the longest of one of three race courses. This whole experience exemplifies America's greatest natural resource: creative inginuity and the persistence to make lemonade from lemons and race cars from ancient castoffs.

Shameless education plug: When will we get back to nurturing the kids who are tomorrows Bonnevile racers, creative scientists, far out mathematicians and brilliant inventors who are not predicted by high-stakes testing. Bonnevile in a sense is The Christmas Past... when will our leaders wake up and see that this culture is fading and without emphasis on out of the box, out of this country, out of this world thinking other countries are going to eat our innovative lunch.