words: jordan utley

Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats may seem like an unlikely setting for an annual motorsports event. But this terrain, which has been perfectly flattened by thousands of years of erosion and gravity, is nature’s version of a perfectly planned and executed drag strip. For the past forty years, drivers have gathered here for the aptly named Speed Week, where vehicles regularly top 400 MPH. Here, people care about only about setting records. There’s no money to be made and not a logo in sight. When you win, your name is recorded on a website that looks like it was designed in the mid-nineties. But that racer will know and his peers on the salt will, too. And that is all the notoriety they require.