Visiting the Bonneville Salt Flats TodayĪnyone can easily drive on the Bonneville Flats Speedway using just about any type of vehicle. The world’s fastest land speed record took place on the Black Rock Desert in 1997 at an impressive 763 mph.

The fastest ever land speed record set at Bonneville took place in 1947, that included the first single pass at over 400 mph, and after the introduction of jet and rocket propulsion became officially accepted as part of land speed regulations, was set at 622 mph in 1970.

Bonneville Salt Flats Land Speed Recordsīetween the Bonneville Salt Flats and Black Rock Desert, some of the world’s fastest ever land speed records have been set in the Great Basin Desert. The first land speed record was set during races at Bonneville in 1914, and the current Bonneville Salt Flats racing events welcome cars, trucks and motorcycles as they race to set the highest speed achieved by a person using a vehicle on land. There are five major land speed racing events that happen here each year, including legendary Speed Week. Since then, the Bonneville Salt Flats have been touted as one of the world’s premier land speed “racetracks” in the world. The entire area is free public land, managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), though people have been traveling across and recreating on the famous Bonneville Salt Flats for thousands of years.īy 1907, a couple of local businessmen test drove a Pierce-Arrow on the salt flats and by 1910, the first permanent railway stretched across the Bonneville Salt Flats. The Bonneville Salt Flats is an ancient dry lake bed of the Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, began forming at the end of the last Ice Age, and is known to be the largest of a series of salt flats on the western edge of the Great Salt Lake. Straddling the Nevada-Utah state line, the Bonneville Salt Flats have been made famous as the location of many land speed records set at the Bonneville Speedway, and remains stunning if you’re road tripping your way to Nevada during Speed Week or not. As you make your way to the Silver State there’s yet another gotta-experience-it landscape at the world-renowned Bonneville Salt Flats.

From the Playa made famous by the annual Burning Man event, to our Valley of Fire, to our charcoal kilns used to propel Silver State mining pursuits, to our 300+ natural hot springs, Nevada is known for its impressive geology and otherworldly landscapes that in many cases, are better experienced than explained.

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