Hydrogen versus the salt

Welcome to a place where mysticism and maths collide. Usually at several hundred miles an hour. This is the Bonneville Salt Flats where we hope the JCB Hydromax is just about to set a new Land Speed Record for a hydrogen powered car. Whatever speed it does will be timed to three decimal places. But out in the hard stare of heat and white, things take on a different context.

In the blaze of the day I drive as far as I can from anything, stop and get out. It’s cloying. The lack of perspective. It’s like being in The Truman Show when he clangs the boat into the wall. Everything is so distant it looks painted, so oppressive it feels close. I expect echoes, but there’s nothing. Sound vanishes, heat hammers down, I screw my eyes against the force of the light.

In this alien environment you can see why the old timers here attribute a certain measure of superstition to the place. They’re easy to spot, not just by the ratty t-shirt and beard but by the distant focus, the Eastwood squint. Out here they call it Salt Fever, and it’s what pulls them back year after year.