Bonneville Salt Flats

Friday Grab Bag: More Thursday Night Football? New land speed record set

In case you were dying to know which of the new iPhones from Apple is the top seller, wait no more. Computerworld, with an assist from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners has done the heavy lifting for you.

The results are really not that surprising, the high end iPhone 5S is outselling the much less expensive iPhone 5C by better than two to one. It said that 64% bought the 5S, 27% bought the 5C and the remaining 9% bought the older 4S.

Lack of viewers leading to more Thursday night games?
According to the Wall Street Journal the NFL is looking at adding additional games to its slate of Thursday night broadcasts, adding to the 13 games that are already broadcast on that day of the week by making some doubleheaders.

The WSJ said that the reason is that the league is disappointed in the ratings that its broadcasts bring in, which while high for that day of the week are lower than Sunday and Monday. The NFL is denying the rumor saying that it is false.

Of course it could not end there. So Jerry Jones, the Cowboys owner said that the league is indeed thinking about starting to play doubleheaders on Thursday, which the league again denied.

Jessi Combs sets land speed record
Time to reset the clock to count down when the latest land speed record will be broken, as Jessi Combs driving a converted F-104 Lockheed Starfighter, just broke the women’s land speed record, one that managed to last 48 years, according to Gizmag.

The old record was 308.51 miles per hour set by Lee Breedlove in 1965 on Utah’s Salt Lake Flats. Combs hit 392.954 mph running at Oregon’s Alvord Desert course. The vehicle had a mere 52,000 hp, without the afterburners going.

Will the latest version of Android and a new smartphone arrive this month?
There are hints that the next generation of the Android operating system, version 4.4 and a new Nexus smartphone, will be announced on Oct. 28, due to hints that have been found in a number of Google’s Twitter messages.

The rumor campaign is based around KitKat, the code name for the next version of the operating system, and yes it is based on the candy bar. According to the LA Times the tweets could contain cryptic clues that point to the rollout. Well we have two weeks to see if that is true.

Bonneville Salt Flats Speed Week Nears

Most of the racing fans I know tend to stick to one form of the sports, the NASCAR fans look down on the Formula One fans, and vice versus, although I am not sure where the truck racing fans and super modified people stand on the issue. However there is one area that they all seem to agree and that is that going fast is great, which brings us to Speed Week at the historic Bonneville Salt Flats.

I knew that speed records were often set at the salt flats but I had no idea that it was a regular event that occurred once a year where fans of just about any type of engine driven vehicles from bar stools on up can compete to set records or in many cases just go very, very fast.

So on September 8th and running to the 11th is the World of Speed held by the Utah Salt Flats Racing Association (USFRA). The event has an interesting format in that once you get accepted via registration, you run in a random order.

There is no head to head racing; it is just the driver and the machine against the track and the timer, going all out to set a record, or to achieve set speeds that allow you to say that you have achieved a certain standard at the event such as the 130 MPH and the 150 MPH clubs

Racers seeking to set records run in what is called the Record Run, and they make two runs, one a qualifier and the other is called the Record Run, which are the first races in the morning. The average of the two races is what is used to establish new records.

The Salt Flats have two courses with the short course running four or five miles while the long course running seven miles or longer. For most cars, they must qualify to run the long course by first running the short course at 175 mph, reaching that sped by the 2 ½ mile marker.

While many people are probably familiar with a wide range of vehicles that are raced at the Salt Flats from the famed streamliners to muscle cars, vintage cars and motorcycles there are some oddities as well including bar stools, Volkswagens, go-carts and electric vehicles.

I am not sure if there will be any over the air broadcasting of the events but there are a host of web links to some of the teams that are participating here. If you are attending send us some pics!

Friday Grab Bag: More Thursday Night Football? New land speed record set

Bonneville Salt Flats Speed Week Nears

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