We first told you about this Studebaker Avanti and its Land Speed Racing legend status in the Land Speed Racing Avanti intro.  We have a quick update for you.  Dan and crew took the #88 Avanti and its borrowed twin supercharged Studebaker V8 to El Mirage for some runs down the dry lakebed at El Mirage.  It was 191 days in the making and it was well worth it. The Stude looks right at home on the dry, cracked lake bed.  Dan suited up and was able to make 2 runs, well, 1.5 runs.  Before actually getting down the dirt track, it took many hours and helpful hands to get the Avanti to pass tech inspection.  Most of the little things are safety related, like sealing off the interior from fire hazards and the correct protection. Avanti Dan suiting up.  No racing happens without help of family and friends. Two land speed racing Avanti's at the starting line at El Mirage is a beautiful sight to see.  Dan and team were able to figure out a bunch of bugs, get tech inspected, and get another list together to get ready...

Bonneville Salt Flats: Land Speed Record Info: The countdown is on for Speed Week, the land-speed racing event of the year! This Speed Week makes sixty-two years that Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) and Bonneville Nationals Incorporated (BNI) have run this week-long speed spectacular. Since the whole point of the event is the “world’s fastest automotive speed trials” that means SCTA/BNI are responsible for verifying the record breaking speeds. Upon my first Speed Week experience last August, I pondered exactly HOW one breaks the speed record as I watched speedsters, lakesters, roadsters, coupes, pickups, and motorcycles speed from the starting line. I headed down to the tech inspection area to find out. Every vehicle goes through tech inspection upon arrival to verify both legality and safety. If they’re lucky they’ll go through a second time to verify a broken speed record! So how do you break a record at Bonneville? First, you’ve got to build a kick ass car and follow SCTA/BNI's rules while doing it. All sorts of different classes of cars race at Bonneville. They differ by body style, body modifications, engine size, and fuel used. Pick...

Bonneville Salt Flats: Race Car Recreation Stromberg headquarters—Stromberg is pleased to announce their valued participation in the recreation of Phil Remington’s stunning 1941 lakester. Stromberg is proud to announce their participation in the recent unveiling of the recreation of Phil Remington’s 1941 lakester. Unveiled at a special party honoring Phil, who will be 90 this year, at the NHRA Museum in Pomona during LA Roadster weekend, the blue roadster was an exact recreation by Burton, Michigan’s Dan Webb. Webb hosted the party for 400 of Phil’s closest friends, including Dan Gurney, Stu Hilborn, and more. Built in 1941 and raced at the lakes from 1946-1948, the roadster consistently ran over 130 MPH running a 21 stud Ford flathead fed by two Stromberg 97 carburetors. As Dan Webb wanted this to be a perfect recreation of the beautiful lakester, he needed to look no further than our reissue of the winning Stromberg 97. Though the new Stromberg 97 looks exactly like it did almost 70 years ago when Phil chose them on his ground-breaking race car, internal improvements have been made to eliminate leaking, warping of the body and other...

Bonneville Salt Flats: Jeep Race Car This story is: "My Ride is Me"!  Combine Bonneville Salt Flats Racing, a Jeep Comanche and a father and a son.  Perfect! Meet Peter, a new member here at MyRideisMe.com, he's a Jeep guy, but not the off-road type  you might expect.  Here's his story... It was too good for me to mess with.  ha ha  I asked him one question, that's all it took to get him talking. -Hechtspeed Written by: Peter Lechtanski "The Inspiration?   Why do people do what they do?  What makes something (a car) so important to us? I guess to answer your question, I have to go back 40 some years, it was 1963, and a saw a story on the evening news (on a black and white TV) about this 24 year old guy named Craig Breedlove. He'd just gone 400mph+ at the Bonneville Salt Flats, breaking a record held by the British since 1949.   He was the first man to go over 400mph in a car (and later the first man to go 500, and 600mph). I was about 12 years old at the time, 2 years before we elected...

The latest Internet Barn Find is for those land speed racing Salt (or dust) Fever infected bunch.  I bring you DLRA.org.au, the Dry Lakes Racers Australia site.  The Dry Lakes Racers Australia held it's first Speed Trials meet in March 1990 and has been doing so (weather permitting) ever since. It has attracted competitors from all over Australia, the United States of America, New Zealand and the UK.  Currently they only race once per year, but that could change in 2011. The racing happens on Lake Gairdner (well, it used to be a lake).  It's an 8 mile track including the shut down area.  The bummer part is it takes 80 miles driving on dirt roads to get to the race track (compared to Bonneville's 1 mile from "Lands End").  Just like at Bonneville, the site admin told me that if you stand around too long, you'll likely get put to work.  Here's a fendered (smart move with 80 miles of dust) hot rod roadster heading out to Lake Gairdner for Salt Flats Racing.  80 miles of dirt roads is no joke and not for the faint of hot rod heart. There...

Bonneville Salt Flats: Traditional or Modern? It's no doubt I have Salt Fever.  For me, the car that represents the Bonneville Salt Flats, El Mirage Dry Lakes and the hot rod hobby as a whole is the early Ford roadster. At Speedweek 2009 while hangin' out at the starting line just soaking in the Salt, I spotted 2 Lakes Modified Roadsters.  I knew I dug the stance on both rods.  I went in for a look-see.  CLICK on each Picture to Zoom in. The dark blue roadster is a more traditional style rod with its dual carbed flatty V8, cowl-less engine bay, floorless interior (ok, so there was some wood "floor panels"), bomber seats and wire wheels and skinny tires.  The orange roadster has a plush interior, shiny paint, an independent rear end and hot rod style big n little wheels and tires.  I actually dig each style for different reasons.  But, if I could only have one...which one would it be?  Let's take a closer look. Again, the difference is easy to see.  Bomber seats, no door panels, wood floors, a couple guages and big steering OEM wheel on the left, plush leather interior, shiny...

I'm going to put this out there up front... I will not be able to do this story justice.  But, its such a great story and a cool car that you are going to get it and you are going to like it.  Ok, I got that out, now on to the man and the machine. The man is cancer survivor and current cancer fighter Dan Sallia.  The machine is the historic Burke Bros. Bonneville record holding 1962 Studebaker Avanti.  I originally found Dan's story on landracing.com in a build thread he started there.  That led me to his more detailed build thread on RacingStudebakers.com where I spent about 4 hours reading through the posts during 2 separate nights, checking out the pictures and soaking in one of the coolest car-guy stories I've ever heard.  I knew I had to share it the MyRideisMe.com readers. Here's Dan working in the engine bay of the Stude.  Now THAT is a setback motor! Dan has been racing against Cancer for about 4 years and has had 3 tumors.  Recently another tumor was discovered, so Dan is working with his doctors (one doctor is actually a land...

Bonneville Salt Flats: Speed Week 2010 Preview: ...ok, ok, for those counting (who, me?) its actually 100 Days, 19 Hours, 34 Minutes and...wait for it, wait for it...53 seconds! For everything about Bonneville and Speed Week, check this out: Bonneville Salt Flats – Speed Week, Records and Pictures Or, see for yourself at the LandRacing.com homepage, where they have a countdown clock for Speed Week.  It's going year 'round for those with Salt Fever. Here's a little taste of the Salt from Speed Week 2009.  Dig this flamed 5 window coupe hot rod and yes, oh yes, a Studebaker Avanti.  That's a teaser for a feature coming up on another certain Avanti you guys will love. Speed Week is THE coolest car show around! One of the great "unofficial" events at Speed Week is the first 2 nights (the night before races start is night #1), there is a big gathering of all those racers, crew and hot rodders who've made the trip out.  It goes down at the Nugget Casino (across the street from Montego Bay Casino as you can see in the pic above) in Wendover (about 5 miles...

Throttle Magazine was the first known "hot rod" magazine, before it was even known as hot rodding.  Throttle was almost 100% focused on southern California Lakes and Midget racing.  It was only printed for 1 year, 1941, and included 12 issues.  The bombing of Pearl Harbor turned the USA upside down and hot rodding all but dried up for 3-4 years along with the magazine.  Throttle never came back after WWII ended.  "Hot Rod Magazine" picked things back up in January 1948 with their first issue.  Here's a quick look at Throttle through a Reprint book I purchased at The Rodders Journal website. Thom Taylor (check out Thom's website ThomTaylorDesigns.com), hot rod artist, was the person who spearheaded the effort to put together a quality reprint of all 12 issues.  No small task considering relatively few copies were printed and the fact that they are almost 70 years old.  That's Old School cool! Here's a glimpse from the Introduction by Thom Taylor of just what kind of effort was involved in this project: "Jack Peters, who created Throttle and was its editor and publisher, was an enigma.  Finding out what happened to him was difficult but also...

For my 1 year anniversary and 100th blog post at MyRideisMe.com I share with you a classic Japanese land speed racecar, err... truck, a Datsun 620.  I spotted it on the Japanese Nostalgic Car blog/website HERE.  If you don't have this on your blog reader, go ahead and add it now.  The picture credit goes out to Stephen Rosinni, a professional photographer out of NY. According to JNC's blog post, the Datto truck belongs to Barry Brown of Riter Automotive and was run at the Maxton Mile recently.  It runs in the F/PMP class (F = 2.01 - 3.0 liter, PMP = Production mini/mid pickup) with a 2 liter that makes about 220hp equipped with Nissan 50mm race carbs and a Nissan 5 speed.  The #1620 truck broke the class record of 119mph by running 123 in the standing mile.  The Riter Automotive crew, out of Rochester, NY, plans on running at Bonneville this year.  Hopefully we can bring you all some more pics and details.  Of course, when it runs at B'ville, we'll hopefully bring you news of another broken record.  I was curious, so I checked out the BNI class record...

You don't have to look that closely to see the dust piling up. My friends never let me forget what I already know. That ain't right. Good news is,  MyRideisMe.com is growing, but it's at a cost to why I made it: The fun of driving and working on cars. No regrets, but just the same, I'm glad to have Bonnie, my 1927 Ford Roadster back on the road. So what was wrong? General laziness Get out there son! Stripped out threads for 1 header bolt I've never done a Heli-coil before Sounds even more pathetic when I write it down. Backing up some... A friend had a gift certificate for ceramic header coating that he couldn't use, so knowing I'm a fellow car dude, he offered it to me. I needed to do something! If you've been following the build/update progress of my roadster for a while, you saw this post (Click to read it): Home-built Header finish-ATF! After applying the ATF (and after the smoke cleared...) the header was an amazingly cool gray-blue. I loved it and you couldn't beat the cost! It looked pretty good for...

It's been too long since I rambled on about Hot Rods and Customs, I mean Kustoms.  My crazy car brain has gone down the path of  "Mild Customs".  I'll say it right now, the car that really got me started digging Customs was Nick Hoesing's ex-Ford Galaxie I scoped at Bonneville last year.   Peep it below... Then I picked up a Rodders Journal that featured Kirk Jones' 1960 Ford Starliner.  Kirk's a member at MyRideisMe.com, see his Garage Here for more pics.  Our camera man Swanee grabbed this first pic at last years Grand National Roadster Show.  This 'Liner blew me away!!!  I pulled that TRJ #45 out again last night to re-read the story and stare at the rad photography.  Man, this kustom is mad rad!  Ok, so it may be categorized as a Mild Custom, but this thing is Wild!  That paint (better pics in the Rodders Journal, you're just gonna have to go buy a copy) is nutty!  The interior is grade A.  This Ford oozes style and stance.  Can you imagine the hours spent building this car.  I bought this magazine when we were staying in the hospital for the...