Hooniverse goes to…Wendover Utah?

By Hooniverse May 24, 2010


Ok well technically, Hooniverse went to Wendover Nevada to contribute some money to the Nevada Gaming Commission.  Interestingly enough, upon arrival we found the motel parking lot liberally sprinkled with SCCA track cars.  Interest piqued…
 
After wandering around the casino for about an hour and consuming 3 or 4 20-dollar beers we finally spotted a guy sporting an SCCA wristband.  Twenty minutes and twenty pulls on the slot machine later, we had the skinny on what was going on. 
Just so happens there was an SCCA ProSolo event happening at the Historic Wendover Airfield back on the Utah side this weekend.  Our luck had just changed for the better.

Surely Mitch knows this guy...

What is SCCA ProSolo you might ask?

The Tire Rack SCCA ProSolo® combines the excitement of drag racing and the skill of Solo on side-by-side, mirror-image autocross courses. Lining up at the familiar “Christmas Tree” start, drivers compete heads-up in various classes by combining their fastest times from each course. After class competition is completed, all ProSolo events feature the top drivers from each class, competing head-to-head in a variety of single- elimination, handicapped Challenges. The Super Challenge determines the Top Eliminator for the event, the Ladies Challenge draws from the two Ladies classes, the Honda Tuner Challenge draws from the six “Street” classes, and the Bonus Challenge is for those who have not qualified for one of the other challenges.

Despite being sandblasted by constant 40 mph winds the whole day, we had a lot of fun and saw some real Hoons flogging their rides around an extremely worn-out runway.  I can’t count how many cars I saw lift a tire at one particular spot coming around a cone.  I would imagine the go cart guys endured the most abuse of all.
[nggallery id=66]
This looks like the perfect after school activity to get Eleanor involved in…
SCCA
Results

0 thoughts on “Hooniverse goes to…Wendover Utah?”
      1. If you look through the photos there was actually a blue Tacoma tricked out to race, however we got there a bit late and didn't get a chance to see it in action.

  1. Yeah, it is a blast to find cool stuff when you least expect to see it. You are a lucky SOB to have found this and thanks a ton for sharing it with we Hoons out here. And EscortsForever, thanks for sharing that youtube find.

  2. This is a historic place. The Wendover Airfield was where the Enola Gay was loaded up with the atomic bomb during WWII. It was a top secret facility back then, one of the most isolated places in the United States during the war. The Lincoln Highway ran through there, before that the transcontinental railroad ran through there. That's where Wendover had its origins, as a water stop, and the trains still barrel through. Before that, there were isolated mining towns south of there, and sporadic mining activity in the Silver Island Mountains, north of the town. The tragic Donner Party struggled its way through the desert north of those mountains, and during the early twentieth century artifacts from that unfortunate trek were still being found. Way before that, the Digger Indians, the Paiutes, holed up in caves in those mountains, such as Danger Cave, which is a major archeological site. During WWII, the GI's laid concrete in this massive cave and held dances, with big bands, and the concrete floor actually preserved thousands of years of Indian artifacts for modern archeologists to excavate, stratum by stratum. We all know that in later years, Daytona Beach fell out of vogue among the land speed guys in favor of the Bonneville Salt Flats, right next to Wendover Nevada/Utah (the town straddles the border). Wendover today is known by Utahns (or Utards, as they are known by the locals) as Bendover, due to the revenue lost to the fine establishments such as the Silver Smith Casino. I have spent many a non-productive night there, and know the town and its environs very well.
    I almost forgot to mention, when they filmed that old movie, "The Philadelphia Experiment," they burned down about half of the old WWII buildings there at the Airfield. That sucked. I spent two weeks there in 1984 during a Utah National Guard AT and fell in love with the place. I think it's protected now. I personally drag raced a Deuce and a Half up that very runway.

    1. I knew a little bit about Bendover being a bomber base during the war but I had no idea of its extensive history. Next time I go to donate I'm going to spend some more time poking around. What's funny is that I actually had a rental car for the trip and it specifically said in the contract "do not take this car on the Bonneville Speedway" Heh, we went anyway but it was still too wet to chance getting stuck.

      1. During that National Guard AT, an evaluator from the SF unit in Massachusetts got his AMC Eagle rental (remember, this was 1984) stuck in the salty muck on the flats. We tried to rescue him with a Deuce, got it stuck, and it took us two days to get it unstuck. The only vehicles that could negotiate the wet salt were the Dodge M880 green pickups. Yeah, when the salt is wet, stay off of it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The maximum upload file size: 64 MB. You can upload: image, audio, video. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop files here