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Entries in Salt Lake City (2)

Sunday
Jun122011

Utah’s Son of Speed – Racing on a Ribbon of Salt

By Bennett Owen

Used by permission, Utah Historical Society. All rights reserved.

This is the “Mormon Meteor,” one of the world’s most valuable cars…a custom Dusenberg built with only one goal in mind ... breaking speed records. The 1939 version generated 750hp with a top speed of 275 MPH. 

Used by permission, Utah Historical Society. All rights reserved.

And this is the man who piloted the 22-hundred pound beast ... adventurer ... pioneer ... visionary ... David Abbot Jenkins.

Credit: Deseret News

When fate knocked at the door of  “Ab” Jenkins, he was a simple family man eking out a living wage as a painter, carpenter and fix-it man in Salt Lake City, Utah.  The year was 1925 and a friend asked him to race a car against a freight train on a newly laid stretch of highway slicing through the salt flats west of town.  Jenkins beat the train by five minutes and in doing so found his calling. 

Credit: Deseret News

Credit: Deseret News

By the time he passed away 30 years later he was a legend in the automotive world, having set far more endurance and land speed records than any other person on the planet before or since, and single-handedly turning a remote, sweltering 100 square mile slab of Utah desert into a motorized Mecca of high performance, high tech and of course high speed.  The Bonneville Salt Flats.

Credit: Deseret News

Credit: Desert News

His was an extraordinary era of innovation and raw adventure and rare camaraderie and the quest for excellence.   “Ab” Jenkins’ story is far too fascinating and complex for a few glib Blog lines. Luckily, it has been captured on film in a riveting documentary, Boys of Bonneville – Racing on a Ribbon of Salt.

The film is obviously a labor of love, commissioned by the John Price Museum of Speed in Salt Lake. It’s touring the festival circuit now and officially premiers in Salt Lake August 24th. Here’s a preview to get your engine started:

Boys of Bonneville Movie Trailer from Price Museum of Speed on Vimeo.

In 1932, Jenkins’ facilities at the Salt Flat consisted of an old sheepherder’s wagon and some tents for the help who kept time with simple stopwatches.

Credit: Deseret News

In his first major endurance feat, he vowed to skeptical experts that he would drive a Pierce-Arrow 24-hundred miles in 24 hours and his only protection was a thick layer of grease smeared on his face to shield the sun. When it was over, he had driven 27-hundred miles and was stone deaf from the roar of the engine.

Credit: Deseret News

A year later, he bettered his speed, shaving his face on the last lap at a speed of 125 MPH and no windshield. He wanted to look presentable when the time trial was over.

Credit: Deseret News

But Jenkins truly came into his own with the legendary “Mormon Meteor,” breaking 21 records in 1939 alone including an average of nearly 162 MPH for a 24-hour run…a record that stood for 50 years, only to be broken in 1990 by a team of EIGHT drivers.

Credit: Deseret News

The Mormon Meteor is the centerpiece of the John Price Museum of Speed in Salt Lake.  Comedian Jay Leno is a well-known car fanatic and not surprisingly, he worships the memory of Ab Jenkins. He sums it up in Popular Mechanics

"Ab raced for the love of the sport--he did it all himself. Not only was he the driver, but he had to be the engineer, the R&D guy--and he had to build the car too. He knew when it broke, knew when it was running perfectly, and he could drive it for 24 hours straight at 160 mph. Ab had that great all-American-boy stuff of the 1930s."

Credit: Deseret News

Credit: Deseret News

Today’s technology is light years ahead ... and still many of Jenkins’ records stand for he was first and foremost a man of endurance ... a devout and humble Mormon, a 'gentleman racer’ with a fanatical need for speed.

Used by permission, Utah Historical Society. All rights reserved.

Tuesday
May242011

WESTERN VACATIONS – Discover Your Routes

By Bennett Owen

 

Credit: SurferSam.com

4 Bucks a gallon be damned, Memorial Day is approaching at a speed that would surely merit a night in jail if Mother Earth were twirling up the turnpike in an SUV.  So with the family outing looming large, the My-West staff has assembled a series of helpful hints to enhance your vacation, entice Dad to stop for something other than gas, food and lodging and perhaps even keep the kids’ noses out of the play station for a few minutes.

In cooperation with my favorite website, Roadsideamerica.com, here are some quirky stop-offs to spice up vacation 2011.  Most are open 24/7 and as we all know, the best things in life…are free.

Our first route takes us from Salt Lake City to Yellowstone Park and our number one roadside attraction is located right in the Utah state capital:

1 - Gravity Hill - E. Capitol Blvd.

Credit: Wikimapia

Also known as “a cheap date” when I was going to school there, Gravity Hill is truly one of the most brain-twisting optical illusions I’ve ever experienced.  

Credit: Way Marketing

You will swear the road is pointing downhill and yet when you throw the jalopy into neutral it will actually roll upwards.  Try it at night and you will feel a strange and irresistible magnetic pull that will soon lead to some heavy necking with your wife. I mean, the view is phenomenal.

Credit: SheldonPhotography

2 – After defying gravity, it’s time to hit the road, and along the way you can admonish the kids that “money doesn’t grow on trees…but shoes do,” at least in Park City, Utah.  Yes, it’s the Shoe Tree at 780 Main St., a monument so moving it is immortalized in poem:

“Symbol of mystery, intrigue and fun...Body for free spirit deep in town's roots (or is that routes? Ed.)...You invite us this summer to throw off our shoes...We celebrate all that you stand for.“  -  Park City Magazine

Credit: Sheneng

Legends abound on the origin of the Shoe Tree and all involve one pair getting tossed up for some reason or another and everyone else following suit.  Say, as long as you’re in town, you might as well have lunch at the High West Distillery, an experience good for the ‘sole.’ But don’t make it the liquid variety or you’ll never get out of Park City!

3 – By mid-afternoon you’ll be driving through the Wyoming wilderness and perhaps wondering how the pioneers survived and thrived in such a forbidding landscape. Well, all the answers are waiting at the Museum of the Mountain Man in Pinedale. It’s a touch off the beaten track but worth the visit for the Beaver Top Hat alone! 

Credit: Museum of the Mountain Man

4 – Of course we try to save the best for last…forget Sasquatch, the elusive Jackalope is the stuff of true western lore…a cross between a jackrabbit and an antelope (I bet they met at Gravity Hill!). 

Credit: Wikipedia                                            

Well, Dubois, Wyoming has captured the creature and even saddled him up so the kids can have a ride.  Everything you ever wanted to know about Jackalopes is right here.

Credit: ChucksToyland

After driving through Jackalope Junction, ya gotta love it, you ONLY have the Tetons and Yellowstone Park to keep the kids occupied. So, happy traveling and next week’s offbeat tour takes us from Yellowstone to Glacier.  

Credit: dog on wheels

Credit: mcfa0773