On the Salt At the Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trials

When you run off what is known as the “boat ramp” onto the salt and as we approached the encampment with all it’s tents, big trucks and trailers, Misa, my girlfriend said that “we could be on the North Pole” and I quipped in return, calling the whole thing “Salt Station Zebra” (a play on words…).

This venue is so unique. You could be on Mars. the moon, and even with the luxury of air conditioning in our rental car you’ll be surprised how quickly the window glass gets to a point where you can’t touch it because it’s so hot. The last time I attended the BMST was back in 2014 invited by a friend. It was a few months after my wife Emily died from cancer and I needed something to distract me from where I was emotionally, but I needed something that embraced my love of all things motorcycles, but not road racing (my normal line of work).

As a result, and with great thanks to my friend Jenny, I ended up on the Bonneville Salt Flats at the Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trials.

Fast forward to 2017.

I'm not fan of Silverstone (MotoGP is my regular gig and coincidentally was running at the same time as this event) and so I reached out to Erin Hunter (an extremely talented, multi-award-winning, landspeed Guinness Book of Records motorcyclist) to ask if I could cover her speed trial attempt. Erin, along with fellow ADV rider Trevis Richter is working with Race for Relief, a motorcycle therapy based group that has been created to help vets with PTSD and other issues to find support through ADV motorcycling.

To bring greater awareness to the Race for Relief program, and the fact that the program is based around using adventure motorcycles, such as the BMW GS1200, the goal is to have the worlds’ fastest GS BMW motorcycle. On mid afternoon Monday the goal was achieved with Trevis riding the BMW GS1200 and attaining a speed of 142mph.

So in my first BMST gallery you’ll see a selection of images that includes the (mandatory) riders meeting, “pit work” and the riders/racers lining up awaiting their dispatch for their turn on the track.