need
for speed
The
On the vast shimmering
salt pan of Lake Gairdner
in South Australia, land
speedsters test their limits.
Story by Natsumi Penberthy
Photography by Nick Cubbin
74 A u s t r a l i a n G e o g r a p h i c
May –Ju n e 2 0 1 3
75
Desert fever. Brett
De Stoop’s bike Salt
Fever (right), which
he crashed at Speed
Week while doing
almost 400km/h, has
an engine based on a
1973 model. Due to
extreme speed and
the corrosive nature
of the salt, Brett (right
and below) and other
racers often have to
repair their vehicles
during the event.
Red-light district. Land speed racers
bring a metropolis of shipping
containers, caravans and trucks
onto Lake Gairdner, and start
lining up to race before dawn.
S
at almost four times the
maximum road speed limit, motorcyclist Brett De
Stoop is worrying about his gearbox. His speedometer has just ticked past his fastest recorded speed
of 373km/h, and on his mind is the fact that, three
days earlier, one of his gears had disintegrated.
In a night that smelled of grease and didn’t involve much
sleep, he managed to fit a spare gearbox using little more than
his ingenuity and some makeshift tools. Now it’s the final day
of Speed Week 2013, and he’s about to nudge his homemade
bike into top gear.
Pressure tugs at his fingers as he hunches behind his visor.
Back in 2010, his previous record out here on the salt flat of Lake
Gairdner, in central South Australia, was the fastest recorded
Australian time for a conventional motorbike.
He hesitates for a split second. Too slow making the gear
change, his shoulder is jerked back by a stream of air, yanking
his hand off the handlebar. Brett’s body peels back, and the bike
swerves violently onto its side before making a long scraping
slide across the salt, sending white arcs airborne.
TR EAK ING ALONG
I
spill and the sun is not yet
up when I first lay eyes on Lake Gairdner, sunk into the
foothills of the Gawler Ranges, deep in a landscape of mulga
scrub and red dirt. It glows behind a quarantine line manned
by volunteers from Dry Lakes Racers Australia (DLRA), who
organise the event. Wielding leaf blowers they blast the thick red
dust off our tyres before we’re allowed to proceed onto the salt.
Lake Gairdner National Park is rarely visited apart from
the occasional film crew and the Speed Week community,
and keeping the lake surface pristine is part of an agreement
with the park’s administration and its indigenous custodians. The 1.2m-deep white stuff is sacred to the area’s
Nuts and bolts. Part of the challenge at Speed Week is repairing
vehicles using only materials you’ve brought out to Lake Gairdner,
three hours drive from the nearest town, Port Augusta.
T’S the day before Brett’s
76 A u s t r a l i a n G e o g r a p h i c
The standard for land speed
racing is miles per hour (mph).
1mph = 1.609344km/h
Flying start. The Spirit of Sunshine
(previous page) started life as the fuel
tank of a 1953 bomber aircraft. Now
in its second life it flew across the salt
flats at a speed of 215mph.
Salt scrub. Before racers such as Greg
Butler (far right) leave Lake Gairdner,
their tyres will be scrubbed free of salt
to ensure it remains on the dry lake.
May –Ju n e 2 0 1 3
77
Family glory. Brad
Tinedale straps
brother-in-law Phil
Shepard into his
E-type Jag. Safety is
taken very seriously
by the race organisers
and drivers face prerace testing of safety
modifications to the
cars. They also face a
'bailout' test: to
show the driver can
get out of their
vehicle rapidly in
an emergency.
Streamlining secrets
Part of what makes land speed racing unique is the focus on
streamlining highly modified vehicles, such as Brett De Stoop’s
bike (below). With little need for modifications to grip the
road and aid steering, reducing air resistance is the goal.
Wings on racing
vehicles are designed
to push cars or bikes
towards the ground.
This prevents them
becoming airborne
at high speeds. For
land speed racing
vehicles, these kind of
modifications create
too much drag, so
downforce is typically
achieved with
weights instead.
When two streams of air
shooting down the sides of
the vehicle reach the back,
the separation between
them creates an area of low
pressure that slows the bike.
A long tail encourages the
air streams to recombine,
minimising the effect.
78 A u s t r a l i a n G e o g r a p h i c
At the start of each autumn since 1990, weather permitting,
racers rumble onto Lake Gairdner’s moonscape-like surface,
400km north-west of Adelaide. They bring an assortment of
vehicles stashed in modified buses, trucks, shipping containers
and trailers. Rained out in 2011 and 2012, this is the first time
in three years that Speed Week has been able to go ahead.
More than 300 hopefuls have signed up to race in 2013,
trailed by about 700 support crew, family members and spectators. Meets like these were born in the late 1940s in western
USA – still the sport’s heartland – and there are a surprising
number of ties between the world’s biggest land speed meeting
at Bonneville and this remote patch of South Australia. Equipment has been donated, friendships made and regulations
adopted in regular exchanges across the Pacific.
The sport attracts an eclectic crowd of mostly men over 35.
Gadget-filled, makeshift offices inserted into scruffy shipping
containers act as teams’ headquarters and host huddles of
serious-looking mechanics in matching T-shirts.
The sport’s aim is deceptively simple: drive one at a time
down a nine-mile (14.5km) straight, going as fast as possible.
The time is recorded of the fastest ‘flying’ mile. The payoff is
that they might break the world speed record in their vehicle
class – of which there are hundreds, from humble 110cc postie
bikes or slow vintage cars, to million-dollar ‘unlimiteds’. Some
racers compete only against their own fastest time, others vie
to top records set elsewhere or in previous years.
“It’s a different scenario to the V8 supercars,” says Norm
Bradshaw, 64, who owns a car that resembles a taxi. “There’s
no prize money, so everyone wants to see someone go fast.”
There’s more than $300,000 invested under his bonnet, but
it’s been propped open all week for everyone to see. “There
are no secrets from the guy down the road.” Right next to his
set-up, Norm’s friend and muscle-car owner Continued page 83
Drag is the result of a lowpressure area created at the
back of a fast-moving object.
It has a suction effect, which
acts to gently slow the bike
down.
higher altitudes
the air is thinner
and provides less
resistance, but there
is also less available
oxygen to fuel the
engines.
Aerodynamics
The aim is get to
airflow to ‘stick’ to
the vehicle in tidy
streams flowing
in one direction.
Separating streams
cause turbulence,
which increases drag.
Salt tyres
Drag
Simon Davidson
Aboriginal peoples, so any salt on tyres is brushed back onto the
surface by volunteers before vehicles leave.
On the drive out to the registration caravan I soak up the
huge, surreal set-up. Smooth, white-on-white ‘roads’ have
been graded into the salt and lead out to islands of caravans
manned by officials carrying colourful umbrellas to protect
them from the sun.
“Make sure you put sunscreen on the inside of your nose,”
bellows Victorian Greg Butler, as we park in the pits. “The
sun reflecting off the salt will get you in all sorts of odd spots.”
The first thing I notice is that land speed racers have a
knockabout, stylish aesthetic. Although the air smells perpetually of engine oil, there are echoes of Donald Campbell and his
glamorous coterie. The British racer broke the world land speed
record on Lake Eyre in 1964 in his 4500-horsepower jet-motordriven Bluebird (see “International land speed records”, p83 and
AG 87). It remains the only land speed record set outside the
USA since 1927, and his tracks inscribed onto Australia’s salty
‘dead heart’ inspired a generation.
More recently, the Hollywood movie The World’s Fastest Indian
lionised Kiwi racer Burt Munro who, in the 1960s, broke three
world records – one of which still stands – at the Bonneville
Salt Flats in Utah, USA, riding a modified 1920s Indian Scout
motorcycle. His DIY example has brought a new generation of
improvisational motorcycle mechanics to the sport.
In hot weather and
Downforce
Extended tail
“There’s no prize money,
so everyone wants to see
someone go fast.”
Air Density
Exhaust
Some vehicles have
a system that creates
a rotating plume
of exhaust fumes
designed to fill the
low-pressure area
and reduce drag
behind the vehicle.
Of 305 vehicles
at 2013's Speed
Week, 75
had significant
streamlining
Land speed tyres, which are
inflated to very high pressure
(100psi), tend to have minimal
tread because the friction slows
the vehicles down. This makes
them poor at steering under
normal conditions. Due to a
combination of centrifugal force
and heat, tyres also expand,
meaning the body of the vehicle
has to account for a small
increase in size.
May –Ju n e 2 0 1 3
79
Land speed categories
Goggle-eyed. Spectators such as Clare
Bolger have to keep their distance in
case a vehicle spirals off the track.
Clockwise from top left: Nick Cubbin; Simon Davidson (SD); SD; Natsumi Penberthy; SD; SD
Vehicles are divided into broad categories and hundreds of classes,
which are broken down by engine, fuel, shape and age.
80 A u s t r a l i a n G e o g r a p h i c
Special construction
Modified
16 vehicles in 2013
70 vehicles in 2013
This category has the most extreme
modifications. It is divided into classes such
as ‘streamliners’, which can be modified
in any way, and ‘lakesters’ that have open
wheels so are less streamlined. Innovation
is unlimited, but modified mass-produced
bodies are not allowed.
This category includes vehicles such as
coupes, sedans and utes made after 1948,
which have been modified so much that
they no longer fit into the Production
category (see below). The amount of
modification determines the class. Vehicles
must originally have seated four adults.
Vintage
Production
1 vehicle in 2013
65 vehicles in 2013
Must be an original or close replica of a
car mass-produced (i.e. more than 500
made in a year) prior to 1948. Only limited
modifications are allowed. For example,
tops may be chopped off but no other shell
alteration is allowed. They are typically made
of antique iron, fibreglass and aluminium.
This category is intended to represent
mass-produced (more than 500 made in
a year), post-1948 cars that could have
been purchased from a dealer. Only limited
modifications to engines allowed. No body
parts allowed that do not replicate those
originally intended for the vehicle.
Diesel Truck
MOTORBIKE
3 vehicles in 2013
153 vehicles in 2013
This category is intended for typical diesel
trucks that are built to carry commercial
goods. This category can only be fuelled
by commercially available diesel. Limited
body modifications are allowed. Owners
can, however, make extensive modifications
to the engine.
Motorbikes are classified as anything
with less than four wheels. Sidecars, for
example, are motorbikes with three wheels.
Motorcycles are divided into the categories
broadly similar to the above categories for
other vehicles, but with sidecars included as
an additional category.
May –Ju n e 2 0 1 3
81
International
land speed records
Australia’s salt flats have been home to many attempts.
AUSTRALIA’S connection to
the world’s outright fastest
speeds is long and glorious.
Although an Australian is yet
to take out the top honour,
in 1964 Donald Campbell
set a world record on Lake
Eyre’s salt pan, travelling at
403.100mph (648.709km/h).
American Andy Green
currently holds the outright
world record, at 763.035mph
Wheelie fast. Australians
Kim Krebs (pictured here),
Greg Watters (left, at left) and
Californian Jim Higgins (left, on bike)
chase 200mph on two wheels.
getty images
Red hot. John Lynch’s belly
tanker took out the fastest
speed on the lake – 277.8mph.
82 A u s t r a l i a n G e o g r a p h i c
(1227.952km/h), but Perthbased Rosco McGlashan,
Australia’s outright record
holder, is currently developing a
‘streamliner’ that he hopes will
beat Andy’s speed. In 1994 his
Aussie Invader 2, a jet-powered
special, set an Australian record
of 497.90mph (801.30km/h)
on Lake Gairdner, topping
Campbell's speed on Australian
soil for the first time.
Wayne Pickles is eating a sausage sandwich. Proving Norm’s
point, he hands one over as he cheerfully explains his own little
piece of mechanical genius. “We have to fill the low-pressure
areas created behind fast-moving objects by making an exhaust
that corkscrews in a circular pattern.” He’s had some success,
and this year a few others are sporting similar designs.
As I stop under the awnings of other racers, I discover most
people turn lyrical as they talk tech – their own kind of zen via
the art of motorcycle maintenance. “The general rule of thumb,”
explains Kim Krebs, 42, sipping instant coffee while waiting
in line with her 1996-vintage Suzuki GSXR750, “is it’s not so
important how you open the hole in front of you, it’s how you
close the hole – how you minimise the turbulence behind you.”
A vehicle’s behaviour can change dramatically and it can
become unstable as it moves from high- to super-high speeds.
Kim says she tore back muscles trying to control a bike between
these zones. But at a certain point that riders like Brett describe
as “warp speed” everything suddenly calms down. “It’s quiet,
because you’re moving more smoothly through all this turbulence of the air,” says Kim. “It’s like a serenity.”
There’s no separate women’s category in land speed,
although Kim bears the unofficial title of the world’s secondfastest woman on the salt. She set her best time in Bonneville
last year, and is trying to match it here, so far without much luck.
She blames it on the air. “At almost 1300m above sea level the
air’s thinner at Bonneville. It mucks up a lot of the Americans
who come out here,” she says, with a rueful smile.
One hundred metres away a group of men are gathered
around a baby-blue 1977 E-type Jaguar. The Jag’s not roadworthy anymore; its rear-view hampered by a parachute
mounted on the boot as an emergency brake.
“I had a bit of trouble getting out of the car,” jokes Phil
Shepard, 47, describing the driver dexterity test, part of the
race’s safety check, earlier in the week. In his hometown of
Albany, WA , this town planner helps organise vintage car
races, so he appreciates how complex it is to keep a sport such
as this safe. “See this bolt?” he says, pointing at the car. “If that
came off they’d have to stop the race and comb the whole track
until they found it.”
Top Don. Flashy Englishman Donald Campbell sits atop Bluebird in 1964.
He died three years later attempting a water speed record.
The salt is a fast-acting
corrosive, so things can fall
apart at the drop of a clutch.
Many bolts do go missing among this traffic jam of untested
vehicles, most of which are only suitable for running on the
salt. Some get run once a year if they’re lucky and the salt is a
fast-acting corrosive, so things can fall apart at the drop of a
clutch. Because they’re constantly testing and adjusting their
vehicles with each run, some don’t even weld the parts of
their vehicles together. Engineers and mechanics can spend
months at the drawing board and tinkering in their garages,
finally arriving here to test their theories in the form of a
vehicle and a whole lot of blank space.
B
is one of the event’s most hands-on
theorists and I find him tinkering in the pits. Brett, 38,
talks as fast as he drives, and that’s pretty fast. If you click
onto the DLRA website, a mecca for Aussie land speed racers,
you’ll find the 200MPH club. After 23 years there are only 24
names on the list and Brett is number 22.
Speed Week is his once-a-year opportunity to run his engineering experiment. “That’s just the way the sport is,” he says.
“You have to have the engineering skills to get it to a certain
level to be in the ballpark, but you also basically have to jump on
something that you know isn’t tested.” For this father of three,
mechanics was a distraction after his older brother, a bikie, was
shot dead in his early 20s. Sixteen years later, Brett doesn’t just
make a bike go fast, he creates it pretty much from scratch.
He started off moulding the fibreglass body, but his attention
soon turned to the engine. Most impressive to the blokes on the
lake is that Brett casts and grinds engine parts on 1940s machinery in his backyard foundry in Sydney’s outer western suburb of
Maraylya. “That freedom to build what you want comes at the
price of learning master casting,” says Brett. “Aluminium’s a
RETT DE STOOP
May –Ju n e 2 0 1 3
83
Million-dollar baby.
Trevor Slaughter has
spent more than one
million dollars on his
‘streamliner’. As a
boy in 1964 he met
Donald Campbell; ever
since he’s dreamed of
exceeding his speed.
WATCH competitors
talk about land speed
racing. Download the
viewa app, select the
AG channel and hold
your smartphone
over this page.
bastard of a thing to cast because it shrinks one per cent, so it
has to set in the right spots and remain molten in the right spots
and feed metal in like veins. Otherwise, you’re just going to end
up with a big Aero Bar with one per cent holes through it.”
It’s 8am the next morning – the final day of Speed Week
for the year – and I’m getting bumped around in the back of a
big American pickup truck. I’m being driven by self-confessed
IT nerd Peter Quick, as we chase the Spirit of Sunshine, a belly
tanker special – an unusual buggy-type of vehicle made from
the fuel tank of a World War II plane. Spirit of Sunshine is moving at up to 215mph (344km/h). Pete’s driving the support
vehicle at over 110mph, but James ‘Dr Goggles’ Stewart and his
belly tanker has, figuratively, left us in the dust. After we take
off after him, I don’t spot him again until he’s out of the car at
the end of his run.
When we catch up with him, he announces that he had smoke
billowing into his face. Mechanic Graham Hadley gets out of
the pickup to check the vehicle while James, beaming, says,
“you make it, I break it.” Graham doesn’t seem too bothered.
He doubles as the motorcycle safety inspector for this event,
and says he loves its diversity. “It’s one of the last forms of true
amateur motorsport,” he says.
James, 47, a social worker from Melbourne, reckons that most
of the characters who attend Speed Week have had some lifealtering event push them towards it. “It’s our spiritual home,” he
says. “It’s the focus for some of the most intuitive and creative
people I’ve ever met.”
This worldwide community brings James, a self-confessed
“agrarian communist”, into contact with all sorts. “I have a
70-year-old friend in Phoenix who’s in the [politically conservative] Tea Party,” he says. “I like what happens out here:
odd bods, the rules, the environment, the fact that it’s so hard
to do. Everything is different – you have to act on your feet.”
84 A u s t r a l i a n G e o g r a p h i c
A
s I make my way back
to the line after my morning
joyride with the belly tanker team, Brett zooms past
for his final, fateful run of the week.
When he crashes, his body skids a gut-wrenchingly
bumpy 400m across the empty salt flat. From more than one
kilometre away, all I see are a few puffs of salt arcing through
the air, but the chatter of hundreds of land speed racers dies
in an instant.
As an ambulance and two fire trucks rush towards him, the
disembodied voice of registrar Greg Wapling drifts out of a
little black two-way radio next to me: “For those that need to
know, he ran 240mph (386 km/h) in the first mile.”
A few whoops float over the salt. Even in this crowd of land
speed veterans, 240 is fast. I’m not one of the whoopers; all I
can picture is the potential price of a nearly 400km/h crash.
But later when I check on the larger-than-life land speedster,
he’s laid-up in an ambulance getting his superficial grazes
patched up. Relieved race director Steve ‘Animal’ Charlton
is standing at the doors chuckling as he and Brett try to piece
together the details. “I guess it was good to test how it crashes,”
Brett says wryly. “It did exactly what it was supposed to do:
went low and let me off.”
He’s already planning his next race. Next year he wants to
set records in slower classes of bike. It’s all about breaking
records within certain limitations, he says. “It’s like 3-D art.
But your art has to actually work in the laws of physics – as
well as looking good.” AG
AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC would like to thank the Dry Lakes Racers
Australia and everybody else involved in the production of this story.
see more pictures of Speed Week online at:
www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/issue114.htm
Smuggling budgies. Race director Steve
‘Animal’ Charlton auctioned his shorts in
1996 and hasn’t worn any on the lake since.
Handy man. Brett De Stoop
(right) taught himself to cast
and grind pistons and other
engine parts in his backyard
shed in western Sydney.
May –Ju n e 2 0 1 3
85