On the SWCTA web site is a report of the salt condition as of yesterday. Larry Volk said some water at the end of the road, #1 & #2 courses are damp and with the 90 deg. temps should be good for speed week.
Read the full report on www.scta-bni.org.
Mayor Mike Crawford reports that yesterday (Tuesday) it rained about 3 inches in 8 minutes out on the salt. In town there was some flooding.
Sure hope it gets hot and sunny for a few days. . .
Ten day Forcast looks good, high to mid 90's with 10-15 mph winds tomorrow then tapering off a bit. % of rain is very low. How the forecasters get this one right. :roll:
My fingers are crossed that the weather guys are paying real close attention. :| :|
Me too. It's a long way to come for rain. :-( We've got plenty here right now !!
Rain is a BAD four letter word!!
We (the DLRA) have had enough rain outs down here in Australia!!
Mrdodge , where abouts would you be?? I'm in Brisbane (over on the West Island),am from Cambridge (Waikato) originally,and saw there was some bad flooding around Waikato/Bay of Plenty in last few days. Hope you OK , There had better be plenty sunshine in the US ,'cause i have seen enough rain to last me a few lifetimes.I arrive LAX on the 6th , so PLEASE have the sun out and shining!!
Cheers , Bob.
Just left Lands End about10 minutes ago.... No standing water but I don't know where the tide is this morning and no time to stand and watch. Camped up in the BLM area above bend in the road, up on the hillside.......hit a couple muddy tire ruts is about all.
Thats what I saw this morning.....Off to rescue the bike from Colorado....see you all in a few weeks.
JimL
Wind and heat helps.
QuoteRain is a BAD four letter word!!
We (the DLRA) have had enough rain outs down here in Australia!!
Mrdodge , where abouts would you be?? I'm in Brisbane (over on the West Island),am from Cambridge (Waikato) originally,and saw there was some bad flooding around Waikato/Bay of Plenty in last few days. Hope you OK , There had better be plenty sunshine in the US ,'cause i have seen enough rain to last me a few lifetimes.I arrive LAX on the 6th , so PLEASE have the sun out and shining!!
Cheers , Bob.
hey mate we arive in lax on the 7th we wont be far behind u.. hope the weather is good..
Nancy says that Lynda reported today that it's a puddle (take that for what you want) near Land's End, with standing water off to the left of LE. That's fine and common. How common is it for the salt that's west of the end of the road to be wet? Think of how many times you've seen vehicles stuck in the soft stuff - and remember that they're almost always over in said softness. There you have it.
I just checked the Wendover weather. 99F right now, winds SW 13 G 19. Temps forecast to be in the upper to lower 90s through a week from now, with a "slight chance of rain" a few of the days towards the end of next week. Sounds like regular ol' SpeedWeek weather to me.
In a year of drought and here we go-a-prayin for hot dry weather!!!!!!!!!!
Quote from: Bob Ellis on July 26, 2012, 02:56:44 AM
Rain is a BAD four letter word!!
We (the DLRA) have had enough rain outs down here in Australia!!
Mrdodge , where abouts would you be?? I'm in Brisbane (over on the West Island),am from Cambridge (Waikato) originally,and saw there was some bad flooding around Waikato/Bay of Plenty in last few days. Hope you OK , There had better be plenty sunshine in the US ,'cause i have seen enough rain to last me a few lifetimes.I arrive LAX on the 6th , so PLEASE have the sun out and shining!!
Cheers , Bob.
Hey Bob
Down in Hawkes Bay and the sun is finally out, Thought my feet were going webbed there for a while. We hit San Fran on the 7th and are praying for sun, lots of it, as well a some heat. Now the sun is out here, we are back to frosts as well....I hate winter!!! Look forward to seeing ya all there
Once again I just checked the Wendover weather. It's 99F and 11% humidity right now (6.15P EDT), with mid- to upper- nineties forecast for the next week. I hope the surface is ready to be baked hard -- 'cause the weather is right for doing that. See you on the salt.
Quote from: Bob Ellis on July 26, 2012, 02:56:44 AM
Rain is a BAD four letter word!!
We (the DLRA) have had enough rain outs down here in Australia!!
Mrdodge , where abouts would you be?? I'm in Brisbane (over on the West Island),am from Cambridge (Waikato) originally,and saw there was some bad flooding around Waikato/Bay of Plenty in last few days. Hope you OK , There had better be plenty sunshine in the US ,'cause i have seen enough rain to last me a few lifetimes.I arrive LAX on the 6th , so PLEASE have the sun out and shining!!
Cheers , Bob.
Don't I know! Made the trip from the US this May and only got to watch the floods in Tallygaroopna. A good alternate was a visit to Melbourne for the F1 race. Still had a great tie down under in your beautiful country.
Burly Burlile
Well kids, rain is a good thing on the salt after it has been prepped, 3 inches might be a little much, but I'll bet it was less. When the salt has been treated well by Mom Nature it can handle quite a bit of rain at night and you race the next day. Rain is how the salt gets hard and smooth.... keeps it from getting like running on little marbles
See ya on the salt 8-)
i,ll be getting on the plane on thursday,got fingers crossed for good salt-
Getting ready to leave this week end. Any current updates would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Todd
Quote from: Todd553 on August 02, 2012, 01:03:04 PM
Getting ready to leave this week end. Any current updates would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Todd
Current weather forecast is looking great with temps the rest of the week in the high 90's (F) and little or small chance of thunderstorms <20%
http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?map.x=83&map.y=128&minlon=-115.5&maxlon=-108.5&minlat=36.96&maxlat=42.68&mapwidth=354&site=slc&zmx=1&zmy=1 (http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?map.x=83&map.y=128&minlon=-115.5&maxlon=-108.5&minlat=36.96&maxlat=42.68&mapwidth=354&site=slc&zmx=1&zmy=1)
Larry
That's >80% chance of "NO" rain. I like that.
Doug :cheers: :cheers: :cheers:
There is a update today on the SCTA web site.
Nancy and I are at mile marker 73 on I-80 westbound for Wendover. Our firsts stop will be on the salt, and I'll do the usual -- take a photo or two of the salt accumulation on the wheelwell/tires of this truck. That'll help you know how the salt is. I've heard only good things -- but as you and we know, seeing it is even better. Glad that SCTA has word on their site -- I haven't looked at it yet.
See you pretty soon, on the salt.
Here 'tis -- your first-hand report on what we discovered. The salt looks good and fast. It's hard and dry right off Land's End, gets a tad moist about a mile or so in towards the pits and stays kinda moist for at least a mile and then starts going back to dry. In the pits and registration and inspection and impound and the ERC fuel truck it's hard and dry.
There are more and bigger crunchies than we've seen in the past few years, but they're dragging out pretty well. The access road is as usual the bumpiest - and it's not bad. The crews were dragging while we were there, making the return road and the courses. The pits have been dragged (note I don't use the word "drug" to specify the state of having been dragged) and are pretty nice.
The start line for the long course is closer to Land's End than last year - maybe a mile, maybe not even that far. We didn't go exploring over to the start of courses #3 and #4, but I assume they're around and beyond the big dike that parallels the first two courses.
Pits are long, as usual, and have three entrances plus the open end near registration - again, as usual.
In other words, there's not much change since last time. And - the salt is GREAT! We're going to have a safe, fun, and FAST meet. See you on the salt - soon.
Oh, yeah - these were shot after we drove into the pit area from Land's End. Make your own judgements.
(http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii147/SeldomSeenSlim/SpeedWeek%202012/P1010774.jpg)
(http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii147/SeldomSeenSlim/SpeedWeek%202012/P1010775.jpg)
There's a shot of the muddy stuff, just west of Land's End - to show you where to look for tourists stuck later on during the event.
(http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii147/SeldomSeenSlim/SpeedWeek%202012/P1010778.jpg)
And there's even a happy-happy (we hope) sign made of little hunks of blacktop scraps on the salt. We've all seen these things along the interstate - but this is the first time in a long while that we've seen one right out on the salt. It's on the road to the line from the pits.
(http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii147/SeldomSeenSlim/SpeedWeek%202012/P1010776.jpg)
Jon, thanks. See you tomorrow. :-D
Jon and Nancy:
Thanks. Looks good, see you Friday.
Bill
Jon. Nothing to do with the state of the salt but thank you for using the word dragged instead of drug. I've often wondered how that word became mainstream. Its like a small stone in your shoe.
Long time ago I dragged on some whacky tabacky, becoming drugged.
And, thanks for the report.
Other minor things about the conditions:
Gasoline costs in the mid-$3.40/gallon here, and diesel is in the mid- to upper- $3.80 range. We filled in SLC (well, Sandy, a little south of downtown) today for $3.569/gallon of diesel. Unh, let's see -- thirty cents per gallon. Now you know what to expect when you get here and need to fill your tank.
Other: Bring a fly swatter or two. It seems like this is turning into a fly-laden year. We had/have pests in the motel, and in the restaurant, and on the salt. Bring a fly swatter. I don't think they're as bad as at the '09 Shootout, though, when they were thick and liked biting people - just for spite. That time we had to use flypaper strips.
Here's a trivial question. How long has this truck been parked on the corner next to Fred's Family Supermarket in Wendover, Utah? It's across the side street from the Montego parking lot. We think it's been there for four years -- but it might be longer. Note also the condition of the tires - melted darn near into the pavement.
We worked on Scaaty tonight. The car won't make it but we will. Leaving Friday morning. Having a hard time sleeping. Really looking forward to our first trip to the salt. This will be a fact finding mission for a new team. We are full of questions and don't want to get in the way. See you on the salt. It's all fun. Don
Thanks Slim, see you on Thursday :cheers: