Rolling Bones - Bonneville 2006

Rolling Bone - Ken Schmidt's bitchin' dark-red-primer B coupe sitting waiting for the big road trip to Bonneville 2006.	“Another” evil sister... my first view in the flesh!	The house of horrors where much hot rod wickedness takes place!
Keiths Y block powered beast taking a last minute rest before the "off"	09	10
Paul from Cape Cod made the trip in his A roadster	13	15
16	17	Pedal car ready for the 75th Anniversary of the “Deuce”...
Primered 5 winda showed up to wish us luck!	20	21
Early Saturday morning ready for the off from Ken's place	Much modified bus met us out at Lake Eerie	26
27	28	Quaker Steak and Lube diner with other rodders
30	Keith doing his thing....... moving on down the road in his own zone	34
Mass stop at unknown gas station	Interior of one evil sister, these cars are unbelievably comfortable, praise the lowered!	One of the Bones Brothers....... Ken enjoying the drive...........
38	39	Dave and Ron in the Nash, in the rain, just out side of Council Bluffs, Iowa
41	The Bones trailer, with uncle George at the wheel...	Keith overtaking Ken and getting into his zone again.......
Fan belt on Kens coupe went, the only breakdown for the coupes in 2,300 miles or so!	This was also the point after we had just been stopped by Nebraska's finest, entertainment galore!	Lots of open highway, just right for the Bones evil sisters to stretch there legs a bit.
49	We travelled for about 10-12 hours a day covering around 600-700 miles, some of them fast one's	52
This was a superb lunch stop, good food, good beer, and peanut shell throwing contests	54	57
Sunshine again, on our way to Cheyenne for an over night stop	Keith's car really rocks, fuel stops were plenty, giving time for the others to play catch up!	60
Black clouds, a huge temperature drop, and funnels for twisters forming...	Keith gunned us through the weather before the worst came, some serious lightening!	64
A typical Boner evening, good talk, good beer and plenty of American take-out food	Most motels didn't allow more than two per room, so there was lots of sneaking through the fire exits	68
Wyoming, Cowboy Country, the best scenery, and superb clear roads that we can only dream about!	71	Front tyres on Ken's coupe suffering bad shake, so we swapped with the race car's rollers
Visit to Wyotech, hot/street rod college at Laramie, amazing facilities, of course they loved the cars.	74	75
Rocks and snakes, again superb scenery, all this through the windows of those evil sisters	One of the guys Matt has a bit of a rock fetish, but hates snakes, so he was in two minds about all this!	78
Just check that road out..you couldnt want for better, believe me	Ken getting the upper hand for a while	Keith's windscreen has part of a 1952 sales type sticker on the inside, lacquered for protection of course
82	83	Cool "toilet" stop just outside of Salt Lake City
Wouldn't you love to own this place?!!!!	86	88
89	In the tow van with Paul driving, heading for Wendover out of Salt Lake	91
92	First views of the Salt, we made the trip a day early and with no major hitches, everyone was jubilant	Bizarre monument type sculpture thing on the flats just outside of Wendover
Proud Paul with his A, we decided to get rid of the resto rod look... keep watching!	Downtown Wendover without the racers... in other words DEAD!	98
99	“Wendover Will” now in his new position	101
If we have to! A bit of Race Car prep, they don't take things too seriously these boys!	Pauls car looking a lot cooler... he did thank us later!	Jake and Louann made the trip from New Jersey, cool flattie powered Ford gets plenty of miles put on her
Most of the "Boners" just chilling in the shade outside of the Nuggett	Proof I woz there and not in Parkhurst as most of the Wheelers thought!	Paul and I checked the salt out and made a fast journey back to Wendover
34 made 189mph last year in "street trim" he was aiming for 200 + this year.	110	Fresh out of a Don Montgomery book...
Getting the hang of this now, own chairs coolers full of beer and our own Dumpster!	Crpcar arrived from out west... big Ron having a word	The race car ready for action, the boys wish they would let them run the crossplys on the salt!
The Bones line up for 2006, power parking at its best... the night before the salt invasion!	Early morning view of the salt, this place was designed for hot rods...	The crew in line for tech on the first day of 2006 speed week
Johns 5 winda is a Bones vehicle... can you tell!!!	The Evil sisters get there first "taste" of salt	121
George our amazing T shirt salesman gives direction to organizing the pits.	123	Paul does his best pose
125	The whole crew doing the sponsorship pics, the guys had a little bit of help from Nappa	127
The pedal car is part of the 75th Deuce anniversary and will be auctioned in January for charity	How's that for a very cool line up, as you may have guessed I'm addicted to these cars	130
131	Tom's cool roadster with Studebaker engine up front	133
Peter Vincent has literally hundreds of photos of these cars, but he still wants more	Possibly my best day?!? All the Boners racing (i'm talking way over 100mph) to the Vincent photo shoot	136
Paul trying not to lose all his hair to wind and salt	138	The guys got some cool pics of the pedal car on the salt ready for another 100mph plus pass!
140	141	142
143	144	Tom Fritz showed for photo's of mainly Paul and his A, I told you Paul would thank us!!!
The lights gone so we make our way home...	Cool roaster in the parking lot	148
Cool modified with banger by Morty's hop up pits	Check the tie on between the head lights, this guy was a Wyotech instructor	151
152	153	In the long long lines, best Salt and weather in years brought out nearly 500 entrants!
155	156	157
Pulling through the lines	Fabian, Tom and Adam run their rear engined modified in a new class; they went over 200!	Barn fresh racer anyone? Complete with fake chickens...
Nice truck!	162	163
164	165	166
167	Ken and Keith awaiting in line for the first run for the Boners	171
Fabian getting ready for his 204mph run, took him from short to long course, good work guys!	173	174
Ken gets the rest of his gear on, Keith assists whilst Ken’s daughter Rachel and Dave look on	176	177
178	Starter gets us all ready for the run, everybody real excited...	Kens first (and only) run, the car pulls hard away but we hear it start to flutter as he hits third.
Cool truck with some unusual features	183	Nicely detailed tub
Another Tub, both were photographed by Fritz and Vincent on the Salt	Hop Up Pit area with Marks banger powered racer	Very cool 36
Me getting towed in the lines	Imagine this at around 150!!!!	191
192	One of George Poteets racers on the salt	Keith getting ready for his run
195	Ready to go... another disappointing run for us, turned out before the first mile!	197
198	199	Very low sedan cruised the salt for the weekend
201	Nice striping and Bar treatment	203
Varni’s pits for one of his legendary lunches	Dennis brings his own chefs for daily “invite” cook outs, it’s the best steak ever	Mark Mortons Hop Up 100mph banquet, held every year at the bend in the road
The sisters at the banquet, free food, cool music and free beer	Nice modified, driven by young guys out of Cal	211
The sun has set on another day in paradise	213	The gang! We were out of beer now and contemplating our next move!
Lee’s very, very well built racer, he’s ex-nascar mechanic/fabricator – it showed	216	217
218	Note the Area 52 for the lap top plug in and down load!	220
221	The Plaque holds ashes of a friend who never made a pass when he was alive!	Ken after washing the salt of the coupe, contemplating the trip home
The local Mexican eatery became our place of choice in Wendover	The sun sets in Wendover on our last night at the salt	227
228	Long straight clear roads... you can’t get enough of them.	231
Breakdown! The Nash blew a sidewall from the rear tyre and had to be trailered	The only major problem, Keiths gearbox started to play up	After trying to source another 5 speed with no luck...
We decided to swap the four speed from the race car	Is this real hot rodding or what? only some small mods and we where ready to go!	Beautiful morning doesn’t tell of what's ahead...
Leaving Council Bluffs, me and Keith wearing Garbage bags, the rain was torrential	We had to stop, as we couldn’t see through the screen...	Made it into clearer weather!
Kens car at rest	Pauls A on the trailer for some of the journey	244
Nearly fatal, Kens oil pressure switch sheared from its fitting pouring oil out	Brucie’s place where we went to view potential future bodies for customers	How much stuff?
251	252	He had 5 bodies (3 winda) that we saw, lots and lots of bucks though
254	Any one for grill shells? Starting from $1100- ...	256
Parked in case of rain under motel pull in	Supper club offered best home cooked food on the trip, and lots of it	Line up ready for the off
Down the road, this was heading towards the infamous Chicago area	Going through tolls and into the Chicago traffic	264
That’s the Sears tower up front in the mist and smog	266	Break time after the horrors of the Chicago traffic
Shall we stay here for the night???	Last night on the road, money running short so it’s the budget inn for us!	271
Rare shot of Pauls 21 stud engine at rest	273	Heading into Cleveland Ohio, past a lot of Chrysler plants
276	Downtown Cleveland looms on the horizon	Kens Coupe had intermittent mis-fire so was trailered until we could stop and fix
280	Gas up boys we’re heading for home, well at least they were!	282
Keith’s coupe starts to make some more gearbox noises	Ain't no trailer Queen... Keith's car gets a well earned break	286
Tried some fancy camera shots out the door of Paul’s A	289	290
Through Amsterdam and back to the Bones base, phew	Damage sustained to the crossfire cranked flathead during its third run	The car only ran “109mph” disappointing for all but we’ll be back next year
Chassis ready and painted for mock up with axles etc	34 in progress, I wont give too much away but this car will be killer	Bones workshop back room...
Nice tin waiting its turn to be hacked and mutilated by those Boners...

Just some side notes from Dan:

We made three runs at Bonneville, only the first was measured at 109mph. The motor was an Alcohol injected Flattie with a crossfire crank as used mostly in Stock car type racing. The roadster will be back out next year with a new flathead engine that has been sitting in the bones workshop awaiting it’s turn. We travelled through at least 9 states by my reckoning, plus three time zones (each way of course), the total miles travelled by all the vehicles, two coupes, the Nash, Paul's A and the two support vehicles was approx 27,500 miles, we had few breakdowns in this time but nothing stops them enjoying the ride, these guys are well organised, resourceful and full of jokes. I can only say that having been into hot rodding since a very early age that to me a road trip like this to Bonneville, racing, and the return road trip is the ultimate hot rod experience, and that these guys are truly dedicated hot rodders, there cars are pure hot rods, loud, fast, and very, very drivable. I was lucky enough to be handed the keys to all the vehicles for my turn at the wheel and can report that they drive unbelievably well for what they are.

There are literally dozens of stories to be told from this trip, but I don’t want to out stay my welcome, if anyone wants more info please contact me via the forum; my forum name is “Muroc”.

Watch this space as over the next couple of years there will be some very exciting things to come from the tie in with the boners and the UK.

I am proud to be able to call myself a boner, and whilst travelling in those nasty evil wicked little sisters I can report I was a boner with a boner!!!

So I would like to thank the following: Ken, Keith, Chris, Matt, Rachel, Paul, George, Dave and Ron for putting up with the Limey and especially Ken’s wife Patti for supplying me with decent food, and more importantly doing all my laundry before I returned home.

Finally a Bones proverb for you to ponder:

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