Bonneville 400 attempt moves to Mojave

By Phil Huff
October 29 2005

BAR Honda's Bonneville 400 is still going ahead, despite the current attempt at the Bonneville salt flats being abandoned. The team are now heading 450 miles south west to Mojave Airport, California.

The teams planned attempt to set a speed record for a Formula One car hit trouble earlier this month at Bonneville, Utah after the infamous salt flats suffered excessive rainfall, scuppering any chance of high speed running for any vehicle, let alone an F1 car. Speed in excess of 400kph were anticipated, and pre-record testing had gone well, despite the extremely rough conditions of the flats.

The team have now elected to move to Mojave Airport, just north of Los Angeles. The airport, more famous for being the first civilian 'spaceport' following the exploits of Mike Melvill in SpaceShipOne just over a year ago, has a three kilometre long runway, ideal for blasting an F1 car down.

BAR Honda are quick to play down the record breaking task, however, stating that the forthcoming runs won't officially count. "It will be an important occasion," said a Lucky Strike spokesperson, "but this is just part of the journey."

"The most important thing is we check that all the systems on the car are working properly," they continued. "There are a lot of new bits on it that we want to assess. Setting an official F1 land speed record at Bonneville, via the average of out-and-back runs through a measured mile, is still our number one goal - even if we have to wait until next year to do it."

The runs will take place on Friday 4 November, although will continue on Saturday if necessary.