For anyone who is interested in salt lake racing, the following is a quick visual recap of the 2019 Australian (DLRA) installment held at Lake Gairdner, South Australia on the 3rd to the 8th of March. The Lake The Lake is a National Park, so you have to pay to go on it. Although, I heard that the local indigenous people have recently agreed to mining at one end of the lake. It is a bit surreal out in the middle and a breath taking vista. Weather on the Lake varies from freezing to unbearably hot and everything in the middle. One day was 46 and 2 days later it was 12. The wind also doesn’t seem to have any idea what it’s doing as it will blow from nearly all directions and can range from a pleasant zephyr to gale force. And, contrary to popular belief, it rains out there too!
This year over 230 entries made their way to the salt; Lots of bikes, plenty of cars, a few trucks, a handful of streamliners and few vehicles that hadn’t decided exactly what they wanted to be when they grow up. The rules let you run basically anything as long as it passes scrutineering. Fuels range from pump gas (G) to everything else (F) and now we also have electric. Track 1 is the long track and is closer to the pits and spectator area, so all of the fast stuff runs on that. Because Track 1 caters for the heavy hitters, it has a much better start area and plenty of shelter etc. Track 2 is shorter and further away. It is mostly used by rookies, smaller capacity bikes and slower cars. Basically, you have a 2 mile run up and then you’re timed over the next mile. You then have a mile to get off the course, so the next punter can have a crack. Rookies have a big "R" on their helmets and can only go after records once they have satisfied the race stewards that they are capable of running on the salt to their satisfaction.
Plenty of smaller capacity bikes ran this year. Here’s a sample… This 100cc gem runs on 40% nitromethane and is ridden by Warren Afflick who used to race Top Fuel Motorcycles back in the day. I think it's the fastest 100cc bike in the World (don't quote me).
Oddities included Eva’s electric bike (trike). Eva stayed at the same sheep station that we did, but she was pretty private and we never saw her in the bar. Although she did give the barmaid a signed promo card.
Plenty of Royal Enfields. The twin-engined jobbie was run in 2 separate classes. One on its own and then they bolted a side car to it to run in another class.
Nice, that race car with Nildottie Racing across the back, must have come from the Nildottie Machinery Centre, 1 of 2 shop's in that town. I used to call in every now and then to check out their spare part's and the wrecked bike's, car's and machinery out in their back yard Population of around 150 people from memory My inlaw's ran a property about 13km's from there at Swan Reach
Some nice machinery there ... also some ugly lumps too Would like to hear/watch the Mach III rip down the track
