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" TO GO AS FAST AS
YOU POSSIBLY CAN ... THAT ' S ALL THERE IS TO IT !"
Every year an incredible event is run on Lake Gairdner , a Salt Lake in South Australia about 400 kilometres from Adelaide . The lake is over 160 kilometres long , 45 kilometres wide , has over 200 islands and salt over one metre thick in places . It ’ s the perfect place for Land Speed Record attempts . Lake Gairdner is so large that it has tidal movements meaning the water will be above the salt at one end of the lake and below at the other end . It means Speedweek has to take into account the tides , the tides of a dry salt lake .
Speedweek is a land speed event run by Dry Lake Racers Australia and is considered so underground , that most of you reading this will never have even known it has been occurring here in South Australia since the early 1990s , and yet , Bonneville in the United States of America has had movies made about it .
According to numerous and varied experts , Lake Gairdner is the best salt lake in the world to try ones hand at such audacious attempts to break land speed records . Deep , hard salt , low elevation , protection from the elements , all attributes that attract teams from all over the world , especially the doyens of hot-rodding and speed record attempts , the Americans . All vie for a record , all work together to achieve it .
A myriad of motorcycles , cars , trucks , and purposebuilt streamliners attend , it ’ s an epic experience like no other , a spectacle that attracts people from all over Australia to be a , potential , part of motor racing history . Where else can you witness a twin supercharged , twin turbo charged , two stroke V12 diesel truck that looks more at place on the set of a Mad Max movie , reaching speeds of towards 330 kilometres per hour ? The spectacle is simply phenomenal !
Motorcycles racing here range from 50 cubic centimetre scooters and ‘ postie ’ bikes to 500cc two stroke Motards , Hayabusa ’ s , Water Bottles , and R1 ’ s , some barely resemble a motorcycle at all , like … well , Eva Håkansson ’ s Green Envy electric bike capable of 643kph .
The timing system is all still done in Miles per hour , the track is marked out in Miles to align with the USA event that gets the big crowds and recognition and there
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