2005 Dry Lake Time Trials

[dondesoto]

HI ALL , I,m heading off on Thursday to compete in the annual dry lake time trials at Lake Gairdner in South Australia . Thats where we put our cars on the salt lake and see what max speed we can get . My previous best was in 2003 , 140 mph (225 kmh ) with a modified RB30E engine . This year will be the first time for the twin cam conversion , i call it a rb30de . Also have made up an aluminium nose cone ( pic in the gallery ) to make it a get thru the air a bit better . I figure 150 mph (240 kmh ) should be possible this year .

[paully_tee]

sounds pretty bloody interestin. how flat are the lakes??? what are the usual problems u encounter??

[dondesoto]

sounds pretty bloody interestin. how flat are the lakes??? what are the usual problems u encounter??

lake is flatter than flat , flattest place on earth , its about 130 kms long x about 25kms wide at its widest point . you can see the curviture of the earth on it . Well ive never broken anything on my 2 previous attempts , but some blow engines from sustained maxs revs for about 3 miles .

[dondesoto]

just got back from salt lake . best speed i did was 137.9 mph (221 kmh ) , bit dissapointing . had fuel starvation prob at 5500 rpm in 5 th gear .

[rover]

bugger

[dondesoto]

well guess what , my car was on 60 minutes last night . they were filming at the dry lake during the time trials event . My car was in the last scene they showed on the tv , driving off into the distance , filmed from a helicopter .

[Eug]

ahh nice... when i was watching that i remembered someone posting about it, didnt make

the connection though!

pity about this year... like that guy said next year!

top stuff man 225 and 221km/hr is pretty impressive as it is.

[2rismo]

Nice work mate - well done. Were there any turbo cars competing there and if so, what speeds did they see?

Adrian

[Eug]

there was a motorbike (ran into mech. problems) and a holden which the reporter drove.

another car (dunno) driven by a bird which managed to clock 300km/hr from memory

[fatz]

yea baby i would love to give this a shot

[dondesoto]

Nice work mate - well done.  Were there any turbo cars competing there and if so, what speeds did they see?

Adrian

i was the only skyline there , would love to see some turbo skylines there . there was one supra powered twin turbo streamliner , basically stock engine , but lots of boost , did 203 mph ( 325 kmh ) last year . in the good old US of A , jun autos from japan had a turbo skyline up to 350 kmh on the salt lake there

[dondesoto]

yea baby i would love to give this a shot

oh yeah its a buzz , full throttle for up to 5 miles ( 8km ) and sitting on max speed for about 3miles ( about 5 kms) . i did it 10 times at this years event .

[GTRgeoff]

Saw that old beast last night. Good effort. We've been discussing this type of thing at Avalon airport but Jetstar flies from there so bugger all chance. Might have to plan an SAUvic trip next year.

[gatty]

this was on 60 mins the other night - about some guy wanting to do 200mph on this custom motobike - was pretty cool - i'd love to go just to do some circle work

[Leigh]

hey where is this lake any directions on how to get there

[dondesoto]

hey where is this lake any directions on how to get there

hi there

all the info can be found at

www.dlra.org.au

the event is held early march each year ( 5 days of speed trials )

its at Lake Gairdner in South Australia

go west from Port Augusta for about 60 kms

turn right just near Iron Knob

travel approx 150 kms up an unsealed road , which varies from corrugated to good surface ( takes about 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hrs ) .

campsite near salt lake and good canteen there .

ph me on 0413 546380 if you want more info .

[Leigh]

ARE U ALoud to go there any time of the year? or only when the event is held..

[dondesoto]

ARE U ALoud to go there any time of the year? or only when the event is held..

only allowed there when the event is on . its classified as a national park . our club has to pay a $ 2000 deposit to use it and if we make a mess like oil spills etc we loose some or all our deposit .

access to the salt lake is thru a sheep station called Mt Ive ( about 1 million acres of it ) . the station owners are tourist oriented the whole year . they have a camp ground at the homestead as well about 20 km from the lake .

seems a bit ironic but the speed limit on the lake is 60 kmh , at all other times .

[Leigh]

so u can actually drive on it during the week jus flog it n not tell them?

[dondesoto]

so u can actually drive on it during the week jus flog it n not  tell them?

nope , just come and race with us in March .