Thread: More Bonneville fun........

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I know some of you will turn this into a Boyd bash, but that's not really the point. We may not see this stuff on TV. This could have happened to anyone who wasn't paying attention. And the tow drivers don't win any prizes either. One lesson to learn from this is that under the salt crust, it should be remembered that Bonneville is called a lake for a reason.

From an un-named SCTA official;

Thursday afternoon the Boyd Coddington race team, complete with a film crew for Speed TV's "American Hotrodder" was heading from the starting line to the 3-Mile after Jo Coddington (Boyd's wife) had just spun their roadster at about 180-MPH (and come really close to backing into the Timing Slips stand at great speed.) The motorhome headed for the return road just as it was supposed to do. Unfortunately it broke through the thin salt (the Speedweek tracks had to be relocated to a risky area after the rains a couple of weeks before the event). We normally wouldn't have been driving in this area as it is quite a distance to the east of the usual location of the track.

With the "American Hotrodder" film crew shooting away, the Coddington group tried to get the motorhome free but it had sunk in up to the axle and even with lots of digging it would not budge. So they called a tow truck to come and pull them out. The mood of the Coddington crew was sort of giddy . . . the seriousness of the predicament hadn't seem to have sunk in nearly as well as the motorhome had. They were all standing around laughing and drinking beers, having a great time.

Two vehicles (a very large wrecker and a flatbed) arrived about two hours later like the Lone Ranger and Tonto to the rescue . . . . The Coddington crew was certain it would be out of there in minutes and heading back to the casino in Wendover for dinner, gambling and more beers! Plans didn't quite work out as hoped as both rescue vehicles promptly got stuck not far from the motorhome. It should have been obvious that if the motorhome broke through, a big heavy wrecker didn't stand a chance. So there were now three stuck vehicles. The wrecker crews were heard to say something like "We'll just get 'Big Blue' in here . . . no problem!" More beers came out and the party continued.

It was about 6:00 and I had to leave the salt about that time to go to the workers dinner at the Nugget and a party at an old friend's home in Wendover.

When I returned at about 10:30 p.m. to my radio trailer to spend the night I noticed there were lights in the area of the motorhome so I drove over there. Things had gone from bad to critical at the scene. The Coddington crew's mood had made a 180 degree change from when I left. They looked very sullen and an air of gloom hung over the group. I then surveyed the scene. "Big Blue" (the wrecker that would save the day) had arrived after I left and had been trying to pull the big yellow wrecker from the nice soft mud into which it had become so comfortable. The yellow wrecker which had been sitting so peacefully with the salt surface firmly against the undercarriage when I left was now at about a 40 degree angle with mud coming up about 6 feet to the door of the cab on the left side. It wa s wedged firmly into the landscape with its right side tires about a foot off the ground and about 100 feet of 4-foot deep trench indicating where Big Blue had dragged it in an attempt to free it from the clutches of the desert. The dragging had only gotten it deeper into the mud. And to make matters even worse, Big Blue had gotten itself in about the same situation, sinking into the mud about 4 feet as it attempted to pull the yellow wrecker free. And in a last ditch effort to get the motorhome out it had managed to damage its boom winch and a tow cable was now stretched tight like a huge steel guitar string between it and the motorhome. The damaged winch would not release and they could not remove the cable. It was about 3 feet above the salt and about 1050 feet long which created quite a hazard. One of the Coddington crewmen had borrowed some orange cones from the race course return road to mark off the cable so no one would drive into it. Unfortunately one of their own crew drove their mini van right into it as he attempted to drive between the cones! I struggled not to laugh at this comedy as it unfolded. Another pair of cables stretched between Big Blue and the yellow wrecker. Big Blue was sitting at an odd angle with its right rear wheels buried firmly in the mud. It looked a dog cleaning its backside on the carpet. Somehow they had managed to free the flatbed which they had backed in to try to free Big Blue and it too had become stuck again, this time much worse than before. The three rescue vehicles were in a nice tidy row, half buried and held in the firm grip of the clay-like mud that lies just below the surface of the salt. The scene resembled some sort of elephant hunt with three slain carcasses lying dead on the playa. The motorhome sat unmoved in the same spot it had found itself in when it started this fia sco, no doubt chuckling to itself at the mess it had created!

The muddied and sullen Coddington crew divided up and some of them stayed in the motorhome while another group left in the mini van with a fresh cable burn on its nose. It was pitch black out with no moon and they had no idea how to find their way back to the access road. I explained that they just needed to drive to the dike behind the starting line then follow it around until they encountered the row of cones that marked the route to the access road. I returned to my radio position at the starting line where I started to prepare the Cherokee Hotel for the night. I watched as the Coddington crew left in the mini van and drove past the starting lines then proceeded to head off in a northerly direction instead of following the dike to the west as I suggested. I could imagine them driving off into the d arkness and getting stuck in the muddy area towards the mountains. A perfect end to their evening!

I decided to rescue them from another disaster and I chased them down in the Jeep then guided them to the coned route to the access road. They still had the water hazard at the end of the access road to negotiate. I explained that they MUST keep the relocated row of cones to the immediate right of their vehicle at all times as there were now 3 to 4 foot deep holes hidden under the surface of the water if they ventured off the marked path. I returned to my trailer and wished them luck.

The next morning the scene at the motorhome was revealed in all its glory! You can see the carnage in the photos. I wonder how or if they will "replace their divots." About 10:00 a.m. ANOTHER huge wrecker arrived. This one was even bigger than the big yellow one and it was equipped with a third axel on the back. They carefully backed it up and removed the motorhome, the flatbed, then "Big Blue." When I left they were working on the big yellow wrecker. I have no idea how or if they got that one free.

I got a bunch of pic, but here's just a few more.

That is totally hilarious, Uncle Bob!!!!!! It would've been worth a month's just to be there and watch the circus. What, no Big Top????

I can't wait to see this episode on American Hotrod.

I can almost hear the Benny Hill music playin in the background...........
They say theres no such thing as Karma..........

Doesn't anyone down there have a four-wheel-drive tractor?

Ouch! I spent my working life playing in soft ground......it's a different tecnique from using a machine on tar-seal. The first things you learn when snigging are: a) start your initial pull as straight as you can, and, b) if you aren't going forward, and you aren't going backward, the only direction you're going is down. So stop digging.
I reckon those towies haven't had much experience in soft going. You can look at those photos and analyze pretty well exactly what happened.
To a large extent those fellas dug their own graves.

Isn't the salt from the flats hard on the vehicles? or is it standard procedure to thoroughly pressure wash them after running there?

this is hilarious, I have watched that show a few times in the past, that Boyd is something else to be sure. I can't believe the guys stay there working for him.

Red

Reminds me of a crane and a bulldozer taking turns getting stuck in a rice paddy in Thailand. Thanks for sharing Bob!

Pat

Here is Coddington and crew during happier times just moments before:

Looks like an episode of Ice Road Truckers. Only the temperature is about 100 degrees warmer.


Don

Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

Looks like an episode of Ice Road Truckers. Only the temperature is about 100 degrees warmer.


Don

Too bad that's not where they were.

that salt lake bed is scary stuff , we have some small salt flats on the farm and when their dry i wouldnt drive anything on them. Its almost like ice,hard as a rock on top but if you break through theres no bottom .
I drove my xr 500 honda across one of them in the fall when it was popcorn fart dry ,the stuff was hard as heck until i got further out. by the time i was done i needed a 4x4 truck and 200 ft of rope to pull the bike out. I was worried about myself for a few seconds cause i was pulling and pushing the bike and found myself up to my waist in the goop. its just like quicksand
The pull it takes to get stuff like that out is amazing

yep takes some skill to run the rigs . Pic of me in the early 80s with a rig i drove from time to time . Some block and tackle low with the cable is better then pulling off the boom end .