York said that when the salt is flat, it's very good, but this year it feels bumpy and coarse. His team was trying to break a 334 mph record with their vehicle, "Adrenaline Rush," an elongated racecar style known as a Lakester. "It looks thinner to me," said Ben York, a driver from Roseville, California, who has been coming to the flats since 2009. Racers say that while they're grateful weather has been favorable and they're whipping across the salt again, they pointed out the less-than-pristine conditions. This year, organizers with the Southern California Timing Association found enough dry, relatively smooth salt to eke out three racetracks for Speed Week, the largest of several annual races at the flats. Wet weather and rough salt scuttled the major races in 20, and organizers say they no longer find enough smooth salt to set up raceways of 10 miles or more to give many vehicles enough room to hit top speeds and safely slow down. officials partly blame heavy rains and say they're trying to preserve the salt by requiring a nearby mining company to pump brine onto the flats each year. While the racers are glad to be back at Speed Week, which runs through Friday, it's a bittersweet return after a two-year hiatus marked by disappointments and accusations that federal land managers have failed to protect the unique area. They haul modified motorcycles, vintage hot rods and roadsters, and custom vehicles that look like rockets or spaceships, with names such as "Disturbing Da Peace" or "Loosenuts Special." They'll wait for hours in line under the brutal sun just to get a chance to zoom across the flats, hoping to see if their latest modifications help them beat their previous records or go fast enough to earn a spot in the "200 mph Club." In this stark place about 100 miles west of Salt Lake City, they have set up a caravan of campers, tents and trailers as they spend a week trying to beat the clock - some topping speeds of 400 mph. Thousands of adrenaline junkies have descended this week on Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats, coming from as far away as New Zealand, Japan and Russia. BONNEVILLE SALT FLATS - Blinding white salt stretches across the earth to distant purple mountain ranges, an otherworldly landscape famous for providing a natural track for racers seeking breakneck speeds but fragile enough that rain can easily break it down.
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