Sketchy Story Wednesdays

Jeffs gaping salt hole

Brown in the GTI

Me, so stoked that this stressful situation is over with

Salt for days
Tired, drained, hyped


For some reason I got up this morning only to recollect thoughts of an event that will stand in my mind for life. I am going to apologize up front for the long story.

One fine Sunday in May of 2006 I found myself sitting at Chris Browns house eating a family dinner in the early evening. During dinner talk the topic of the Salt Flats came up. Over the course of about ten minutes we had thoroughly convinced ourselves that we needed to go, and we needed to go that night. We got the bright idea that we should drive 120 miles to see what this "Speed Record" Hoopla was all about. So, with no preparation, Jeff and Chris hopped in the GTI, and I got into my S4 and we were off into the sunset. Keep in mind, none of us had done our research on what this place was all about. For all we knew, it was just a desert oasis of salt. Always hard as a rock, always hot, always white. Not the case. So two hours has gone by and we arrive(Approx. 9PM). We get off the freeway and take the road till the pavement ends. Neither of us think to get out and check the surface. Jeff dives in head first and drives right out onto the salt. I wait about 30 seconds and follow. From inside the car the ground feels like an ice rink, sketchy to say the least. By this point it is completely pitch black outside, no light anywhere. I see Jeff's headlights in the distance at a stop. I wait for him to come back over but see no progress. I drive over only to find that he has gotten himself stuck. The salt was not dry, it was not hard, in fact it was like fucking snow. The GTI's front wheels were sunken into the salt down to the lug nuts. We spent the next two hours trying to get the damn thing out. We didn't have shovels, so we use the next best thing.....skate decks. None of this worked. I even tried using a tow strap to pull him out with my car. Even with AWD I felt my car sinking. So, instead of getting ourselves into another mess we decided to all hop in my car and drive to Wendover to see if we could get a tow truck(Approx 11:30PM). Once into Wendover we get ahold of the only tow truck company. They wanted to charge us like $650 to go get the car out. We are talking five miles away from the tow truck station. $650 for a 10 mile round trip, two second pull out. At that point we decide to drive back to Salt Lake, pick up my Jeep, and pull this SOB out. We get to Salt Lake, pick up my Jeep and Matt Kime to help, stock up on Red Bull and bounce(Approx 2:00AM). We get back to the Salt Flats and pull the GTI out in about two nano seconds(Approx 3:45 AM). At this juncture, we are around 10 hours into this "little" journey. As I am packing all this shit up back into my Jeep, I see Jeff take off into the darkness in the car. My immediate reaction, "He is out of his fucking mind". A few minutes later he rolls up and I was like, "What are you doing?! Ever heard of you just got stuck". His reply, "We got this far, I am not leaving without running this bitch". What the hell right? Whats the worst that could happen, we have the Jeep to pull him out. We spent the next hour or so scouting out this place to find solid ground for at least a mile long stretch to see what the GTI could do. Turns out, Jeff found the only 100 Sq Ft patch of unsolid salt in the whole place. This is where the fun started. We spent the next hour running the GTI to is absolute limit, 5th gear, RPMs tapped, nothing left in the motor. We got that car up to 142MPH. All of us were able to experience our fastest car ride to date. And all of it was totally freestyle, no safety equipment, no one else out there to contact in case we got hurt. All in all pretty sketchy. The coolest part though was that the sun was rising. Keep in mind, we hadn't seen this place in its full beauty, in the light. So we are driving a car like its a go cart, the sun is on the horizon, and we can see actually how big this natural ice rink really is. So crazy! At this point it is around 5:00AM and we decide to go home. One gnarly trip, and a ton of great memories. Here are a few pictures, that don't really do justice, and a quick video clip. Good thing gas was cheap back then.