The sounds and smells of speed blistered the white Bonneville salt flats of Utah. Engines revved up to blatting roars. Whiffs of alcohol and nitromethane mingled with the tang of high-octane gas. With anxious care, some 200 men in oil-blotched coveralls coaxed their handmade cars to bellowing perfection—long, low, lean monsters with as many as three engines crowded beneath their sleek hoods. In the tenth annual speed trials that ended last week, the world's hottest hot-rods were shooting for 300 m.p.h. on the world's fastest race course.
Among the dedicated men who set out...
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