>>3228794It's actually the opposite. At Bonneville this year they were the only flathead purpose-built LSR there. A lot of guys show up in the old 30's and 40's Fords to LARP classic Bonneville but the serious guys are running much newer stuff. Chevy LS engines are what's big right now but you would be surprised what is running at Bonneville. I saw a Jag XJ6 with a turbocharged Buick Straight-8 from the 50s, there was a Nissan NX2000 with two BMW S1200 engines joined at the crank to make a custom V8, and that flathead had an original Hillborn injection manifold on it, thing belonged in a museum. There was an all-electric LSR that went 358mph and a 6.7 Cummins 2500 Ram that did 200mph. They had a Freightliner Cascadia Evolution, not too different than mine, with a stretched frame with a Cat V-16 on the back of it that did well too. Bonneville is a run-what-you-brung race, and they have an unlimited class that the only rules are, "don't die, and don't tear up the track too much" if I licensed I could run my Probe (which has a higher top speed than that flathead LSR the Bandits were racing, only by a few mph) and they have a whole class of street legal cars that run out there in the first couple of days, the big boys run at the end.
One of the reasons they run the flathead, the Bean Bandits are the old school guys, they were racing on the flats in the late 40s when it all started, some of the original team still races with them. They have a storied history at Bonneville and they beat their own record this year in that setup (just before cooking that motor) so they are definitely the old school guys and everyone there knows it, all the track officials know them and even the big boys running almost 500mph with jet powered this and 4x big block turbo that stop by their pits and say hi.
I have a lot more from that set I have to get through and will probably post soon. That was probably the single greatest racing experience of my life that I didn't actually compete in.
