Venturi battles storms and salt to set electric land speed record

Venturi, a Monegasque electric vehicle (EV) company, and The Ohio State University have just set a new FIA land speed record for EVs on the salt flats of Bonneville, Utah. Driven by Roger Schroer, the Venturi VBB-3 covered a measured mile at an average speed of 240.32mph (386.758km/h). However, the record was achieved in spite of the terrible condition of the salt flats, which have been badly affected by storms in recent weeks.

Venturi had to settle for a lesser record attempt than originally planned. The VBB-3 has been designed to break 400mph (643.7km/h), but the rain-soaked salt flats were not amenable to this plan. It proved impossible to prepare a 12-mile (19.3km) track on the salt for the record attempt; instead the team had to settle for a partially wet and very bumpy 10 miles (16km) instead. "In eleven years here I have never driven on such a difficult track," said Schroer. "The car was sliding on the surface from one side to the other due to soft spots and bumps."

Heavy rainfall in July inundated the salt flats, leading the organizers of Bonneville SpeedWeek to cancel the annual race meeting for the third year in a row. When given sufficient time to dry, the salt can be groomed to prepare a smooth track for flat-out running, but add water and the result is a bumpy, slushy mess that can wreak havoc on the cars. Ars has been following Venturi's record attempt via Twitter, and the team had reported that the broken surface was causing problems: