[Land-speed] While waiting for the water to dry ...

[Wester Potter]

This is a history every salt flats racer needs to know and appreciate.  
Reed Railton doesn't get the credit he deserves for designing the land 
speed cars and actually being the one Jenkins convinced to bring his 
British friends to try the salt flats for racing, among other 
omissions.  You'll notice that rain on the salt isn't a new happening.

Ab (rhymes with cab) Jenkins was an interesting character.  Brash at 
times, outspoken, a show off in his own way.  Auburn boat tail 
speedsters in 1935 carried a dash plaque certifying that the car had 
been driven over 100 MPH by Ab Jenkins before it left the factory.  Ab 
won the Salt Lake City mayor's race in 1939 by 51 votes without 
spending a penny or giving a campaign speech.  Some of his 100 or so 
endurance records have never been broken.  His association with the 
Duesenberg brothers and with the President of Firestone could make a 
book.  His own "Story of Speed"  The Salt of the Earth is a small book 
of 124 pages that is still available in paperback.  (I took the Save 
the Salt picture of Rick Vesco and Larry Volk on page 118 in the 
revised edition).  Gordon Eliot White's book Ab & Marvin Jenkins: The 
Studebaker Connection and the Mormon Meteors does a good job of filling 
in some of the details.  White is a Bonneville racing veteran and 
curator of the racing collection at the Smithsonian.

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/1%2C1249%2C695196997%2C00.html