There was I looking through some photographs of my trip to America last year when I found a few snippets of video. These videos aren't brilliantly filmed on expensive HD cameras and they're not filmed by a trained professional cameraman, they're filmed by me on a tiny hand held digital still camera. We can overlook that though can't we? What you'll see contained within each of them is a brief moment, a moment when my mouth was open, aghast at what I was seeing, feeling, hearing and experiencing, a moment when I was having to pinch myself to check I wasn't dreaming. I thought you might enjoy a little piece of that too.

 This first clip was taken about five minutes after I reached Bonneville Salt Flats, we'd driven all day and I wanted to have a quick look at the salt before we found a hotel and some food. We pulled off Highway 80 and went to the 'bend in the road' where the hardcore rodders and racers camp between race days. This is what we found:

The same evening we went into Wendover for a meal at the Rainbow Casino where the visual treats continued, the car parks were packed with push trucks and hot rods. As you drove around you could see salt on cars, in wheelwells and on the tarmac...tell tale signs of who had been out on the salt during the day. In the restaurant almost every table had a bunch of guys in matching team shirts proclaiming class speed records and sponsors names. This next film was taken just after midnight in the Rainbow Casino car park:

It's the stuff that dreams are made of. For our last video we're going onto the salt proper, past the bend an the road, through the puddle and out to where the action is. We've paid our money, tuned the radio to the commentary and it's time to hear the crunch of the salt under your feet with every step as the V8s rumble around you and scream in the distance as records are set and dreams are coming to fruition. This guy had it even better though...he had serious wheels, not a hire car like me...a hot rod.