Day 38: South Bend, Indiana to Toronto, Ontario

Last night we stop in New Carlisle to buy some grits at Groceries By Joe - these have been on sale for most of the tour but we are now fearful of going home without. We roll into South Bend and stay out near the airport. You can tell this is a high crime area as the ATM at the Key Bank does not operate 20:00-05:00 and there are cop cars everywhere.
We are back on Eastern Time and up early rolling in the dark via Hwy 20 for Toledo, avoiding the toll road. We are desperate for money and gas but a stop in Middlebury sorts it. We see over twenty Amish buggies on the road. We get the hammer down some 165 miles to the outskirts of Toledo where we spot a Tim Horton's for a second breakfast.
We find the Libbey glass factory outlet which has literally tons of budget glassware on sale - Toledo being a great centre of glassware production. A quick look in the antique mall next door confirms there is nothing there which must come home with us. We notice streets named for Jeep and Willys and conclude the company must have some association with Toledo.
We are now back at the Great Lakes and turn north for Detroit, some 65 miles. As we approach the city the only well maintained building is the fire house, the others being burnt out. The GPS takes us on a fascinating route through the dereliction and we stop at a level crossing where I photograph a passing CSX yard engine.

Day 37: Knoxville, Iowa to South Bend, Indiana

We depart the Red Carpet Motel in Knoxville at 06:30 rolling east on Hwy 92. We take breakfast at the Copper Lantern in Sigourney (pictured) and fill up at BP with the cheapest gas so far - $2.78.9 - I tell the lady there that BP have had a bum rap. We move onto Washington, where a stop at the Goodwill store turns up some good pickings.
We cross the Mississippi at Murcatine and reach Rock Island. We follow signs for Rock Island Visitor Centre where a security guard assures us it is off limits to non-U.S. passport holders. Strange. We try to find a visitor office at Geneseo, signposted off the highway. A lady at the local library does not know where the office is to be found. Back on the highway we stop at a rest area and find the map the tourist information folk would not mail to non-U.S. residents when requested. We decide we can do without Illinois, pausing to get more gas at Joliet BP for $2.99 per gallon, and get the hammer down to the Indiana border, where the folk at their tourist office in Hammond are falling over backwards to help us. We take Hwy 20 to South Bend and check-in at the Quality Inn. Over 400 miles today and we may reach home tomorrow.

Day 36: Columbus, Nebraska to Knoxville, Iowa

Rolling at 08:08 we head into Fremont for a quick look at the tourist railroad, which only operates at weekends. We stop by a couple of yard sales which are a bust. We carry on to Elkhorn via the brick pavement of the old Lincoln Highway.
We stop by the smart dealer at LaVista, annexed to a Chrysler dealer, to see if we can get an oil change and a headlamp bulb. The sour-faced service receptionist says: "All the mechanics are going to lunch." This dealership proves a waste of time.
We cross over the Missouri River into the rolling hills of Iowa and take Hwy 92 to Griswold where we lunch at Our Daily Bread, a family-run cafe. The weather turns wet. We have to detour back to I-80 due to roadworks. We stop at a site near Adair where the James Gang staged the first train robbery in 1873. We then cut south to Winterset, to see the birthplace of John Wayne.
We are spending the night at the Red Carpet Motel in Knoxville, just down the street from the sprint car stadium which is the home of the Knoxville Nationals.

Flower of Scotland wilts at the last

In the last of his reports Rick Pearson tells a tale of woe from Bonneville:
There was to be no fairytale ending for us here on the Salt.
We knew we had just one last chance to set the record so we turned up the boost and geared her for 325mph, knowing if we could get right down the Salt we would have the fastest 1 litre car in history.
We were on the Salt as early as possible, prepped the car with fuel and ice and joined the line for our run... I’d spent 3 days preparing myself mentally for what I knew was going to be a Hail Mary pass and I was ready. The Americans who were helping us out insisted on holding a short prayer for my safety before I got in the car (which wasn’t particularly reassuring!) and despite the wind conditions being marginal I decided with Derek Sr that we were ready to go.
The push start went well, the car came up on the boost nicely and I got a super smooth shift into 2nd gear where the Flower of Scotland REALLY starts to boogie... a blink of an eye and we’re knocking on 200mph and it’s time for 3rd gear, when there is a small pop from the engine as a valve dropped and the power dropped away. With just 1 hour left in Speed Week our dream was over for this year and the crew are all shattered and pretty dejected, sitting here in the airport in silence.
Thanks for all the support over the past week. It’s been really appreciated out on the Salt.

Bonneville: last roll of the dice

Rick Pearson reports:
The Salt can be a tough mistress, but to be honest she’s virtually killing us here.
Another tough day. We had the engine back together for 7.30am after working all night once Joe Amo (fastest guy ever on a sit-on motorbike at 272mph!) arrived with the parts we were missing. One shift of mechanics went to bed, and another woke to put the engine in the car. This was completed around 11.30 and we were confident of being on the Salt for early afternoon. However on firing the engine up, we realised she was running badly and needed some pretty major open heart surgery. Including more parts we didn’t have!
Once again it looked like it was all over, and once again the Salt community managed to source us what we needed and the engine was finished by 5pm. Panels back on and we whipped the car down to the Salt from the Casino car park HQ we’ve been using. Unfortunately the wind was pretty marginal for safety but we decided to make a pass anyway in a lull. The Flower of Scotland went off the line well, but lost power within the first mile. A quick investigation threw up another small failure in the transmission, clearly the destruction of the two engines so far this week had shaken stuff up more than we thought... but this time fortunately it was a quick fix... but not quickly enough to turn the car around for another run at the Salt tonight.
So we have one last chance in the morning, the car has been geared so that if it makes it the 5 miles down the Salt and I can keep my foot to the boards, we SHOULD run the record. We’ll be on the Salt for sun up, and fingers crossed our luck will finally come good. It certainly feels like we’ve paid our dues......

Day 35: Ogallala, Nebraska to Columbus, Nebraska

Depart Ogallala on Hwy 30. We detour onto Interstate 80 due to roadworks and regain Hwy 30 at Sutherland, where we wash more salt off the car in a no-touch car wash. We ride on to North Platte and the Golden Spike Tower. This is allegedly the world's largest rail yard which can be viewed from the eighth floor. Trains are constantly coming and going. $7 for Annette, $6 for me. Only open two years the tower has already attracted 75,000 visitors.
We take a picnic lunch at Gothenberg where we see another Pony Express station and museum, where the ladies tell us about WW2 rationing and current economic troubles - more angst in the heartland. We ride into Overton and a large antique store has a sign "Open on Saturdays" but I notice the door is open so we circle round and in we go. This is Pyrex heaven. I ask the guy if he has any old coffee pot parts and he says come with me - I pick out the spare parts I need from a large box and also score a mint complete percolator for $15.
We press on via Kearney, but no ATM will give me cash. We ride into Columbus and are almost ready to quit town when we spot a Holiday Inn Express - we negotiate the rate down from $119 to $75 plus tax. Free beer and snacks before crashing out.

The fight goes on at Bonneville

Rick Pearson reports:
Well folks, you can imagine how fresh I feel after less than 3 hours sleep in a Santa Ana hotel last night and while I returned with all the parts we thought we needed, stripping down the remains of the original 2 engines showed that actually the damage was much more severe than we thought.
The crankshafts and bearings on both engines had been destroyed in the brief seconds after the cases exploded in the gearboxes and the oil pressure dropped. SO we simply don't have enough parts to build one good engine.
However, the Speed racing community have rallied around us, and legendary Salt Bike racer, Joe Amo has offered to get on a plane from his South Dakota workshop and fly up tonight with what we need... So the Speed Scotland team have decamped from the Salt (where you aren't allowed to work beyond 8pm) to the car park of a Casino in nearby Wendover and we've prepped the car and engine parts we have to pull an "all-nighter" once Joe gets here at midnight to be back out on the Salt early tomorrow!
As driver of course, I need to be on fine form tomorrow so I’ll be getting a good night’s sleep, (although I think the team are insisting on that more so that I don’t get in the way with my legendary spanner wielding talents!), so I’ll just need to make the team’s efforts worthwhile with the runs tomorrow.The fight goes on.... fingers crossed for us folks, and thanks for all the kind words of support, much appreciated!