From left to right, Shane Slagle, Tamra Slagle and Pete Richardson pose together as a team with their car Lickety-Split.
Lickety-Split is about to run the three-mile course at the Bonneville Salt Flats at full speed.
Pete Richardson’s daughter Tamra Slagle gets ready to drive the car as fast as she can at Speed Week in Utah. She helped the team set a new world record for the sixth time.
Speed Week is an annual gathering held each summer at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. The competition brings in several hundred of vehicles every time to participate in different divisions based on its model and engine.
Pete Richardson, of Yacolt, knows this phenomena more than most. Why? Because at this point you could probably call him one of the all-time greats at it.
A few weeks back his 1931 Model A Ford, named Lickety-Split, set a new world record in its division, the Vintage Gas Coupe Class. The record that it broke was its own, and since Richardson started racing it at Speed Week in 2004, that’s happened several times.
In 2004, he and Lickety-Split set the record in their debut at 92.687 mph. Since then they’ve broke it five times including this most recent one. Even more impressive too, those records haven’t been taken over by other people in years where his team didn’t do it. The new record set this year is 120.109 mph.
Dominance is the best word to describe Richardson and his prize car’s hold on the Vintage Gas Coupe Class this last decade.
“It’s quite an accomplishment,” said Richardson. “I know people that have done Speed Week for 20 years and never set a record. People definitely envy us.”
Much of the credit extends beyond Richardson. Since having open heart surgery in 2010, the driving responsibilities have been passed down to his daughter Tamra Slagle and her husband Shane of Battle Ground.
“They work hard,” said Richardson. “And my reaction timing isn’t as good and I’m getting up there in age.”
Two others, Jeff and Brenda Hlivyak, are also part of the crew.
The course runs three miles in length and speed is clocked at miles two and three. The average speed of two runs is used to determine a record. For the other divisions there are different courses, one as long as seven miles to suit the fastest cars reaching 400 mph.
As fun as it sounds to go pedal to the metal on the open landscape, Richardson said his car is one of the worst ones there in terms of being built to go fast.
“Its aerodynamics are bad,” he said. “A lot of people refer to it as pushing a board or a telephone booth. The front windshield is flat. It’s literally pushing through the air.”
Somehow though, time after time, the team finds a way to get it done. Richardson said the new record was obtained by adjustments to the camshaft and trimming of weight from the center to the rear.
Enhancement rules of the Vintage Gas Coupe Class in the competition are fairly straightforward. The body of the car must be as originally designed and the engine block must have been produced prior to 1935. Some modifications can be made to the engine and overhead valve conversions can be used as they were available back in the day.
The crew plans to switch to change engines and move to the Vintage Coupe Flathead Class, which is actually a slower competition, but will be more challenging. The high speeds in that class are in the 90 mph range.
“My goal was to push it to 120 and we got that,” said Richardson, who says a lot of people told him through the years it wouldn’t happen. “Just kept chipping away little by little.”
He said boredom with the current class they're in isn’t what’s motivating him to make the future switch, just a change of pace. Next summer the team may end up just taking a year off because that’s the earliest the new engine would be ready to go and they won’t rush it.
Lickety-Split’s days in the 120 mph may be through, but don’t expect this to be the last you ever hear about the team’s success.
“I think Henry Ford would be proud,” Richardson said of his team’s accomplishments.
