Currently reading: 400mph on salt: inside Bonneville Speed Week

Petrolheads and racers flock to this corner of Utah in a bid to max out their cars – and share their tales from The Salt

Carmen’s is a bar like no other. It’s ostensibly a dwelling on the edge of Wendover airport in Utah, but the line of hot rods and muscle cars outside betrays its game.

This is a speed-obsessed speakeasy bedecked with posters, flags and photos of the heroes who’ve set records on the Bonneville Salt Flats across 78 Speed Weeks. And it’s thriving. The queue for the bar is enormous.