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Gearhead turned
filmmaker tells story of Speedweek
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Benn Karne, on location in Utah’s starkly beautiful
Bonneville Salt Flats, explores the quirky characters who
participate in Speedweek every August in Bonneville: Wide
Open, a documentary he made with longtime friend Steve Davy.
PHOTO COURTESY OF BENN KARNE |
Benn Karne (B.S.’72 ME) loves fast cars. Before he was
old enough to drive, he updated the brake system of his dad’s
1930 Model A pickup from its original all-mechanical arrangement
to “modern” hydraulics. He speaks nostalgically of
his first car, a big old ’62 Chevy, and the Corvette he
road-raced before settling down with the responsibilities of home,
family, and a real job.
“The reason I got into engineering in the first place was
because I liked hot rods,” Karne says. Self-employed for
15 years, he now specializes in vehicle accident reconstruction,
that is, determining the events that occurred in a vehicle collision,
usually to determine the pre-impact velocities and positions of
those involved. Now he’s trying his hand at filmmaking,
and guess what the film’s about?
Fast cars, of course.
Karne and friend Steve Davy, an award-winning videographer, have
made a documentary about Speedweek, the event sponsored each August
by the Southern California Timing Association that turns Utah’s
famed Bonneville Salt Flats into a miles-long track for everything
from powered barstools to souped-up diesel trucks that can travel
at speeds of 250 mph.
“Some of these people get their vehicles to go really fast,”
Karne says. “They may not have an engineering background,
but they have lots of hands-on experience with land-speed vehicles.”
The film, Bonneville: Wide Open, premiered last November
at the California Independent Film Festival in Livermore, with
guest appearances by both filmmakers and one of the drivers featured
in the film, who showed off his cleverly engineered streamliner
specially designed to nab a land speed record at Bonneville.
“We wanted the film to appeal to a general audience but
also to gearhead types, and I think we achieved that.” Karne
says. “But we had to keep some of the speed secrets out.
For example, if someone had a special motor detail or steering
arrangement—and that was the stuff that really appealed
to me as an engineer—the builders said it would put them
years behind if we revealed those secrets to their competition.”
Made on a “proverbial shoestring budget,” the film
has not yet been picked up for wider distribution. But the filmmakers
are hoping to get it on the Discovery Channel or similar outlet
and, in the meantime, plan to sell DVDs through their Web site,
www.bonnevillewideopen.com.
Karne’s son Matt, now a junior at Berkeley, drives a ’62
Chevy hot rod. Among his own collection of five cars, Karne says,
there’s still an old Corvette. “But it doesn’t
get out too often these days.”
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