Nevada, 1948

It’s hot. Really hot. Thousands of years ago you would have been swimming in a lake, but climate changes dried it completely up and left behind a 159 square mile (412 square km) expanse of densely packed salt up to six feet deep. This bizarre landscape exists right outside the small casino town of Wendover, Nevada, 115 miles (185km) from Salt Lake City. The land is completely inhospitable to plants and is so flat that it’s almost perfectly aligned with the curvature of the Earth. Once a year men and women come from all over the planet to test their mechanical creations against this barren expanse of densely packed salt. This place is known as The Bonneville Salt Flats, also dubbed “The Fastest Place on Earth.”

One particularly hot morning, on Sept 13, 1948, a man known as Roland “Rollie” Free hopped on his Mobil Oil sponsored Vincent HRD Lightning, determined to break the world record of 136.18mph (219.16kmh). A record that had been unbroken for the past 11 years. His first attempt shattered the record with a speed of 148.6mph (239.15). Rollie wasn’t satisfied. Convinced his safety leathers were creating unnecessary drag, he stripped down to nothing but a pair of swim trunks and goggles. His trademark style of lying flat across the motorcycle instead of a traditional riding stance added to the insanity, hurtling Rollie to a record of 150.313mph (241.91kmh) and into the books for the next twenty years. It was a run that resulted not only in the record, but also in the creation of motorcycling’s most famous photo ever (the shot above of Free piloting the bike horizontally), taken from a speeding car racing alongside. —Sean Sullivan

Found at A Continuous Lean. (where you can find additional photos)… thanks to Gregor Brandt for the link.