Jenkins referred to the salt flats as the “ugly ducking” because of its unattractive and remote location. Jenkins explained, “That was my first time on the salt with an automobile, and right then and there I realized the tremendous possibilities of those beds for speeding.” He believed the salt, which “appeared to be a large lake of frozen ice,” was a good racing surface because there was open space and “the concrete-like salt” cooled the tires. Jeffries-Jack Johnson boxing match in Reno by riding the rails on a motorcycle “like a bronco-busting cowboy.” He returned to the flats when Rishel asked him to race the train to the 1925 dedication of the new Lincoln Highway. Jenkins crossed the desert for the first time on his way to the James J. Rishel claimed that Ab Jenkins, a local Utah racer, finally brought fame to the salt flats. According to Rishel, “Consequently the salt beds were forgotten and the flats faded into racing oblivion.” Though Tezlaff went 141.73 miles per hour, faster than the record at Daytona Beach, automobile clubs refused to recognize the record. The event was successful 150 people turned out. The railroad agreed to haul the car out if the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce could sell 100 tickets. In 1914 he convinced a barnstorming driver, Teddy Tezlaff, to test his Blitzen Benz there. Encouraged, Rishel urged other drivers to come to the flats. In 1907 he and two Salt Lake City businessmen tested the area with a Pierce-Arrow. But he wondered how automobiles would perform. He discovered the salt flats were not bicycle friendly as his two-wheeler bogged down in the mud. In 1896 travel promoter Bill Rishel crossed the flats while helping locate a coast-to-coast route for a bicycle race. In the United States, the Bonneville Salt Flats had an inauspicious start as a racecourse.
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