Madison Regatta Weekend

Madison is having its annual big boat race this weekend. Salt would have been there. He travelled to Madison to watch and shmoose with the racers and race fans until his death in 2012. A good friend of Salt's and fellow boat driver contacted us yesterday inquiring about Salts' book and later purchased and read the book in one day.

He as we are writing this is on his way to Madison for the festivities and thunder boat racing. Salt and his father George loved hydroplanes and spent a lot of time on the water when they weren't on the asphalt racing Indycars.

Madison is a great town, having been there three times. The racing just tops the year for the people of Madison. The sounds have the changed since Salt sat in an open cockpit with a big 7 litre piston driven engine, replaced with an F-16 like canopy cockpit, turbine whining and the driver now sits in the front of the boat.

Salt in U77.

Salt Walther Stories ~ Salt Goes Evil Knievel on the Banks of the GreatMiami River

As you may know Salt had a personality bigger than life. He sometimes did wild things just to fill his adrenalin needs. Salt and his best friend Chuck were driving a rented Mustang one night and Salt got the idea of jumping the flood levy on the Great Miami River down by The Boathouse which was the headquarters for Dayton Walther Racing.

He had been rehearsing this stunt in his mind for some time and had worked with a few Hollywood stuntmen during his California days and new basically how to do it. Unbeknownst to Chuck, Salt says hang on Ace! That was his nickname for Chuck and away they went accelerating towards the levy. Salt hit the levy at an angle just as the stuntmen had told and now they were airborne.

To get the rest of the story and more get Salt's new book at www.etsy.com/indybooknook 

Salt Walther Artifact Found on the Web

Was tooling around the web and came upon this photo. It is Salt's '73 crash helmet. I was amazed at the damage. Just watch a documentary on Nikki Lauda and his crash in 1976 in the German GP. His helmet was not as damaged as Salts, but it actually came off during the crash. That is likely why he sustained the severe burns to his face and heads.

Salt always praised the helmet manufacturer for building it right. No one could expect a helmet to last long in a fire, it's design to keep your skull intact during a crash.

Salt Walther GT 40 Found

As posted by Road and Track Magazine in February. A rare Ford GT 40 was discovered in a garage in California with Salt's name on the side of it. This is a really cool discovery, to bad the reporter didn't know much facts about Salt claiming he had little success in his racing career. And then went on to discuss his incarceration period finally claiming that Salt died shortly after being apprehended by the police. Not true... Wow, it appears anybody can be a writer/reporter now days.

Salt was the only racer to have raced champ cars, NASCAR and Unlimited Hydroplanes. He was the 1968 Calvert Cup Unlimited Hydroplane winner, 64 champ car starts, 16 top ten finishes, 3rd row qualifier at Indy and a 9th place finish at Indy in 1976.

To find out more about Salt get his book "For the race of Your Life" at www.etsy.com/shop/indybooknook.