Bailey To Bonneville – Tom Bailey, Dave Schroeder, and Keith & Tonya Turk Team Up for Bonneville Speedweek with a Storied Chevrolet Camaro and a Quest for 200-Plus MPH Runs!
Ask most automotive enthusiasts, and they’ll have an event, place or some kind of performance goal they’d like to hit. One of the locations that is on a lot of bucket lists is the Bonneville Salt Flats, a 12-miles long and 5-miles wide salt pan in Northwestern Utah.
Racing has taken place for well over a century at the Bonneville Salt Flats, and since 1948, the Speedweek event gathers together hundreds of enthusiasts to see who can navigate the salt to set class records, and possibly join the 200 MPH club. In 2025, a pair of drag and drive competitors that have eclipsed 200 mph on a drag strip, will look to add the Bonneville Salt Flats to their resume.
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To go into Bonneville with hopes of achieving a record, and possibly joining the 200 mph club, requires a solid ride. So, when Tom Bailey of Sick The Magazine, and David Schroeder of Schroeder-Ens Racing decided to team up, they contacted a familiar name to drag and drive enthusiasts, Keith Turk.
Attending Bonneville and Speedweek has been a goal of Keith’s for many years. “I’d been dreaming about racing at Bonneville since I was a kid,” Keith said. “One night at a Christmas party, I was having a conversation with a couple friends of mine, and we were talking about ‘what it takes to go 200 mph.’ The more I thought about that, and started getting steadfast, and fascinated about it.”
After a tragic accident left one of Keith’s friends paralyzed, a trip to the hospital to visit him left Keith devastated. After talking to his wife Tonya on the phone, Keith left the hospital, and flew went straight to Bonneville for his very first visit to the Salt Flats.
During that first visit, Keith purchased a 1980 Chevrolet Camaro, and it’s that very Camaro that has set over a dozen records, and put several people over 200 mph in several places, including David Freiburger, Keith Turk, Tonya Turk, and most recently, Alex Taylor.
“The car has so much history,” said Tom. “It’s a big opportunity, and I don’t want to let the car down when we visit Bonneville.” To get the Camaro ready for this year’s Speedweek required an engine set-up, and Tom turned to fellow drag and drive enthusiasts David Schroeder and John Ens to assemble a pair of engines for the week.
The 417 cubic inch small block was assembled by Schroeder-End, before being delivered to Tom for the addition of the blower. Built with off-the-shelf parts with budget and strength in mind, the engine is based on a World Products block, with a Scat crankshaft, Isky Racing Cams camshaft and valve springs, and AFR cylinder heads and intake.
“The budget part of it, is that it is amazing what you can do by ordering stuff off the shelf,” said Tom. “I’m not saying a ten-to-twelve-thousand-dollar engine is necessarily budget, but it is when you’re making 1000-1200 horsepower.”
Packing 12:1 compression to combat the high altitude of Bonneville, the engine made 700 horsepower naturally aspirated before Tom took delivery of it, and with the addition of a Vortech supercharger and blow-through carburetor, the goal was to make 1,000 horsepower.
The engine was buttoned up in time to make a trip to Steve Morris Engines for some time on the dyno, and on the second full pull, it made 1056 horsepower at 6469 rpm.
“We’re trying to tame it down,” said Tom. “We only need (for what we’re trying to do) a thousand horsepower, so the less we can work the engine and get that 1,000 horsepower, the better off we’re going to be.”
They swapped pulley sizes around to get a little closer to the desired number, before loading up and heading back to the shop to get it installed in the Camaro.
To go after his goals of 200-plus mph, as well as a class record, Tom needed to earn specific licenses first. That was accomplished in three steps on Saturday, August 2nd, with the first being a 125-149 mph license. The second license was accomplished for 150-175 mph, and the third license pass gets the 175-200 mph accomplished.
On Sunday, August 3rd, Tom will make his first record attempt in the storied Camaro, striving to beat the existing record of 226.243 mph in the B/CBGC (Classic Blown Gas Coupe).
For more details on the Camaro, view some Bonneville footage, as well as checking out the engine and the dyno session, check out our two videos below:
Written by Derek Putnam. Photos courtesy of Sick the Magazine, Jason Sack, Keith Turk and Andy Mcconnell.
If you have thoughts / feedback / ideas, please e-mail us at derek@sickthemagazine.com