Racing for his life: Whether battling cancer or the salt flats, Renny Watt keeps the pedal down

There is a time -- just before a race -- when a driver is alone. Inside his racecar, the world muffled by a full-face helmet, there is time to consider what you are about to do and why you are about to do it.

Renny Watt thought briefly about living a life-long dream.

He gripped the steering wheel as the starter car passed by the front of the Toyota and gave him a "thumbs up."

Watt slipped the mini-pickup in gear and the pickup began moving down the glistening salt flats. In front of him stretched mile upon mile of pure white Bonneville salt, legendary home of some of the fastest vehicles on earth.

It is hard to tell exactly when Watt began his trek down the salt.

"Ever since I was a kid, Bonneville has always been a dream," said the 72-year-old West Linn racer. "I used to follow the careers of guys like Craig Breedlove and be amazed at what they did there."

But there were other priorities: school, a stint in the Navy, marriage and a family and building a successful construction business.

But suddenly, something happened to put everything in perspective. "I remember watching my dad in the hospital, dying. He worked hard all his life and one of his last words to me was to go find something else to do, something I could be passionate about."

So 20 years ago Watt discovered racing.

And then, at about the same time, he discovered he has cancer. It is a rare blood disease that has been linked to his duty in the Navy. "I was aboard ship, as a witness to 17 nuclear explosions on Bikini Atoll," he said. "The military thought it had taken all the precautions needed and that we were protected.

"Most of the guys aboard ship apparently had no problem," he said. "I guess I was the unlucky one."

Faced with an uncertain future, he vowed to make every day count. "At the time no one knew how long I might have," he said. (Watt still undergoes chemotherapy treatments on a regular basis.) Watt began racing with both the Sports Car Club of America and the International Conference of Sports Car Clubs. "I got a lot of seat time in a lot of different cars, and I got pretty good," he said.

He jumped from class to class, from sedans to roadsters to exotic sports racers. He's down to two racers now, a Lotus 23 he runs in vintage racing and the salt flats Toyota.

The Bonneville effort was ignited a couple years ago when he and two friends, Bill Jansen and Doug Esterbrook, watched "The World's Fastest Indian," a movie based on an older man's attempt to set a land-speed record with his aging motorcycle.

The movie has become a cult classic among motorheads and has created new interest in the speed trials.

"We went down to Bonneville two years ago just to watch," said Watt. "We looked at everything down there and at the records and decided we wanted one of our own."

A record to break

The trio found a pair that looked like they could be achieved without breaking the bank. "The compact truck record was a 113 mph for 1500 cc engines and 128 mph for 1800 cc engines," he said. "Those became our targets." Watt scoured the want ads and the internet to find the perfect vehicle. He paid $4,500 for a 1998 extended cab truck, picked for its aerodynamic advantage. They decided on Toyota because Watt was a friend of Arne Loyning, the Portland engine builder with a reputation for extracting hidden horsepower from Toyota twin-cam engines.

"I bought a worn out old MR2 twin-cam for $100 and asked Arne to go to work," he said.

The Southern California Timing Association (SCTA), which conducts the Bonneville speed trials, is legendary for its rules and interpretations, so the team attacked the project with a wrench in one hand and a rule book in the other. "We had no idea what this was going to cost," he said. "We just kept throwing money at it. Without Arne doing the engines for us, there is no way we could have afforded to do it."

Because both Watt and Esterbrook wanted to try for records, Loyning built different size engines so the truck could run in two classes. He squeezed 235 horsepower from Watt's engine and got 270 from Esterbrook's.

The plan was to have Watt run first, swap engine and put Esterbrook in the truck.

Land-speed records are fueled with money and passion. Some teams show up with state-of-the-art equipment inside huge haulers and others arrive in tow rigs pulling trailers that look like they may not survive the trip home.

"I bought this old motorhome for us to live in and the fenders on the trailer are all beat up and rusty. It's pretty ugly," said Watt.

The reception they got from the SCTA was less than enthusiastic. "At first, folks told us we'd never pass tech inspection," Watt said. "Then when we did pass tech, they said we had no chance to set a record.

"They kept telling us: People come down to Bonneville year after year and never break the record, and there was no way we were going to do it."That wasn't going to stop them from trying.

Trying for a record

On the flats from inside the truck, the featureless landscape gives little impression of speed.

"There's nothing to gauge it by," said Watt. "There isn't anything to see so all a driver can do it keep your foot to the floor and steer.

"There were some really soft spots in the salt," he said. "The truck was real light and then when you hit the soft spots it just wanted to wiggle on you. But you can't slow down for them if you want to break the record. You just keep the pedal down and hope it straightens out.

"Once it really got up to speed, the aerodynamics began pushing the truck down and made it a lot more stable."

The mile markers came up in a hurry.

"I kept watching the tachometer because we knew we were going to be right at the limit on engine revs," he said. "I got up against the rev limiter during a practice run and we changed the rear-end gear ratio to give us more speed. And we moved the rev limit up."

Finally, Watt and the pickup passed the three-mile marker. Without any landmarks, he had no idea how he had done, but the folks at the SCTA timing booth did.

His top speed was 134.1 mph, besting the old record by more than 21 mph. His second run was 134.8 mph.

Esterbrook claimed the 1800-cc record, moving the figure from 128 to 144 mph.

The pair plan to be back on the salt again this year, with new engines aimed at different classes.

For Watt, another record is more than just a dream. It's a goal his dad would have understood.

Jerry Boone is a Portland-area freelance writer. E-mail may be sent to jfboone23@comcast.net.