Diesel's the fuel - truck or TDI is the question...

[Captain Goddammit]

The reason I have to yank the dash is playa dust gets behind the glass (ok so it’s plastic) over the speedo and gauges. That goddamm shit gets everywhere.

So here’s what you do: use good name brand painters tape and tape shut everywhere air can get in... like vents in the doorjambs and wherever. Open the car to get all your shit out then try to leave it shut as much as you can all week.
Run the AC on recirculate on your way in and out.
Bring a sheet and cover your dashboard.

The car will survive but it’ll need a pretty thorough cleaning and you should spend about seven hundred years blasting the bottom and engine compartment.

[Ratty]

And everytime it rains playa spills down out of the cracks. When you get gas you'll see it in by the gas cap. Do yourself a favor and cover all the upholstery with 2 layers of something and bring a cover for the dash. Once you park try not to go in the car. If you value the rugs you can get that stick on stuff they use at the dealership to cover them before the event.

I don't wash the bottom of my van or the engine compartment. Leaf blower is the most it's gonna get.

[Token]

Flint, your desert experience will help quite allot but there are some magic aspects of the Black Rock dry lakebed that will surprise you.

It’s a vast alluvial salt flat for miles in all directions. ~ 200 square miles of some of the flattest surface on earth. All kinds of rocketry and land-speed records were set there over the decades.

It is primarily composed of ~:

Clay 65% - sub 3 micron.
Silt 20% - sub 15 micron
Silt 10% - sub 62 micron
Sand 3%

In other words, it’s texture is like talcum powder or corn starch.

And the rest is bugs, bird poopsies, shrimpses and other stuffs.

pH is ~ 9 which is in the soapy water range but enough to stimulate corrosion on most susceptible metals.

It is an insanely effective desiccant and will dry out and cause painful cracks on hands and feet given enough systemic exposure.

Now you get to drive in a vast dust cloud 4 miles on this stuff just to the gate, then another mile to the edge of the city.

And on your way out, more dust plus your magnificently dusty ass brought mountains of that clay into the car itself.

Surrender to the fact right now that you will have to clean whichever vehicle multiple times to get it good enough, but never the same as it was before.

Heck, you’ll be taking showers a week later back home and will find Playa dust coming off you from hidden places.

It is pervasive stuff.

[Token]

F39E0744-39CB-496F-97DA-F3358FBBF529.jpeg (51.76 KiB) Viewed 878 times

Me circa 2008/2009 or thereabouts taking in the burn with the missus.

Note: Back then I had jet-Black hair and beard like my ePlaya avatar pic.

Powder I tell you!

[AddamsonFlint]

Dude, that scientific reply you posted was fuckin awesome- just want my brain-sponge digs!

Great usable data indeed! Oh shit, I've known about the ThrustSSC for years, but I thought that record was set on the Bonneville salt flats, since that's where most records came from. But it was set in Black Rock. Fuck yeah! That's awesome- I've followed that for years!

[Token]

Bonneville gets all the attention because it’s right on the 80 freeway and they built it up specifically for racing.

But, Black Rock Playa is bigger and flatter. Downside is it’s in the sticks wth few services.

Hang here and you’ll pick up all kinds of Cliff Claven caliber science.