John Cobb’s Railton Special, 1947 Jessie Embry and Ron Shook Utah Historical Quarterly 65 Fall 1997 In the United States, the Bonneville Salt Flats had an inauspicious start as a racecourse. In 1896 travel promoter Bill Rishel crossed the flats while helping locate a coast-to-coast route for a bicycle race. He discovered the salt flats were not bicycle friendly as …