Bonneville Salt Flats star in new film

Racing fans owe a debt of gratitude to the late Ab Jenkins.

The race-car driver and once mayor of Salt Lake City put the Bonneville Salt Flats on the map with the many land-speed records he set there in the 1930s and 40s--some of which remain unbroken.

Now, the story of Jenkins and the Salt Flats is being told in a new film, Boys of Bonneville: Racing a Ribbon of Salt.

With pristine, decades-old racing footage and interviews with a host of car and racing aficionados, the movie both details Jenkins's adventures and follows his son, Marv, as he restores his father's Mormon Meteor. Marv Jenkins's goal is to take the Meteor--a 12-cylinder airplane-engine-propelled, 4,800-pound race car--for a ceremonial lap on the flats.

Boys of Bonneville premiered last month at the Newport Beach Film Festival and will be screened at various upcoming events, including at Bonneville Speed Week in Wendover, Nev., in August.

By Julie Alvin