Dry lake capable of crowding out native vegetation and draining a playa's standing water because of its root growth. The extremely flat, smooth and hard surfaces of dry lakes make them ideal for motor vehicles and bicycles. Furthermore, large-sized dry lakes are excellent spots for pursuing land speed records, as the smoothness of the surface allows low-clearance vehicles to travel very fast without any risk of disruption by surface irregularities, and the path traveled has no obstacles to avoid. The dry lakes at Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah and Black Rock Desert in Nevada have both been used for setting land speed
Land speed racing a record attempt in order to monopolize the salt flats for the day and block one of his competitors from making a record attempt. The current women's absolute record is held by Kitty O'Neil, in the jet-powered "SMI Motivator", set at the Alvord Desert in 1976. O'Neil reached . There is no "wheel-driven" category as such. The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile validates records in a variety of classes, of which the "wheel-driven" classes are in Category A (Special cars) and Category B (Production cars). The accepted record is fastest average speed recorded over any one-mile or one-kilometer distance, averaged over