The September 6 issue of Auto Week had an article about auto testing in Death Valley written by John P Cortez that may interest some of you.
Anyone who has gone to Rhyolite has probably gone thru Beatty and likely stopped at the Burro Inn. I guess this is the hang out for many of the automotive engineers as well as journalists and people trying to get photos of prototypes being tested.

Mercedes sets up in the local high school mechanic shop and BMW HQ is in the middle school. Mercedes leaves all their parts and a new car every year for the higgh school kids.

The guy writing this story had reservations at the Furnace Creek Resort in Death Valley. He quotes the following routine from the desk person upon check-in. "All of the rooms are air conditioned. If you don't think the air conditioning is working, just open the door and step outside and come back in and you'll see just how cool the room is. We have two tyupes of water here, warm and hot. The fridges in the rooms are not mini-bars, they are for cooling the water." He had noticed that the temperature was 126 when he checked in.

Later, back at the Burro Inn, 11 guys from Honda came in. The BMW and Mercedes guys came in later.

Professional spy photographers have trailers and motel room in Beatty.
Each company pays a $200 special-use permit fee and $50 for each car to be tested. About 1,000 cars are tested each summer giving the park $50,000 to $60,000 in revenue.



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Jeff, Gambling Moderator
senatorjm@talkvegas.com