Update on Bonneville Attempts

[nachtsheim]

It's been a while since I've visited this site to post any updates to my Land Speed Record attempts, matter of fact about 5 years - 2013! Since that time Speed Week was rained out in 2014 and the salt had not recovered enough to race on and Speed Week 2015 was cancelled a month early. In 2016 I made it back out but was not a good year for the turbo charged pre unit 650 cc TR6 - it lost a rod bearing which ended the attempts to bump up my record. Came home, tore it down and decided it was time to eliminate the last "weak link" in the system, ordered a one piece billet crank from Greg at RODY cranks in Plymouth, MI. I didn't get it all back together in time for the 2017 Speed Week but it is all set to go for this year, 2018, racing starts August 11th.
In the mean time I have not sat idle - in 2014, after much discussion and exchange of emails I managed to convince Danny Macias daughter and son-in-law to loan me the 350 cc T21 That Danny had set two Bonneville records with in 1960 and that ol89r - Terry had run at Bonneville in 2009 in Danny's memory only to find out after eclipsing the existing record that Danny had bored the engine out to +.040 thusly disqualifying it from the record! I told Mike & Pam that I would put the bike back to stock bore and get it running again and take it to Bonneville and try again for the record that her dad, Danny, was going after and do it on "my nickel". After the rain-outs in 2014 & 2015 I finally got to run the 350 at Speed Week 2016 in the M-PF class

. I managed to bump the existing record up by nearly 8 1/2 MPH! Then in 2017 I went back and bumped my own record up by another 7.3 MPH! Since then I have actually bought the bike from Danny's daughter & son-in-law and now own a piece of motorcycle history! This year I have added a vintage drag race fairing to the 350 and am going after the MPS-PF record which I have exceeded without any streamlining.

 

[nachtsheim]

It's been a while since I've visited this site to post any updates to my Land Speed Record attempts, matter of fact about 5 years - 2013! Since that time Speed Week was rained out in 2014 and the salt had not recovered enough to race on and Speed Week 2015 was cancelled a month early. In 2016 I made it back out but was not a good year for the turbo charged pre unit 650 cc TR6 - it lost a rod bearing which ended the attempts to bump up my record. Came home, tore it down and decided it was time to eliminate the last "weak link" in the system, ordered a one piece billet crank from Greg at RODY cranks in Plymouth, MI. I didn't get it all back together in time for the 2017 Speed Week but it is all set to go for this year, 2018, racing starts August 11th.
In the mean time I have not sat idle - in 2014, after much discussion and exchange of emails I managed to convince Danny Macias daughter and son-in-law to loan me the 350 cc T21 That Danny had set two Bonneville records with in 1960 and that ol89r - Terry had run at Bonneville in 2009 in Danny's memory only to find out after eclipsing the existing record that Danny had bored the engine out to +.040 thusly disqualifying it from the record! I told Mike & Pam that I would put the bike back to stock bore and get it running again and take it to Bonneville and try again for the record that her dad, Danny, was going after and do it on "my nickel". After the rain-outs in 2014 & 2015 I finally got to run the 350 at Speed Week 2016 in the M-PF class View attachment 20185 View attachment 20186 View attachment 20187 View attachment 20188 . I managed to bump the existing record up by nearly 8 1/2 MPH! Then in 2017 I went back and bumped my own record up by another 7.3 MPH! Since then I have actually bought the bike from Danny's daughter & son-in-law and now own a piece of motorcycle history! This year I have added a vintage drag race fairing to the 350 and am going after the MPS-PF record which I have exceeded without any streamlining.

UPDATE:
I did it! New record in the 350cc MPS-PF class at Speed Week - 92.052 MPH! I made two runs on Saturday and both were below my expectations, I was using the balance of the VP Racing U.4E that I had used last year, VP had told me that it had a one year "shelf life" so I figured - why not? After a run to Salt Lake City on Monday to pickup a new bucket of fuel we drained and flushed the tank, carbs and lines and refilled with U.4.4, not available in Colorado - emissions. Back out to the start line and one run later we're in impound with a qualifying run - 91.667 MPH against a record of 91.198 MPH. 4 hours to tune and check then off to dinner and bed. Up before the sun and out to the impound area, at 7:00 AM the course steward escorts us out to the same course that we qualified on. Unload the bike and make our way up to the start line - bike was a bit hesitant off of the line but once it caught on I was off and running. One mile marker goes by, two mile marker, three miles and shut down. My wife in the chase truck picks me up and we're back to pick up the timing ticket - 92.437 MPH! Average the two runs and we have a new record at 92.052 MPH! ---- RIP Danny ----

 

[Okiewan]

nachtsheim...

Awesome news, thanks for the update and congrats! Can you explain a little about the MPS-PF class?