| Author | Message | ||
     Rex |
The Fast and the Few - Bonneville! Bonneville Speed Week 2010 By Jill Rothenberg • Photos by Scooter Grubb, Murph, and Joe Mielke Oct.18.2010 There was Craig “Peg Leg” Anderson of Big Bear Lake, California, a lifelong motorcycle racer who lost his legs in a work-related accident eleven years ago. Using hand controls he designed himself, he piloted his streamlined sidecar rig over the salt to an AMA record of 168.3 miles per hour back in 2006. Fast forward to the first day of Bonneville 2010: “I still love motorbikes—and it’s an even bigger challenge now, “ he said wearing his fire mask in the pit area after a run this year, a powerfully built man sitting in his wheelchair next to his torpedo-shaped streamliner. “It’s not as simple as hopping on the bike and opening the throttle. But no matter what, I always have fun here.” Just a few miles down the salt at the start line was Leslie Porterfield, the world’s fastest woman on a motorcycle, with a 232 mph run set in 2008 in the Guinness Book of World Records and a lifetime member of Bonneville’s famed 200 mph club. You would never guess that the year before her record-breaking run she had crashed at 110 mph, broken seven ribs, and was airlifted off the course. This year as she stood with her long blonde hair falling to her waist and perfectly tall and curvy in her leathers, she had the looks of an action hero, the mind of the most brilliant and confident moto mechanic, and a Zen calm as she patiently waited for her turn to break 200 miles per hour with her turbocharged Honda CBR 1000RR, the fire-engine red “Sir Speedy. “There’s nowhere on Earth where you can push yourself more and challenge yourself as a rider,” said the veteran racer of seventeen years and owner of High Five Cycles in Dallas. “Everyone else says I’m addicted to the speed. I know if I go out and come back with a run that’s less than 200, I say to my crew, “I think something must be wrong!” Over at pre-staging, where riders line up to register their numbers before they get on course, there was Tiadra Simmermon, 13, daughter of Joe and Michelle Mielke and part of Mitchell, South Dakota’s Team Klock Werks Kustom Cycles, a well-loved racing family dynasty at Bonneville. A first-time rider on her 2004 Kawasaki EX250 Ninja “Lil Ninja” in the M-P 250 Class, Tiadra sat calmly on her bike, taking it all in. Lined up next to much larger bikes and a streamliner or two, she said “I’ve been around dirtbikes all my life,” she said. “But this is my first time racing and my first time here. If I can go 99 mph or over, I can break the record in my class.” With a personal best in this year’s race of 94.760 mph, she came awfully close. No doubt this poised young racer will go well over 99 and probably by her fourteenth birthday. It runs in the family. Her mom, Michelle Mielke, was on her way to setting her own personal best, 145 mph, on her 2002 Yamaha Warrior XV1700. “Seeing my daughter Tiadra race her first time ever will always be etched in my mind, as she sped through the timed mile tucked in and looking like a natural,” she said. “Watching my daughter’s tenacity and desire to race her bike was a beautiful thing. Nervous only begins to describe the stomach butterflies and surreal atmosphere of standing with my daughter in Tech as we got her bike and gear inspected. The first time our group raced, I went first so I could be back at impound to watch her through the timed mile and also so I wouldn’t be tempted to barrage her with motherly wisdom at Mile Zero (which I was freely imparting at our campsite, and during pre-staging!) Michelle Mielke and Tiadra Simmermon are just one of the mother-daughter teams who race Bonneville each year. The other team—five-time salt racer, rider of the “world’s fastest bagger” and Bonneville’s unofficial den mother, Laura Klock of Team Klock Werks, along with daughters Erika Cobb, 19, and Karlee Cobb, 16, is the only mother-daughter trio in history of land speed racing to hold records at the same time. They are also known for being some of the toughest racers on the salt. Then there was Lake Tahoe’s legendary California Fritz, who has set nine land speed records, still holding two at Bonneville over 228 mph, piloting a single-engine Shovel Head streamliner 2000 cc fueled by pump gas. Fritz, a moto-daredevil of 60 who has also been a master rebuilder of Harley engines for thirty years, and his bike the “Salt Shaker,” held the world land speed for five years straight. In 1997 the Salt Shaker took the record of 165.9 and again at 170.266, just 1/2 mph under a new record, and won back the title in 1999. And the need for speed runs in the family, with his son Richard establishing a record in the same class this year that just barely stole the record from his dad, at 173 mph. “When I was towing my streamliner out to the long track, to go for a run, I passed by the impound area to see my son Richard with a new record he had just set on a Harley from Glendale Harley-Davidson,“ Fritz said of this year’s race. “I guess it’s just in the blood. I’m 60 years young and my son reminds me of when I was in my 20’s. He’s just an animal on every thing that he rides.” It’s a wild and thrill-seeking bunch, no matter your age, gender, or choice of how you race over the salt. But it’s more than that. The Bonneville Speedway, located on 30,000 acres of flat land within the Bonneville Salt Flats just east of the Nevada-Utah state line, is hallowed ground, the glare of the salt that stretches for miles, the open sky as far as the eye can see, the jagged brown peaks in the distance. It’s a place where records are set and dreams are cast, as when Inverness, California’s Marine Spc. Jake Velloza came here with his parents Bob and Susy when he was just a kid and vowed to them that he would race at Bonneville one day. Just last year though, Jake was killed in Iraq, the 23-year-old soldier never realizing his dream. In his honor, his dad Bob ran his Buell 1350 cc over the salt at 141.608 mph. And Bob’s number, 621, was a tribute as well, to Jake’s 6/21/86 birthday. “We’re doing this for him,” Bob said. “He was a great son and soldier, missed but not forgotten.” This is Bonneville. It’s not just about speed; it’s about heart. It’s about going in search of the need for ultimate speed and being the world’s fastest. It’s about setting land speed records—being faster than anyone else before you and breaking the current records in your class. It’s about wide-open racing on the world’s most pure and pristine natural racetrack—two courses so flat that it’s only you and miles of salt in every direction, a surface that nonetheless challenges racers with its changeable traction and even more changeable winds. And it’s about fulfilling a dream that everyone here aspires to, whether it’s a guy wrenching on his bike alone in his garage with a vision of riding in the “Run Whatcha Brung” class or a longtime racer looking to break into the 200 mph club. The beauty is in the symphony of motorcycles coming together each year, not only to break land speed records, but to be a part of a special moto community who support each other in their personal quests for the ultimate speed over the salt. The hero of Bonneville is Burt Munro, whose quest for speed was chronicled in the film The World’s Fastest Indian. In 1962, at 63 and with a heart condition, Munro first traveled to the Salt Flats from New Zealand with his beloved 1920 hand-built Indian Scout to do what no one thought was possible: to fulfill his dream of setting a land speed record with his trusty bike which he did in 1962, 1966, and 1967. In 1967, he set a class record of 183.59 mph, with a qualifying one-way run of 190.07 mph, the fastest-ever officially recorded speed on an Indian. His record still stands. “If you don’t follow your dreams, you might as well be a vegetable,” Munro said of his single-minded pursuit of speed on the salt. The racers at Bonneville would undoubtedly agree. It takes guts, passion, and a single-minded dedication to trek out to a stretch of barren desert in the middle of nowhere to test yourself and your machine against the salt, which can go from being perfectly compacted to sludgy and slow, but the racers are equally dedicated to helping each other in that quest. Just take a listen to the rider’s radio, Radio Free BUB, broadcast all week during the early September race from a tower near the pit area. “Does anyone have a primary chain that would fit a ’38 to ’85 Harley-Davidson or an ’85 to ’89 Softtail?” came the announcement one morning from Michael “Woz” Wozniak, Bonneville’s colorful and charismatic official announcer known for his black-and-white checkerboard attire. “Let us know in the tower so we can get this bike on the course.” Woz, as much a part of Bonneville as the racers, the founder of American Sport Bike Night in San Leandro, and a veteran retired Oakland cop, has been providing the play-by-play of the bikes, riders, and times, since the BUB Motorcycle Speed Trials began. Woz and his fellow announcers Rex Chaney, Jonathan Hyman and Angela Enos-Jarman, provided the week’s soundtrack, from the entry of the first bike on the course just after sunrise to the last run of the day. Calling runs down the two raceways at an average of one every thirty seconds means there’s not much time to do much else, and not much time to tour the track, but being up in that tower at the hub of activity gives us a special perspective, Woz said. The motorcycles are secondary to the people. Although the bikes are fun, exciting, challenging, technical, innovative and beautiful, they don’t come close to the experiences of meeting and interacting with the myriad of personalities that gather each year to see who can go fastest on the most historical motor speedway in the world. While going the fastest is of course the point, so too was riders lending each other a hand. In fact, all week it seemed like tools, parts, and advice were being passed from one racer to the other in the pit area. And in one case, the motorcycle equivalent of open heart surgery was performed by one racer and mechanic, Hiro Koiso of Las Vegas Harley-Davidson, on fellow racer Roger Goldammer’s bike, whose engine had blown up in an early attempt across the salt. Koiso, who went down during an early shakedown run and broke his collarbone, performed a bit of moto magic by transplanting his engine into Goldammer’s bike. “Bonneville can be hard on parts; you keep it pinned for so long, unlike on the street, where you run out of road in a hurry,” said Goldammer, well-known as one of the industry’s top engine designers and hardcore moto mechanics. “We knew the weak point on my buddy Jimmy’s bike was the pistons and paper thin cylinders, and sure enough, after two runs, it was clattering away with collapsed pistons. Now Hiro, a super guy, had unfortunately crashed his bike with a similar yet beefier engine the day before. He offered the use of his engine in our chassis. At first I hesitated because we were running several bikes, and time is at a premium, pulling engines out, swapping parts and setting it up, and doing the reverse a day or so later didn’t sound so good. After all, I wanted to race my bike. But after thinking about it, I realized that this is what Bonneville was all about, and that it had to be done. With some great help from some awesome friends, we pulled our engine out, Hiro and his crew pulled his, and we had it running late that night, ready to make passes in the a.m.,” he continued. “Jimmy made many runs in the wettish salt that we had this year, his best run of 178mph, good for a record in his class. And I can’t thank Hiro and his crew enough, and all the friends in our pit as well. When I think about it, over the years it has always been the challenges that you overcome there that really make the place special.” Koiso, who in 2008 and 2009 set two FIM and three AMA 3000cc class records, agrees. “It can be a huge disappointment if the bike doesn’t run like it’s supposed to and the LSR community is the last sanctuary for a bunch of good people among the rest of the motorsports world. There is no show-off corporate ego display or politics going on, just people gathering from around the world once a year for only one purpose – to go fast! It doesn’t matter if it’s a 125cc dirt bike or a 3000cc all- out streamliner, everybody has an equal chance.” At the heart of the Speed Trials and this kind of moto magic is “BUB” himself, founder Denis Manning, endearingly known among everyone at Bonneville as “BUB,” aka “big ugly bastard,” a name given to him early on by racer Dutch Mueller, also known as “The Flying Dutchman” when Manning was working in his shop. A world-renowned land speed racer, he has designed and built some of the world’s fastest motorcycles, including, in 1970, the world-record breaking HD Sportster-powered streamliner that was piloted by the late Cal Rayborn at 265 mph. In 2006, he decided that motorcycles should get their due away from the larger Bonneville Speed Week and the BUB event was born. This year marked the fortieth anniversary of that run and reunited Manning with the Bonneville veterans who were part of the original Harley-Davidson Land Speed Record Team: John Yeats, who still builds record-breaking bikes and Warner Riley, who is considered one of the kings of the salt, with 18 land speed records at Bonneville and six records at the Maxton Mile. Despite his fame and success as a racer, mechanic, and owner of BUB Enterprises, which builds high-performance pipes for bikes, Manning is one of the most down-to-earth, warm, and well, most colorful characters you’ll come across in the world of motorcycle racing. Or anywhere else, for that matter. “You can take part in this on a MacGyver level or a NASA level—or anywhere in between,” he said as we rode down the salt in his F350 Dually. “The rules cater to creativity. It’s not ‘Gentlemen, start your checkbooks,’ it’s ‘Gentlemen, start your gray matter.’ I’m really proud of what we’ve done here; it’s a special event. And you can do something here that you can’t do in any other sport: you have to do better than anyone else; what makes it graphic is your time. You’re not only a champion, but you have to have the number to back it up. You can be a man, woman, or girl being the fastest—there are no powder puffs here. If a girl holds a world record, it means she did better than any guy.” “And what you think of that,” he asked me, still riding down the salt, “how do you like our little desert oasis?” stopping at the mile 7 mark on the long course, where a small white picket fence and pink flamingo surrounded the port-o-potty. “We’ve also got cappuccino at the start line.” The mood all week was exuberant and light-hearted among the racers, staff, and volunteers, creating what one of the course spotters called “the Woodstock of motorcycle racing”. Whether you were in the pit area, scrutineering, pre-staging, or even at the start line, you could practically breathe in the gratitude everyone had for being part of the event, even when storms threatened and rain delayed the third day’s racing and made traction a challenge. It was the grass-roots nature of it all that had racers not only going for their personal bests, but pulling for all of the other racers, too. “It’s all about the passion to go fast,” said Jay Allen, owner of the Broken Spoke Saloon in Sturgis who has returned to Bonneville each year and has set world records on both his Indian and H-D FXR, this year garnering four records in eight runs. “But as happy as I am to set a record, I think I’m even happier for everyone else. There is a real lure to the Salt, and once you get it in your blood, you’ve got it for life,” he said. “Each pass has a life of its own. And you know when you get a perfect pass, you’re a blessed man.” “Land speed racing is the last bastion of the motorcycle purist,” added Scooter Grubb, one of the industry’s best-known photographers who returns to the Salt each year. “No leather trinkets, or chrome ‘don’t these make me look good sitting here’ bobbles. If it don’t make you go fast, it has no place on the Salt.” And out on the course it’s all about speed—and safety. It’s one thing to see the bikes in the distance from the radio tower where Radio Free BUB is broadcast, or even from the edge of the pit area. They’re like a blur of color zooming across the glare of the salt. You hear the rumble, but they’re gone before you even realize they’re there. But from 500 feet feet away—it’s a much different race. Here you get a sense of the speed as they fly by, a sense that the packed salt, a more thickly grained sand, can be tricky to cut through. You feel the winds kick up, see the Wendover ambulance pull out, hauling ass when a streamliner reaches maximum velocity within the measured mile, timing its arrival at the point of deceleration considered the most dangerous time for drivers--in the last two miles of the International course, so named because its sanctioning by the FIM (Fédération International de Motocyclisme). You feel the danger of racing and of the precision necessary in directing bikes on and off the course. “It’s calibrated and coordinated with military precision,” said Jim Weishaar, one of the course photographers, as he pointed his massive-lensed camera at a bike passing by the white tent we stood under. It’s the pursuit of ultimate speed for racers, yes, but with an absolute commitment to the safety for all. While the pits may feel like the Woodstock of motorcycle racing, out here it was more like two General Pattons—Rex Svoboda, course director for Bonneville and general of the International Course and Tom Burkland, his partner in the operation on the shorter, AMA-sanctioned mountain course, which faces the jagged mountains in the distance. “Mile zero, you can run motorcycle 3811 on the track,” came the transmission on the two-way radio from the scaffold control tower between the parallel courses where Svoboda and Burkland stood, back-to-back, along with other spotters and record-keepers. “Roger, mile zero, 3811 on the track.” You could have just as easily been on a plane listening to the pilot communicate with the control tower. Svoboda and Burkland, along with spotters at each mile on the course, ran the races each day like air traffic control, closing the course to streamliners when the winds got too strong and directing bikes on and off the courses: the 11-mile International course open to riders who have proven themselves at 175 mph and over, and the 5-mile mountain course. On both courses, the timed “magic mile” is racing nirvana, with riders on the international course having five miles to get up to speed, one mile measured, and five miles to slow down, and on the mountain course, two miles to get up to speed, the magic measured mile, and two miles to slow down. Both courses also have shorter courses within, like the “Run Whatcha Brung” class on the mountain course. No matter the course, the magic of Bonneville is that it knows no limits of experience or age, whether of the rider or the bike itself. Take Larry Coleman, three-time AMA Sidecar Racing National Champion and inductee into the AMA’s Motorcycle Hall of Fame this November. Along with longtime sidecar builder Bob Bakker and passenger Warren Ryan, Coleman, who holds many Bonneville land speed records, powered across the salt for a record in Sidecar Blown Gas 1350 at over 143 mph. “As much as I’ve raced, going down this course in a straight line is the most challenging thing I’ve done,” Coleman said as he, Bakker, and Ryan prepped the bike in their pit area before a run. “In many respects, this is the way racing used to be,” Coleman said. “It’s one of the last places a guy working out of his garage can come out and set a record.” Setting a record at Bonneville is something that Scott Murnan of Waldron, Indiana, had dreamt of since learning about the race in 2004. “I had just gotten a divorce, I was a practicing alcoholic, and my life was just in the shitter. I figured an adventure was what I needed to give some purpose in life,” Murnan said, standing next to “Old Blue,” his 1977 Harley-Davidson Electra Glide, at this year’s race. “In 2004, I had the honor of being the very first “Run Whatcha Brung” rider,” he said. “Old Blue and I managed to make a run of 84.915 mph, well short of the 100 mph goal I had set for myself. After making some great friends, I rode Old Blue back home to Indiana; a 3,500 mile trip overall.” But perseverance pays off. Though Murnan fell short of his 100 mph goal in the following years, this year the speed gods blessed him and Old Blue, and they clocked a time of 104.449 mph. “They handed me the timing slip and I just cried,” Murnan said. “After having a terrible day yesterday—81.90 was my best—I was so dejected, I almost gave up and went home. But my parents and ex-wife were counting on me to do this, so I tried again. And Old Blue came through for me.” The salt gods also smiled on Denver, Colorado racer Julianna Wallingford, who came to the salt with teammates Rob Williams, a veteran drag racer, and Randy Miller, owner of Denver’s Speedwrench motorcycle shop. After Williams had a piston seal ring give up on his nitromethane-powered Hayabusa, the team did a quick rebuild on the engine, allowing Williams to turn in a 173.865 mph mile. “But our inexperience kept us from recognizing another problem: the build-up of salt under the front fender created tremendous drag,” Wallingford said. “The rear tire was forced to work harder than it should have, causing it to overheat and blister the rubber. All chance of chasing the record was gone. That seemed to eliminate my chance of getting a ride at Bonneville, until a friend offered me the opportunity to ride his Honda Blackbird, the motorcycle which is, ironically, the competition Hayabusa was built to beat (see sidebar). Racers—some with teams and some solo—everyone from Achy and Creaky Racing to Sodium Distortion to Slum Goddess Racing—make the annual pilgrimage to the salt from all over the world. As Bonneville record holder and Sturgis’s Broken Spoke Saloon owner Jay Allen put it: “we’re all here living the dream”. That includes longtime land speed racer Robert “Bud” Schmitt of Lafayette, Indiana, who at 83 has been racing on the Salt for over fifty years. “This is just like old home week to me,” he said as he readied his 500 cc Buell for a run. “Even though this is a production bike and probably can’t go over 85, it’s still a thrill every time.” Longtime land speed racer and world record holder Erin Hunter agrees. Though a top San Francisco executive and fashionista by day, she’s nothing but tough and determined out on the course. As with the other female racers at Bonneville: there are no powder puffs here. “There way I grew up, there were no gender delineations,” she said, preparing her comScore sheEmoto Suzuki, which she ran at 185 mph. “My dad liked driving fast, so maybe I have a genetic disposition to want the same thing,” said this world record holder, the only woman to set a world record on a streamliner (she lay on her stomach in that machine). More than just going fast though, Hunter wanted to make sure all of her fellow female racers felt supported and inspired in their racing, which led her and partner Andy Sills to establish the sheEmoto Award, which each year awards $2,000 to a female racer at Bonneville--$1000 for the racer and $1000 to the person who most inspires her to be her best. This year’s recipient is Australian Kim Krebs, who topped 209 mph. She traveled for four days to get here (her bike traveling for five weeks) and has the enthusiasm and athleticism that embodies LSR competition, Hunter said. “Racy” Tracy Snyder of Oakland, along with “Team Tracy,” her large family of supporters from the Oakland Motorcycle Club, is another anti-powder puff. With a new personal best of 196.244 mph on her naturally aspirated Suzuki Hayabusa, she’s more like an action hero. “This year we fought weather and salt conditions along with bike gremlins and time,” Snyder said of this year’s race. “We were going for a world record of over 205 mph, but in the end time got us. I’m really proud of our team handling each problem that was thrown at them.” First-time land speed racer Brooke Rosberg, of Chicago, embodied this go-to attitude as well as anyone else. “She dances pretty well on the salt, so far,” Rosberg said of her Bonneville Triumph. “In the end, it’s just fantastic to be here.” That spirit was in the air all week as I parked my car at the “boat ramp,” the unofficial gateway to the miles of salt in every direction. Here volunteers directed the lines of trucks towing their bikes on through to the course—and also made a mean spinach omelette on the trailer stove, courtesy of L.A. chef and BUB son Peter Manning and Oakland shop owner Dave Pedroli. Thus fortified, I hitched rides to the course from racers, crew members, moral supporters—including on the first morning, Gil Yarrow, who rolled up to the trailer in his impeccably beautiful ’94 Jaguar and offered me a ride. “Bond, James Bond,” I expected him to say as he took my hand, opened the door for me, and proceeded to put the car into gear. Was this Sean Connery in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service? Where was I? It must have been something in the salt. Impeccably dressed, Yarrow, at 79, is a veteran LSR racer who had driven all the way from Vancouver to serve as crew and support for three fellow Canadians. “I was going to put my baby, a Norton Commando, on the track and see what she could do,” he said. “But it didn’t work out this year. I’ve had her up to 240 kilometers, and I think she could do a hell of a lot more.” Another afternoon, after a long day on the salt, I caught a ride from a member of the Viet Nam Vets MC, Melton G., who had ridden from Washington state with a friend trying to set a record with his rebuilt Harley. “This is a special place; there’s no doubt about it,” he said. “There’s just something magical here.” Riding on the back of a BMW touring bike with “Murph,” who has been traveling across the country and chronicling his adventures at WhereTheHellisMurph.blogspot.com, I got just a small taste—at only 80 mph-- of what it must be like to race across the salt. No sense of how fast you’re going because there’s nothing but the blur of brown peaks whirring by, and it’s just you, the rumble of the bike, and all that space. All is quiet but for the distant rumble of motorcycles. Coming into view though, as you get closer, you can see the Beduin community of bikes and racers that is Bonneville, this special place that springs from the salt each year. “This morning, I placed myself at the 3.5 mile mark for Max Lambke and the Kiwis,” Dennis “BUB” Manning said at the race’s closing awards, in reference to the ongoing rivalry between two of the best-loved streamliner teams. “I wasn’t about to let anything happen to them. I sat in my truck and just savored Bonneville. Two-way radios like a concerto; it’s roger this, roger that, roger is everywhere,” he said. “The music of the motors going both ways. I’ll remember it for the rest of my life.” As will Tanner Kusel, at 19 an aspiring land speed racer, who came to Bonneville with his class from Mitchell, South Dakota’s Technical Institute to volunteer on the course. “I grew up racing bikes,” he said. “I’m an adrenaline junkie; it’s in my blood. And I’ve met the nicest people here. This is just my first year, but I guarantee there will be many more times. I want to race here and I’ll bring my kids here someday, too.” | ||
| Anonymous |
Great post! Thanks for sharing! Particularly enjoyed the part about Hiro Koiso and how he helped out a fellow racer by working his magic on that motorcycle! Hiro is an unbelievable technician at Las Vegas Harley-Davidson, one of the best service techs out there! He's a big part of what makes Las Vegas harley-Davidson one of the best Harley dealerships in the world! Plus, he's such an awesome guy! Hiro has even earned Harley-Davidson Motor Company's highest level of recognition, the official title of "Master of Technology". There's even an article all about Hiro on Las Vegas Harley-Davidson's blog, you should definitely check it out! http://lasvegasharley.wordpress.com And if you're ever in the Las Vegas area, make sure to stop by the LVHD dealership and meet the rest of Las Vegas Harley's amazing staff! | ||
| F_skinner |
Thanks for sharing that Rex... It is great stuff. Frank | ||
| Bluzm2 |
Damn you for posting that! Now I REALLY have to get back out there.... I feel the 150 Club calling my name. Great article. | ||
| Firemanjim |
Come on out and join the fun,Brad.  We will save you a spot in our pits! |
