Buell Forum: Elves Downunder log

G oog le BadWeB | Login/out | Topics | Search | Custodians | Register | Edit Profile
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" SRC="http://badweatherbikers.com/cgibin/ads/ads.pl?jscript"> </SCRIPT> <NOSCRIPT> <A HREF="http://badweatherbikers.com/cgibin/ads/ads.pl?banner=NonSSI;page=01" TARGET="_blank"><IMG SRC="http://badweatherbikers.com/cgibin/ads/ads.pl?page=01" WIDTH=468 HEIGHT=60 ALT="Please Support Our Sponsors" BORDER=0></A> </NOSCRIPT>

Buell Forum » Tale Section (Share your tales of adventure here.) » Archive through October 17, 2006 » Elves Downunder log

« Previous Next »

Well Blake wanted me to do a diary of my exploits when I take the Buell to the other side of the globe and race it Downunder, so I thought I would give a little history of my salt racing.

How I Got Started Racing at Bonneville
by Fireman Jim Higgins
February 10, 2006

Well that’s a convoluted trail. I purchased my first Buell in the Summer of 1995, a bright red(fire-engine) S-2 Thunderbolt. And because of this bike I met many varied and far flung friends. Among them were Jim Bantz, Henrik Bo Pedersen, and Court Canfield. I got wind that these fellows were going to be part of a team that was taking a Buell to the Bonneville Saltflats and volunteered my services. To say that year was a success would be an understatement.

The next year was bigger and better with the addition of a bunch of Buellers running in the 130 MPH Club. I brought my S-2 and both Henrik and I were successful in getting into the 130 MPH Club. This taste of what it was like to actually race on the salt was addictive and it was downhill from there.

Originally I only intended to take the next step and run in the 150 MPH Club, but after checking the record book I saw that the speed needed to get a record was just over the 150 mark. And the detail that sealed the deal was that a bunch of Team Elves sponsors agreed to give anyone entering for a class record significant discounts on parts and labor. And Team Elves would pay the entry fees. The decision was made to run in the MPS 1650 PG class in 2002.

The engine was done by Nallin Racing in Shreveport Louisiana. An 88" big bore kit with Nallin Heads, Red Shift cams, Mikuni carb, roller rockers, and a Baker 6 speed were all added to the Buell S-2. And to aid in Aerodynamics a set of Airtech bodywork was added, painted a candy apple tangerine. The last detail was an exhaust system to match the engine and Aaron Wilson volunteered his sevices to not only build a stepped exhaust system but dyno tune the bike afterwards to eke out the last ounce of HP.

That year saw the meet we had all planned on going to in September rained out. The next event was the SCTA World Finals in October, so I loaded up the bike and headed to Wendover, praying for good weather. By this time the record in the MPS-1650 PG class had been upped to 167+ mph.

Enduring long lines in staging and 4 hour waits to run netted us an average of 2 runs per day. We ended up running a best of 166+ MPH and did not get a record, but the experience of running the Buell wide open for miles was exhilarating to say the least. I could not have done this meet without the assistance of fellow Bueller, Jim Witt. He was the driver of the retrieval truck, pit crew, and all around gofer for that meet. A big thanks to Jim.

Sitting in a restaurant after racing, eating dinner with some friends, hatched the seeds for what class to look to for next year. Seems that sitting on the shelf at the shop in Longmont Colorado was an Aerocharger turbo set-up off of an S-2. A deal was struck and after some wrenching I was the owner of a turbocharged Buell S-2. So in 2003 we were set to run in the MPS 1650 PBF and PBG classes. With the assistance of Terry Parsley and dyno services donated by Vallejo HD/Buell, not to mention hours of dynotuning by Brian Nallin, we had a 180 HP Buell ready to rock and roll at Bonneville.

2003 was a busy meet for me as I had two other bikes along to race. One was a Derbi 50cc bike for my teenaged son, James, to start out on, and I had an eBay special — a 1985 Yamaha Turbo Seca that fell into several classes with open—or no—records.

My first runs were marred by mechanical glitches, a charge tube came loose, and my electric fuel pump died. With the assistance of fellow Buellers, especially Phillyblast (David) and Jen who looked at every fuel pump in Wendover to find me one, we were back in line. My first full run on the turbo bike, babying it, netted me a 167, And we were off to impound.

So Monday, the last day to race and a short day at that, we were back at the starting line. First run netted a 173 MPH, as I had to back off the throttle twice as it got real close to a tankslapper, but it pulled like a freight train and crossed the line at 6500 RPM. Good for a new record in MPS 1650 BPF, old record was 122+ MPH.

I changed classes and gas and we were back in line. I dialed up the steering damper and gave it some more throttle, staying to the left side of the course away from where the cars run, blasting off a 177.719 MPH run. It ran straight as an arrow and we saw 6900 RPM across the line still pulling strong.

Back in line for the back-up run I was so excited to run over 175 MPH and get the B license I forgot to run on the left side and again had the very unsettling experience of dancing bars at 170+ MPH. I backed off again twice, and ran a last run of 174.5 MPH.

If I had had more time I would have changed the front sprocket and run the long course, I really think the S-2 had a head of steam to run into the 180's. Oh, well, two records were satisfying enough, and there is certainly next year.

Four records on two out of three bikes was not bad. The two speed records for my Buell in 2003 were:

MPS 1650 PBF, record was 170.264 MPH
MPS 1650 PBG, record was 176.125 MPH

2004 saw us back at the salt with a smaller motor to run against some different records. I had a 1250 motor with XB Stage 3 heads from Aaron Wilson, with some different Red Shift Cams, an S&S bottom end, and a new chain/sprocket set-up to facilitate changing gearing at the salt. With the assistance of Terry Parsley as my crew chief we ran in the MPS 1350 PBF and the M 1350 PBF classes setting a record in each:

MPS 1350 BPF record is 169.692 MPH
---M 1350 BPF record is 155.475 MPH

And we were set to come to the 2005 events with a bigger turbo set-up and the addition of a nitrous system, hoping to get closer to that goal of 200 mph. But a run of bad weather cancelled virtually every meet of 2005 leaving us in agony. Countless hours of prep time seemingly wasted. On 2 bikes, no less, as I had built another bike for my son to compete on. We had grafted all the parts from the ebay Turbo Seca on to an FJ-600 Yamaha and were set to run in the 600cc blown classes. Doubly let down.

But a ray of hope appeared on the horizon when a fellow landspeed racer, Mike Akatiff, spoke of plans for an expedition to the mecca of salt racing in the land downunder. And this plan has come to life. The Buell is packed away in a shipping container on its way to Australia. With the assistance of my Australian Buell friends, Paul Rogers and Ross Northwood, and an American contingent of some very skilled and extremely fast racers (John Noonan with his 260 mph turbo Hayabusa, and Joe and Jon Amo with their 240 mph nitrous Kawasaki), we are going to run the turbocharged nitrous Buell S-2 on some upside down salt. Wish me luck.

The plan at this point is to arrive in Adelaide on March 1st and get picked up by fellow landspeed racer and Bueller, Paul Rogers. Paul has offered his hospitality and the use of his new Ford pickup and assorted tools, equipment, and supplies. At this point it looks like I will be dragging a couple of other American motorcycle racers along as they are on the same sort of shoestring budget plan as I am, Jon and Joe Amo along with their 240 MPH Kawasaki nitrous bike. And providing much needed driving skills and pit crew assistance will be another familiar Bueller name, Ross Northwood. A huge thanks to these guys as I/we could not do it without their help.

We will rent a trailer and pick up the bikes at the warehouse on March 2nd, get all our supplies and such squared away, then it'll be off to Lake Gairdner for the racing. The meet is scheduled for the 6th-10th. I know that the Ack Attack guys are planning to arrive early as they are providing their own timing equipment to meet FIM World Record requirements and will need time to set up. And I believe they are going to do some practice runs with the streamliner. So our itinerary is not set at this point. I know that the Amo’s have a satellite link setup to post stuff to their website www.landracing.com so I maybe able to post tidbits here or you can follow along at their site.

And just today I got this e-mail from Mike Akatif of the Ack Attack group and the main impetus to this whole trip. (I owe him a huge thanks for making this possible.)

quote:
Hi Guys good news:

Just got off the phone with Matt Ralph. The Becker Entertainment group, who just released The Worlds Fastest Indian, has come to agreement with Discovery International to produce a one hour program on the Lake Gairdner event.

We will be the major focus of the program. They want to meet us in Adelaide and follow us up to the lake. The program is to be broadcast internationally on the Discovery channel. Should be great exposure.

Thread	Last Poster	Posts	Pages	Last Post
Archive through March 21, 2006	Firemanjim	30	1	03-21-06 01:14 am
Archive through March 02, 2006	Road_thing	30	1	03-02-06 10:03 am
Archive through February 14, 2006	Firemanjim	30	1	02-14-06 03:45 am

Author

Message

Pilot

Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 04:19 am:

I would like to thank Jim (email) & Court (phone call)for their concern regarding the recent bad weather that my end of the world has been through. We escaped the damage by about 180/240 miles and now a second Cyclone(hurricane) is readying itself to come on down. Further details can be found at. www.bom.gov.au
Thanks Guys

Peter

Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 05:10 am:

Good luck mate.
I forget you live up there in Jo's country where the cows decide the time...

Court

Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 05:39 am:

Ross:

Just glad to know the numbers I had for you were good.

When I rang and got no answer I called Paul out of concern. Of course Paul's response was "what hurricane?".

The King of Wicker resides in the South where live if pretty much honey and roses. . . unlike you up there on the frontier!

: )

Henrik

Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 09:19 am:

Glad to hear it Ross. I saw the news in NY Times this morning - scary stuff. Glad you're ok.

Henrik

Josh_

Posted on Monday, March 27, 2006 - 12:38 pm:

Slight delay getting Jim's stuff online, but his photos are being uploaded now. No link on the site but you can see them here

Court

Posted on Monday, March 27, 2006 - 01:51 pm:

I went through and tried to count the pictures without beer coolers in them.

I'm gonna try again.....after I have a drink.

: )

Josh_

Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 10:26 pm:

Site's up.
Read Jim's Australian time-delayed blog here

Let me know of any errors/issues/problems.

(Message edited by josh_ on April 13, 2006)

Blake

Posted on Saturday, April 15, 2006 - 11:54 am:

Praying, sleeping, or ...? joker

Hey Jim? What happened to posting your logs here? : (

Josh,
How about a nice prevalent BadWeB link on the TE site?

Just looking for a fair amount of reciprocity is all. If I'm out of line please say so.

Josh_

Posted on Saturday, April 15, 2006 - 12:29 pm:

Not out of line, but BadWeb is listed as one of Jim's sponsors, is the first link on the links page is is referenced elsewhere on the site?

Hmm, I think BadWeb might have been on the front page before I added FMJ and Dave's banner I stole from BadWeb.

Firemanjim

Posted on Sunday, April 16, 2006 - 02:23 am:

Blake,you are correct.I will transfer stuff over here also.And I still have some more to compose,just so much to do.

Blake

Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 11:57 am:

Thanks Jim. Also, you have email. : )

Josh_

Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 12:13 pm:

FMJ, I can post the edited version here or email it to you (I believe I have it in .doc format)

Firemanjim

Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 03:44 pm:

Josh,might as well save me a couple of steps and post it here for me.Thanks,will work on the rest this set if work does not intrude.

Josh_

Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 04:41 pm:

FMJ's Aussie Adventure

Day One, 2/27

Scheduled to leave SFO at 9:48 PM. I headed to the airport with my son James to drop me off with plenty of time to spare. Seems like an excellent time to leave CA as it is raining hard and wind is blowing. Traffic through SF is bad and we see a warning sign about trees down but it was not for the freeway we were on—wrong. Traffic comes to a standstill and inches along several miles from the airport. We finally come up to the problem and the fire dept and Cal Trans are cutting up a large tree across several lanes of the freeway. Clear sailing after that and James dropped me off at the United terminal with time to spare.

I meet up with some of the crew from the Ack Attack and start to hear the tales of woe affecting the other folks trying to reach SFO. The Amo boys were stuck in Denver with a fuel leak and would be delayed 24 hours. John Noonan and company were supposed to fly up from LA and take the same flight we were, but somehow their plans were changed. The reservation desk told them that Top Oil (their sponsor) had changed their flights but when they checked with Top Oil they had no idea what was going on. So they flew from LA to Sydney—and ended up beating us as our flight was delayed when they waited for a weather delayed flight to come in from Boston, which of course delayed our connecting flight.

Day1

I was flying on a United companion pass courtesy of my good friend and fellow racer, Terry Parsley of Vallejo Buell, so I was upgraded to business class. Shucks! Great flight over with filet mignon for dinner and slept very well. Thanks, Terry.

(Message edited by josh_ on April 17, 2006)

Josh_

Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 04:42 pm:

Day Two 3/01

Crossing the International dateline meant I lost an entire day so 2/28 vanished without a trace. I was picked up at the airport and arrived Paul Roger’s house in mere minutes where Paul, Ross Northwood, and I worked on arrangements to get our bikes from the shipper.

twoa

We went out and shopped for a trailer large enough for the two bikes we would be hauling .}We found one that worked, but the business closed as we were arriving so Paul had to fetch it bright and early the next morning. Ross and I then headed to the shipping company and procured the bikes and equipment and got back to the house just in time for Ross to head to the airport (about 5-10 minutes from Paul’s) to pick up the Amo boys. I stayed to keep watch on the trailer and bike in the back, and started to take apart the shipping crate. In a short time Joe and Jon Amo were on hand and the bikes were unpacked. We worked on readying them for the trip and getting all our gear sorted. Gary Baker (Hawkwind), another Aussie motorcycle racer, arrived that evening to caravan with us to the salt.

twob

Josh_

Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 04:44 pm:

Day Three 3/02

Paul had to leave for a business trip leaving us in the able care of long time GF Kathy. We spent the day prepping the bikes and stowing all our gear in Paul’s Ford F-250 for a very early A.M. departure. We all enjoyed an evening out at a great Indian restaurant.

Day Four 3/04

At O’dark:30 we departed for a rendezvous with the Ack Attack gang in Port Augusta, about a 3 hour drive. It struck me as funny as the terrain we drove through could have doubled for the drive I take to Bonneville every year through the deserts of Nevada. Same dry, desolate, scrub brush, miles of nothing. Seemed fitting.

three

We arrived on time for the meeting with the Ack Attack bunch( 8:30) only to find them way behind schedule and just sitting down for breakfast. And to add the final touch, Gary came back in from a phone call to tell us that there was water on the salt!!! It had rained about 100 kilometers north and the winds had blown the water all across the race course!! My rain curse had followed me all the way around the world. We finally left for our final leg to the salt at about 11:30.

Thirty minutes later we turned on to the last leg of our journey— 230 kilometers of dirt road with deep dust. The trailer and bikes were soon unrecognizable, blending in with miles and miles of scrub and dry soil with nothing living to be seen. No kangaroos, no emus, just a scattering of sheep—whoopee!!

threeb

We arrived at our accommodations for the week—an old sheep shearing shed that had been leased by the DLRA. Sparse is being mild. We set to work removing what seemed like inches of dust and getting all our gear stowed. At least we had power and there were showers set-up. Then we just had to go look at the “dry” lake to see the extent of the water. It looked bad as we approached the salt and we drove through standing water to enter the salt. But as we drove further to look over the course, our spirits rose as it got dryer and dryer as we went. It looked like—if the weather and winds cooperated—we would be able to run. I can tell you, the relief we all felt was palpable. We spent the evening getting to know all our neighbors, a great bunch of friendly folks from all over Australia and New Zealand.

(Message edited by josh_ on April 17, 2006)

Josh_

Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 04:46 pm:

Josh_

Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 04:49 pm:

Day Five 3/05

We were up at the crack of dawn, heading for the course and hoping for dry salt. The reports we heard varied from” the salt is drying” to” the meet is cancelled”. We take the bikes to the salt to set up our pits and get the bikes cleaned from the horrendous amount of dust. Quite the task. Every vehicle entering the salt from the dusty road is required to use a leaf blower to get the dust off so as not to leave an enormous red swath onto the salt. We brought our own to hasten our entry.

Five

The salt seems to be improving steadily and we are keeping our hopes up for a good course.

Josh_

Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 04:50 pm:

Day Six 3/06

Today is the actual first day we are supposed to be racing. The course is still improving; but remains wet at the start area and for the first mile.

There has been an additional snag in that the large roll of wire that is strung to run the timing lights was rolled incorrectly last year and looks like a fishing reel with tangles everywhere. They have a bunch of volunteers working on it all day long.

Six

I finally get my bike through tech and am officially ready to race, but there will be no runs today. Temps are about 95-100 degrees and did I tell you about the flies?? We all learned something new—it’s called the Aussie Wave—and it looks like you are being friendly in all the pictures when actually you are trying to keep from going mad from the tormenting flies. Truly a treat!

The day ended with the timing lights still not done and no runs.

Josh_

Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 04:51 pm:

Day Seven 3/07

The days starts with a drivers meeting where they advise us the track will start out shortened until it can dry some more. Does not really affect me, only the vehicles like the streamliners that need a lot of runoff room. I spend the time checking out the other really nice machines that have shown up including a pair of older GS’s, one is turboed, one supercharged. Also, a factory blown Vincent (one of only 2 ever built), a very well done twin turboed Honda CBX six cylinder, plus everything from a CBR-250 4 cylinder to a 850cc Suzuki 2 stroke triple.

Sevena

I managed to finally put faces to some of the folks I have been corresponding with on various motorcycle forums, Gary Petersen and Wayne MacDonald from the T-595 Triumph board—Wayne is the inventor of the Tuneboy, a set-up similar to a Power Commander for Triumphs and he has a turboed Triumph I am interested in finding out more about. He supplies his units to The Turbo Connection for their turbo installs.

Finally in the afternoon we get word they are going to start running!! So it’s into the leathers and head for the line. They have a unique method of assigning starting line positions—you must show up with bike and gear and put your name and bike number and class on a blackboard. They start at the top and move down as runs are made, until your name comes up. A bit time consuming.

Josh_

Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 04:53 pm:

I am finally at the starting line and the bike is running and ready. It seems like I have to wait forever and it is ferociously hot in my leathers sitting in the sun. I get the signal and head off up the course. The bike is running really well but I run out of gears too soon - I left the gearing from last year as a starting point but it apparently too low. But this is really only a test run for the nitrous so I thumb the button and feel the bike surge forward strongly pulling right to redline.

I let off as we still have about a mile to go. I thumb the button 2 more times with the same strong surge, but as I approach the last timing lights I feel the bike falter, so I roll off the throttle and head for the exit lanes and back to the pits. I can hear an exhaust noise and get a spitback through the carb. The bike feels like its running on one cylinder and it sounded like I had blown a head gasket. I limped it back to the pit area and stripped off my gear, hoping for the best but fearing the worst.

The bike had run 172.811 which was faster than last year at Bonneville (and a DLRA record) but nowhere near what I felt it could do, especially considering how well it was pulling on the button.

Josh_

Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 04:56 pm:

Ross and I started to tear into it to diagnose what had been hurt and after stripping off the bodywork I noticed a fuel line feeding the nitrous fuel pump had been pinched, causing the nitrous to run lean. It was well hidden under the fire sleeve mandated by the SCTA so we never saw the problem and in all the dyno runs we never had a problem so I can only guess it happened in transit.

I then pulled the plugs and while the front was fine the rear plug was missing the electrode. Looking down the plug hole we could see the piston was undamaged so we did a compression test. The rear cylinder had 0 compression, so we pulled the rear head. The exhaust valve looked like I had taken a blowtorch to it and had a nice notch cut out of it. The seat was possible damaged and we could see a crack going to the spark plug hole. Not what I was hoping for, but a lesson learned nonetheless. Note to self—use the Aeroquip fuel line that has a jacket that cannot kink, and get the fuel pressure cut-off switch someone mentioned to you before (I had no idea what was needed, being a complete novice to nitrous.)

The logistics of trying to get parts to where we were was just too difficult so I accepted the fact that I was done racing. We buttoned the bike back up for the dusty trip home. But even if I could not race I could certainly help all of my friends with their efforts.

Sevend

« Previous Next »

Administration