aswracing
19th September 2005, 04:11
Our first Bonneville event of the '05 season is behind us and I thought I'd give a little update.
First some background. There are 4 events scheduled for this year:
SPEEDWEEK - held in mid August every year, typically draws 350 to 400 entrants. This year was a bust, it only lasted 2-1/2 days and was shut down due to bad weather. Course conditions were reportedly awful (NRHS did not go). Very, very rough. More spins than records set. One person killed. Sanctioning body is SCTA/BNI: http://www.scta-bni.org
INTERNATIONAL MOTORCYCLE SPEED TRIALS BY BUB - held in early September, this was only the second year of this event. All motorcycles, no cars allowed. Put on by Denis Manning of Bub Enterprises, an accomplished land speed racer and streamliner builder (btw, "Bub" is his nickname and an acronym for "Big Ugly Bastard). He's a great guy. NRHS went to this event. Sanctioned by AMA and FIM, although setting an FIM record is costly and involved. Being it's only the second year, the record books are sparse and the records aren't as sought after as the SCTA/BNI records. Fortunately, the rules and classes are very similar to the SCTA rules and classes so it's not a big deal to cross over. http://www.speedtrialsbybub.com
WORLD OF SPEED - held in mid September every year, cancelled this year due to course conditions. They actually announced the cancellation just prior to the Bub event. A lot of people thought it was a premature decision. We had only about 5 miles of good dry course at the Bub meet but they wanted a longer course. Anyway, this has been my favorite event for as long as I've been land speed racing. It's put on by the Utah Salt Flats Racing Association and those folks just really know how to put on a great event. They have an agreement with SCTA/BNI to use the same rules and classes and cross-recognize records set at each others events. http://www.saltflats.com
WORLD FINALS - held in October every year. When you hit the weather just right, this can be the event to go really fast, because it's cool and the salt, if dry, tends to be hard and smooth. Put on by SCTA/BNI: http://www.scta-bni.org
So anyway, we went to the International Motorcycle Speed Trials by Bub. As I said, this is only the second year of the event. Last year, in mushy salt conditions that slowed everyone down, we won a $5000 prize for "fastest American V-twin" (we were also faster than any metric twins for that matter). We only ran 188mph but to give you an idea of how bad conditions were, the stock Hayabusa's were only running about 160. Couldn't even use the nitrous in the timed mile, it'd just spin the tire.
This year, the prize money was lowered to $1000. I really wanted to reconfigure the motor for gasoline only anyway, do away with the nitrous, because we already own the "fuel" class records (205.642mph) and this year I wanted to target the gasoline class records. So we showed up at the event with a motor optimized for gasoline and no nitrous on the bike. Had the prize money been higher I would've put the juice to it, but I needed to work on the gasoline-only setup, try to get my ducks in a row for the later events and a shot at the SCTA/BNI gas class records.
So I knew it'd be a long shot to win the fastest twin title again, and I was right. A guy came out with a turbo V-rod and just touched 200mph. Our best pass of the week was 192.3mph, which got us runner-up.
The week itself was pretty good. We started out at 177mph, made tweaks here and there, gearing, jetting, etc, worked it up to 192mph, and we still had some more left (but not 8mph). We were only getting 6800rpm still on a motor that power peaks at 7300 or so, so we still had more to go. But about that time, we broke a head bolt and subsequently blew the head gasket. Fixed that, went to make a pass and it leaned out and ran out of gas, the fuel solenoid got plugged up. We fixed that, but the motor had been hurt, the rear hole was smoking and the bike slowed down to 188 or so. So figuring we were about at the end of the line, we claimed the 188 as a qualifying pass, did a backup at 185, and took it to impound for teardown to get our 187 record certified (the average of the two passes).
On teardown we saw some things that could've been causing the problem, fiixed them, put it all back together carefully (hell of a place to build a motor, let me tell you). It wasn't smoking! So we put it back in line at about 2:00 in the afternoon, against a 3:00 event shutdown. Well, the wind came up and they closed the course and we never got another shot.
Oh well. We made tremendous progress and we'll be that much farther ahead of the game next month at World Finals. The SCTA/BNI record we're going after is 192.199mph. The bike showed it can do it, just gotta have our shit together and get some good conditions.
This motorcycle-only event is an absolute hoot. All kinds of interesting bikes, everything you can imagine. I took a few pictures:
http://www.nrhsperformance.com/pictures/s2rratbub.jpg
The only bike we took to this event. Buell RR body, Buell S2 chassis, 100ci motor, gasoline only & normally aspirated, 192.3mph. Note what it says just above the footpeg area ;)
http://www.nrhsperformance.com/pictures/whizzer.jpg
Ever see a dual-engined Whizzer? You see about everything at Bonneville!
http://www.nrhsperformance.com/pictures/blownironhead.jpg
Like a blown ironhead with a Holley!
http://www.nrhsperformance.com/pictures/knuckle.jpg
And a knucklehead
http://www.nrhsperformance.com/pictures/kmodel.jpg
And the grandfather to our beloved Sportsters, a K model
http://www.nrhsperformance.com/pictures/pursang.jpg
When was the last time you saw someone racing a Pursang?
http://www.nrhsperformance.com/pictures/noonansbusa.jpg
The star of the show. John Noonan's 600hp turbo Busa ran 259mph!!! Yikes! He won $5K for fastest speed of the meet and another $5K for fastest sit-on motorcycle (non-streamliner). It wasn't a good event for the streamliner guys.
http://www.nrhsperformance.com/pictures/jasonsbusa.jpg
Jason McVicar's turbo Busa ran 234mph WITH NO FAIRING!
http://www.nrhsperformance.com/pictures/bubmotor.jpg
Denis Manning's (Bub) latest streamliner. A motor he and his team designed and built from scratch, right down to casting the block.
Shoulda got a picture of the blown dual-Vincent engine streamliner. It managed 212mph if I remember right.
First some background. There are 4 events scheduled for this year:
SPEEDWEEK - held in mid August every year, typically draws 350 to 400 entrants. This year was a bust, it only lasted 2-1/2 days and was shut down due to bad weather. Course conditions were reportedly awful (NRHS did not go). Very, very rough. More spins than records set. One person killed. Sanctioning body is SCTA/BNI: http://www.scta-bni.org
INTERNATIONAL MOTORCYCLE SPEED TRIALS BY BUB - held in early September, this was only the second year of this event. All motorcycles, no cars allowed. Put on by Denis Manning of Bub Enterprises, an accomplished land speed racer and streamliner builder (btw, "Bub" is his nickname and an acronym for "Big Ugly Bastard). He's a great guy. NRHS went to this event. Sanctioned by AMA and FIM, although setting an FIM record is costly and involved. Being it's only the second year, the record books are sparse and the records aren't as sought after as the SCTA/BNI records. Fortunately, the rules and classes are very similar to the SCTA rules and classes so it's not a big deal to cross over. http://www.speedtrialsbybub.com
WORLD OF SPEED - held in mid September every year, cancelled this year due to course conditions. They actually announced the cancellation just prior to the Bub event. A lot of people thought it was a premature decision. We had only about 5 miles of good dry course at the Bub meet but they wanted a longer course. Anyway, this has been my favorite event for as long as I've been land speed racing. It's put on by the Utah Salt Flats Racing Association and those folks just really know how to put on a great event. They have an agreement with SCTA/BNI to use the same rules and classes and cross-recognize records set at each others events. http://www.saltflats.com
WORLD FINALS - held in October every year. When you hit the weather just right, this can be the event to go really fast, because it's cool and the salt, if dry, tends to be hard and smooth. Put on by SCTA/BNI: http://www.scta-bni.org
So anyway, we went to the International Motorcycle Speed Trials by Bub. As I said, this is only the second year of the event. Last year, in mushy salt conditions that slowed everyone down, we won a $5000 prize for "fastest American V-twin" (we were also faster than any metric twins for that matter). We only ran 188mph but to give you an idea of how bad conditions were, the stock Hayabusa's were only running about 160. Couldn't even use the nitrous in the timed mile, it'd just spin the tire.
This year, the prize money was lowered to $1000. I really wanted to reconfigure the motor for gasoline only anyway, do away with the nitrous, because we already own the "fuel" class records (205.642mph) and this year I wanted to target the gasoline class records. So we showed up at the event with a motor optimized for gasoline and no nitrous on the bike. Had the prize money been higher I would've put the juice to it, but I needed to work on the gasoline-only setup, try to get my ducks in a row for the later events and a shot at the SCTA/BNI gas class records.
So I knew it'd be a long shot to win the fastest twin title again, and I was right. A guy came out with a turbo V-rod and just touched 200mph. Our best pass of the week was 192.3mph, which got us runner-up.
The week itself was pretty good. We started out at 177mph, made tweaks here and there, gearing, jetting, etc, worked it up to 192mph, and we still had some more left (but not 8mph). We were only getting 6800rpm still on a motor that power peaks at 7300 or so, so we still had more to go. But about that time, we broke a head bolt and subsequently blew the head gasket. Fixed that, went to make a pass and it leaned out and ran out of gas, the fuel solenoid got plugged up. We fixed that, but the motor had been hurt, the rear hole was smoking and the bike slowed down to 188 or so. So figuring we were about at the end of the line, we claimed the 188 as a qualifying pass, did a backup at 185, and took it to impound for teardown to get our 187 record certified (the average of the two passes).
On teardown we saw some things that could've been causing the problem, fiixed them, put it all back together carefully (hell of a place to build a motor, let me tell you). It wasn't smoking! So we put it back in line at about 2:00 in the afternoon, against a 3:00 event shutdown. Well, the wind came up and they closed the course and we never got another shot.
Oh well. We made tremendous progress and we'll be that much farther ahead of the game next month at World Finals. The SCTA/BNI record we're going after is 192.199mph. The bike showed it can do it, just gotta have our shit together and get some good conditions.
This motorcycle-only event is an absolute hoot. All kinds of interesting bikes, everything you can imagine. I took a few pictures:
http://www.nrhsperformance.com/pictures/s2rratbub.jpg
The only bike we took to this event. Buell RR body, Buell S2 chassis, 100ci motor, gasoline only & normally aspirated, 192.3mph. Note what it says just above the footpeg area ;)
http://www.nrhsperformance.com/pictures/whizzer.jpg
Ever see a dual-engined Whizzer? You see about everything at Bonneville!
http://www.nrhsperformance.com/pictures/blownironhead.jpg
Like a blown ironhead with a Holley!
http://www.nrhsperformance.com/pictures/knuckle.jpg
And a knucklehead
http://www.nrhsperformance.com/pictures/kmodel.jpg
And the grandfather to our beloved Sportsters, a K model
http://www.nrhsperformance.com/pictures/pursang.jpg
When was the last time you saw someone racing a Pursang?
http://www.nrhsperformance.com/pictures/noonansbusa.jpg
The star of the show. John Noonan's 600hp turbo Busa ran 259mph!!! Yikes! He won $5K for fastest speed of the meet and another $5K for fastest sit-on motorcycle (non-streamliner). It wasn't a good event for the streamliner guys.
http://www.nrhsperformance.com/pictures/jasonsbusa.jpg
Jason McVicar's turbo Busa ran 234mph WITH NO FAIRING!
http://www.nrhsperformance.com/pictures/bubmotor.jpg
Denis Manning's (Bub) latest streamliner. A motor he and his team designed and built from scratch, right down to casting the block.
Shoulda got a picture of the blown dual-Vincent engine streamliner. It managed 212mph if I remember right.