Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

September 4,1973 Page 27 Showdown on the Salt The Vesco 1iner gets towed. The Yamaha effort will probably be the first with a record. The objeet to the left is the parachute on the tow rope. ' By Don Woods WENDOVER, UTAH, AUG. 25 For the fIrst time in the history of world land speed record setting, the Bonneville salt flats ,is taking on the air of a wild west shoot-out as three of the fastest men ever on two wheels face a.showdown this week for the motorcycle world's land speed record. The three men, complete with their crews, appeared at the lJats during the 25th running of the Bonneville National speed week to shake their machines down. Don Vesco, Bill Wirges, and Boris Murray all appeared full of confidence that they would come home with the record at the end of the special week-long FIM sanctioned showdown immediately following the combined car and motorcycle meet. Wirges, and accessbry manufacturer from Princeton, IJJinois, was the first one to arrive at the- lJats and promptly unloaded his twin-engined streamliner for a shakedown run. The liner is powered by two three-cylinder 750cc Kawasaki two-strokes with something in the neighborhood of 180 horsepower available at the rear wheel on gasoline. After making over 20 runs during 1972 at speeds over 200 MPH, Wirges fired off f or a fast shake-down run. Unfortunately one of the Kawasaki engines was full of fuel as the 20 foot long stream! iner tried to ligh t off and one cylinder hydraulic ked, breaking a rod. Wirges loaded his machine back on the trailer after repairing the damage and decided to wait until the regular running of the meet was over before he made another attempt. Don Vesco, rumored to have two super special 700cc wa ter cooled Yamaha two-strokes in his well proven liner, showed up with his tried and prove'n double 350cc combination. Don didn't think that the former world record holding streamliner was capable of the mgic 300 MPH mark, but expressed the opinion that he still had quite a few miles per hour left in the combination that netted him over 251 MPH several years ago. During the meet, Vesco did manage to make one run with one of his water-cooled 350cc road racing engines installed and netted a speed of slightly over 182 MPH. (Vesco's record attempt engines are the old air-cooled 350's.) The third and most dark horse looking of the group, Boris Murray, spent the week learning to drive his tiny double-engined Triumph. The Murray machine is actually a two person effort. Dennis Manning is the builder and designer of the smallest of the three Hners, and if you don't know who Manning is, he's the builder of the current world record holding Harley-Davidson liner that Cal Rayborn drove to a two way record on Oc tober 16, 1970 of 265.492 MPH. Manning spent the week working ou t the final bugs in the new bike and is the only builder that is looking for numbers well in excess of the 300 mark. As the showdown shapes up, Vesco will probably be the first to capture a new record. Vesco bas more experience than anyone who has driven a liner at Bonneville and his simple engine combination will allow him to go out and run in the neighborhood of 275 with little difficulty. Vesco figures that a quick record can have a depressing effect on his competition and he can sit bac k and watch ·them sweat to brea kit. Wirges, who has the biggest and most organized effort going, has two years of learning to drive and shaking the bugs out of his liner. He has a one-way run of 240 under his belt and is confident he can get the record. If all goes as planned, he should be able to get some big numbers, like about 280. The dark horse, Manning and Murray, have over a foot less frontal area for their engines to push and though they don't have a big·buck effort going, Manning's design is definitely the slipperiest of the three. Murray's engine building talen ts are well known. He has gone 175 in the quarter-mile with basically the same engine combination. Murray's liner driving experience is nil, but he has years of experience on high speed drag racers behind him and during his first few shakedowns he looked completely at home in the liner. The little liner definitely has the most horsepower of the three and really all they need for the record is a little luck and some good salt. For a complete report on the ou tcome see nex t week's issue of Cycle News. • Dennis Manning (left) and AMA referee Earl Flanders look on as Boris Murray tried out the Triumph 'liner. They seem to have the most potential. Wirges' Kawasakis put out 180 HP at the rear wheel on gas. ISOT government hassles Planning for the ISDT has been complicated by the efforts of environmentalist groups in Massachussetts. Under a new law which b.ecame effective July I, the Department of Natural Resources req uires .; an environmental impact statement for any organized event to be held on state lands. Although Al Eames, AMA coordinator for the event, filed a request for a permit in early April and submitted an environmental assessment in Boston on June 30, the secretary of environmental affairs didn't receive it until early in August. Secretary Charles H.W. Foster disapproved the DNR statement as insufficient, and the department IS required to have an approved statemen t before issuing a permit for use of state lands. The original route for the ISDT runs through four counties, incorporating about ten percent of state lands. Eames is upset with the governmen tal inefficiency, bu t said, ''We11 go on with or without the use of state lands." It ~ppears likely that the DNR may yet receive the necessary approval and issue a permit. But in doing so they will risk the possibility of legal action from. the environmentalists, notably a newly formed chapter of the Sierra Club. "It looks as if we've become a test case in terms of using state lands for an organized even t J " said Eames admi tted that the elimination of state lands would alter the terrain challenge, he expressed certainty \hat the ISDT will run as scheduled •

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