Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

o 00 O"l ~ CN CN M ~ ..c Dave Matson set two new speed records on his Vincent Black Shadow. o Records scarce at wet Bonneville Speed Week ... u o By Dorde Woodruff WENDOVER. UT, SEPT. 2$-27 The 32nd annual reenactment of the Bonneville National Speed Trials was characterized by a short, wet track and magnificent weather. Motorcycle entries were up from last year but rider success was down. The course was especially difficult for the fastest bikes and cars, The course should have been as long and good as last year's, but unusually heavy rains in August flooded the flats. By the time officials arrived during the week before the event, only a low-lying strip of salt parallel to the track and to the west was still flooded. But storm winds on the 18th and 20th pusbed water into the race area, flooding the access road and the south part of the track, and leaving the nonh ponion of it mushy. Pits, already set up in the traditional location of the last few years west of the track, had to be hastily moved to a relatively dry spot east of it, Only about five miles of straightaway was useable; there should have been 11. Because of tbe wet track, the first qualifying runs were postponed from Sunday to late afternoon on Monday. The Jammer streamliner ran Tuesday with bigb expectations from the crew. After a good beginning at 172.57, a malfunction of the fuel injection system produced a starting line abort. After two days of unexpected discouragement and wrenching, the American machine was out again on Friday ready to do great things. It ran 205. $62 for motorcycle fast time of the meet, but fell victim again, this time to a turbocharger problem. 16 At the beginning of the week, John Vesco, father of Don and Rick (a Utah Yamaha-Suzuki dealer who is not SO famous as his brother but also very active in Salt Flats racing). predicted that if the ridcers would save their engines, by Friday there would be good salt and consequent good runs. John has bet;n going to Speed Week ever since it was born in 1949. so it seemed wise to Iisten to his voice of experience. The weather was perfect during the week, and the salt by Friday relatively dry. Friday was also without the normal long lines: those with poor luck or heavy throttle hands or feet had broken or otherwise become discouraged and left. making possible many more runs than usual. Fast, big bikes had to be tuned very effectively this year to compensate for the poor traction, if they were to be successful. The astounding feat of the meet was Dave Matson's 195.016 on Friday. Dave had set two records earlier in the week. a 178.246 in tbe MPSAG-2ooo class, and 11$.4$2 in a slightly different frame configuration, APSAG·2000. On Friday he went for it on 50% nitro. His punched-out Vincent Black Shadow, a bike out of production for 25 years, beat every other nonstreamliner motorcycle at the meet, including the best of current Japanese and American technology. This run was by far the fastest known to history for a Vincent, despite a 10% loss of power due to Bonneville's high-desert elevation of over 4000 feet. Next fastest was a run of 185.15 in New Zealand in 1955, by Robert Burns and Russell Wright, using a stock 100 bhp Black Lightning race model Vincent, enclosed, however, in a wind-tunneldesigned streamliner shell, a terrific advantage over the road race fairing used by Matson. Dave, who has been riding Vincents, coincidentally, ever since the factory closed down, came to Bonneville early on, then couldn't return until '76 but has been here each year since, the bike becoming ever fast· er and more reliable. That particular engine went out in a moment of glory, broken. but there are still thousands of cherished individuals left of the brand known in its time as the world's fastest production motorcycle. Third fastest motorcycle time was the 186.229 of Bob Tomrose's classic turbocharged Harley Duoglide. Like all the others who aspire to join the select group of only five men who have set records of over 200 mph on motorcycles at Bonneville without the help of a streamliner shell. Bob didn't really have a chance at the goal this year. One of the five, Tom Elrod of Texas, who squeaked in last year at 200.022 (without even the advantage of a road race fairing, however), didn't come this year. knowing that the salt was not suitable to his purpose. In the absence of the Elrod company, a Kaw record of one of Elrod's men, John Haider, was gobbled up by a Harley built and ridden by Vance Breese of Menlo Park, CA. Vance ~rformed one of those unusual Bonneville tricks of arriving on Thursday at the salt for the first time. qualifying on Friday, and setting a record on Saturday morning. the last day to do 50. Accomplishments like this are likely to be preceded by much previous work on the engine in question, and to have been done by a metiulous tuner. This case was no exception. Vance's Harley started out to be a street bike, but it got so fast that he gave up the temptations of riding it on the street in favor of road racing. Injured in a sidecar crash a few weeks ago which was caused by a tire blowout, with a broken leg not yet fully functional and thus unable to return to pavement racing for awhile, he built a Bonneville frame. The engine has Sputhe heads and cylinders. Vance credits the machine's excellence, in addition, to the magic of engine !>ui Ider Jim Bella nd. Another winner in a I$OOcc class was SCOtt Spittler, a friend of Rick Vesco's, riding in the familiar Vesco red. white and blue leathers worn by many a winner. He up~d the P-I$OO record to 157.806, beating last year's 152.6$0 time set by Rick Coatman on a Honda CBX. Rick Vesco estimates the Suzy 1100 is about 10 mph faster, stock, than the Honda. The most interesting small-bore record-setting motorcycle was Vern McPherson·s. He equipped the CB400F Su~r Sport with $50 barrels with good reason: Bonneville has no 400cc class, and appropriate records in the $50cc classes were low, those in the 500cc classes much higher. Vern is a friend of Powroll's R&D ~rson Peter Fisher. Pete brought a beautiful new Bonneville bike, a long, lean 175cc Honda with a Rootes blower built for the grand total of $500 and thus named Junkyard Dog. This bike had tuning problems. but the conventional-looking $50 Honda greatly increased the APS-AB-$50 and A-AB$50 faired and unfaired times, from a 110.000 minimum to 127.82$, and last year's 101.277 mark to 125.796, res~ctively. Pete and Vern used the smallest commercially available turbocharger unit, the Japanese lHl company's RH05 model, sold by Shelby Spearco, a foreign car parts place in Inglewood, CA. Last year's multi-record winner Jim Ahrens came late and left early with his 50cc Kreidler road race engine in a long Bonneville frame, picking up one record of 77.248 over a 68.000 minimum in the APS-AB-50 class. Les Ranger belongs to a group of enthusiasts from Sacramento who've come to Bonneville together every year. They ran a 100cc bike until it became apparent that their records would stand for a while, then got into the 500cc class. This year they put a Honda 650 engine in the Bonneville chassis of the last two years, and Ranger took away one of Jack Murph¥'. records. Jack, the Kawasaki tuner who set up test bikes 50 well that magazines have to be careful because they're too good, was absent from Speed Week for the first time in years, reo portedly not feeling well, and missed by his friends. Les says it's OK that they broke Jack's 1978 turbocharged Kaw record - he once took away an old Su~r Hawk record of theirs. At the first of the week the grout! couldn't figure why the Honda w running so slowly. Then rub marIeS ap~ared on the battery box and the rear tire. Tires increase in size with speed and tbeirs grew more than tbey would have believed. They put another link in the chain. Adding 50% nitro to the fuel helped also. Jack used an ATP turbocharger, Les a 60" Magneson su~rcharger. Jerry Magneson says tbat su~rcharger technology is much improved, and reSu I ts bea r this ou t. Les used to confine himself to building and tuning while others of the group such as Bryan Bowns and Ted Gansberger rode. The mostly privateer Salt Flats racers are ingenious at finding cheap and compatible parts for their bikes: Les' fuel injection system uses a set of two venturis off of an Olds V-8. While many riders regret the loss of the AMA to the event, and would welcome the organization back under an arrangement more responsive to rider needs than the former one came to be, the change last year to Southern California Timing Association sanctioning for the bikes as well as the cars has worked well. The SCTA board now has two motorcyclists serving on it, Yale Camp and Jack Dolan, and welcomes suggestions from riders dn making the rules more congruent wit'h present-day conditions. This year the Class C engine option was dropped as no longer meaningful. At a meeting Wednesday nigflt chaired by Yale, Jack, and the new. most compatible and effective SCTA President Monty Wolfe, riders discussed present and prospective rules. Most of the car drivers aTe from California. Only a smaller part of the motorcyclists are. about half. so the meeting offers representation to those from all over the rest of the country. In addition to its Save the Salt lobbying efforts in opposition to Kaiser Chemical's l-million-ton-a-year on· going depletion of the salt as part of its potash operations, the Utah Salt Flats Racing Association schedules four weekend meets a year, in June, July, August and October. If the dry weather holds, this year's Oct. 25-26 meet is likely to be an especially good one. giving fast bikes and cars a second chance. Don Vesco is planning to have his 'liner ready for the event, with the help of his friends, followed by three weeks on private time if necessary. At least one non-streamliner bike with 200 mph potential is already committed to the USFRA meet, also. • Motorcycle records Class APS-AB-350 MPS-AG·2OCJO A·AB·350 A·AB·125 APS-AB-350 APS·AG-2OCJO M-AG-250 A·AB-750 APS·AB-50 A·AB·350 Aps·AB-650 APS-AB·750 APS-AB-125 MPS-AG-1300 P·1300 -Unofficial- Make Hon Vin Hon Hon Hon Vin Yam Hon Kreid Hon Hon Hon Hon H-D Suz Rider Vern McPherson Dave Matson Mark Ungua Rick Coatman Vern McPherson Dave Matson Casey Graybill Barry Van Hook Jim Ahrens Vern McPherson Les Ranger Barry Van Hook Rick Coatman Vance Breese Scon Spinier ,,--_I>. ,-J.:":"n • New Record: Time 122.880 178.246 111.516 94.074 127.823 173.432 125.728 175.369 77.248 125.796 160.868 176.277 100.807 176.615 157.806 1'._ . , •. Old Record: Time 110.000 173.832 101.277 90.000 122.880 169.828 109.217 163.194 68.000 111.516 150.225 172.038 95.000 174.513 152.630

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