Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

The Becker/Lyon BMW streamliner was the fastest motorcycle at the Bonneville Salt Flats. turning in a 205.245 mph run using a K75 motor. USFRA World of Speed Meet Lyon flies at Bonneville By Dorde Woodruff WENDOVER, UT, SEPT. 29-0CT. 2 The Becker/Lyon/BMW streamliner again set fast motorcycle time, 205.245, at the Utah Salt Flats Racing Association's World of Speed Meet at the end of 'the season on the Bonneville Salt Flats. This . ide K L did i . h nrne n er en yon I It wit a stock BMW K75 motor, .versus the hopped-up Luftmeister KIOO engine he used at his meet last year with just the nose cone by way .of streamlining. ' The body was finished in time for the Bonneville Nationals' Speed Week in August. But before running with the body Lyon scheduled two runs with a stock KIOOO engine and without any body at all , the nose cone having been incorporated into the whole shell. Then hehad to make a third one with the bare frame because of the wind. And that's all he got at Speed Week; the meet was curtailed and then shut down with high winds and rain. All did not go well at the USFRA meet either. The meetstarted late on Friday because the computer for the clocks was damaged in transit; something that never happened before. Saturday was a good day until the win shut down the course in the middle of the afternoon. . . Not much IS predictable .a~out Salt F~ats weather excep! that I! s unpr.edictable and sorneumes VIOlent, 10 tha~ vast swe~p of salt desert. Saturday s nort~ wind, ~ast gale force and approaching hurricane force, blew over most of- the outhouses, blew down course markers,. and .ran wheeled garbage contamers mto cars. It also shredded two $15,000 balloons and mangled a party tent. Most everyone huddled in their cars , hoping the wind would die. Except the owner of the land yacht. Using a tall, skinny metal wing in place of mast and sail, he ran down the course in the 90 plus mph range, which would have been a record for this type of vehicle had the clocks ~een functional. The meet was fmally called off for the day, as the winds continued into the evening. Course workers scrambled Sunday morning from first light to put everything back ~ogether. Sunday was one of those picture-perfect days on the salt, sunny and cool, a day much enjoyed by both spec.tators and c~mpeutors. Lyon made ~IS 205 run, WIth. nl? problems. At this meet the qualifying run serves as the down record run. . . Way up at the l l -rnile where return runs start, !1ormally at the end of the day at t~IS meet , the salt IS full of pressure ndges and even where prepared is not so smooth as it is towa~~s the c~nter of the salt pan. The liner, at 11S most vulnerable at low speeds, had trou.ble here last y.ear; again Lyon lost 11, notable to f~nd a goo~ balance off the line and finally fal!mg over when he tried to put the skids up. . Monday dawned clear 10 the east a.nd clou~y everywher~ else.. It continued grim, .threatemng ram, as a storm swept 10 from the west. But runs were stopped for only a short while, for wind gusts through the mountain pass just to the northwest of the middle of the course, always a hazard when it's windy. One streamliner car blew over past the timed mile while it was gusty. Lyon requalified with a 204.732, again with no problem. With the beautiful new shell, seamless except for a horizontal mating with the aluminum bottom pans, Lyon noted that he was going almost "25 mph faster with 50 less horsepower". Last year at Speed Week he set a record of 182 and some changes with the hot-rod Luftmeister 750 engine and only the nose cone for body. The seamless body does have a disadvanrage in that it takes four people to pull it out at the bottom and maneuver it off. Lyon discovered a small air leak, from an o-ring for a solenoid for the skids. It was leaking when the skids were up, so he reversed it to leak when the skids were down, and thought he wasn't losing too much air. He was down to one crew person- on Monday, so didn't attempt to take the body off to check it. The sky looked darker and grimmer as the afternoon progressed, but the course stewarddidn't want to stop qualifying runs too soon. Finally return runs began just after four, as rain was visible coming down from the dark clouds to the south. Lyon decided the salt was firmer this time, so didn 't ask to start further down as he did once at last year's meet. Traction appeared to be okay off the line, however, he had lost too much air and couldn't shift out of first, so gave it up after a mile. Lyon was only working on his own record of last year, but most likely would have upped it into the low 200 miles per hour, a big disappointment since the Bonneville 200 MPH Club voted to accept records from this meet as well as the Bonneville Nationals. However, th ese runs proved the bike can do it next year, barring bad salt and hopeless weather. The Becker/ Lyon/BMW bike is sponsored by BMW, Brown Motor Works, and Luftmeister. The Becker part is Mike and Lee Ann Becker of Co lorado who have competed at Bonneville for over a decade in the smaller displacements. The Beckers built the frame, and the body is from the mold for Bob George's old Harley 'liner. The K75 was not the only motorcycle engine going fast on the salt in a streamliner. Mafzger and Savage set a record in a Kawasaki-powered car. They picked the ZX 1000cc engine because they wanted liquid cooling and it was more powerful than anything else at the time. They had never run on the salt before, and never used Kawasakis either. Also there were some speed parts available for this engine. Their piston'sare custom because they need low compression for turbocharging. They used part of the Mr. Turbo kit and also some of their own parts. Doug Meyer's Dublin Kawasaki is a sponsor. Because of the wind, Saturday's return record runs were postponed until Sunday morning. Nafzger & Savage didn't run though qualified because they hadn't wanted the car to be tied up in impound all day, not knowing the course would be shut down. They had changed to the fuel class in case they got a good time near the end of the day, because they forgot to get the tank sealed and didn't want to lose their place in line. Sunday they just happened to run next to last, so went to impound and in that evening's return run finished bumping their own record of Speed Week in the I1FS (.76 to I liter engine, streamliner car on fuel) class form 241.664 to 256.923. Until Speed , Week this was a 1975 record belonging to Rick Vesco which he set in his father John's old streamliner, built in 1957 and at that point TZ750 powered. Nafzger (driver) and Savage (engine builder) had the advantage of turbocharging. Cars don't have a separate B (blown) class for turbocharging and supercharging like bikes do . In ,cars or bikes, a vehicle on gasoline can run in the fuel class if they wish. Tanks must be sealed before a record run on gas to ensure that everyone uses the racing gasoline designated for that meet . The Norton streamliner of the early '70s is resurrected, kind of, in Al Teague's streamliner car. Sunday, Teague turned 392.970 and the car is the fastest wheel-driven vehicle running in the world today. The Norton's designer Denis Manning recalls the moment in 1973 when the idea was born, when a few racers were at Bonneville on private time. He and Teague were having a meal while th e course was weathered out. Manning remarked to Al that if he were to put the engine from his roadster into a streamliner, he could go 400. Teague used Manning's mold, at first for a lakester with the wheels exposed. After getting asmuch as he could out of that configuration, Teague modified the body to full stream liner, always going faster and faster through the years with the blown Chrysler hemi engine. Teague was not able . to beat Mickey Thomrson's 1960 Challenger record 0 354.330 on Sunday because he cracked a timing gear on the fast down run and couldn't return. However, he did set a WOS record in that class on Monday at an avrage of 371.670, cooling it somewhat because he didn't want to hurt the engine, and also because the course was getting rough. Mickey Thompson's record still stands in the Bonneville National's book. The USFRA accepts BNI records as minimums in the many classes in which records have not yet been set at this new meet now only in its third year. The Utah -based group has been holding meets now only in its third year. The Utahbased group has been holding meets on the salt for over a decad e but until 1987 not in this long-course format. Appropriately, a picture of Thompson's Challenger car was on the cover of the program, both as a tribute to Thompson, killed last year, and because Teague 's record was anticipated. Motorcycle Land Speed Record holder Don Vesco continued his quest for the wheel-driven car record in the new car built by brother Rick. Sunday the car suffered an electrical short and fire which filled the cockpit with fumes. The special Indy-type emergency air breathing system didn't work, and Vesco cracked the canopy trying to get it open. He also ran over a timing light while he was unable to see. With the wiring harness mostly replaced, Vesco tried again on Monday. This time while he was running at the very edge of the track he looked at the airspeed indicator which read 390, then back at the track to find himself aimed right at the five mile marker which he couldn't avoid. No time this run either. The heat from the slipper clutch may have damaged a hydraulic hose, which leaked, so the clutch didn't work on the next ruri. Vesco managed to shift up to third for a time of 305.707. He made a return run in the same manner with a tailwind of 314.795, for an average of 310.251, a record in the new A/GS class split from the all-inclusive old AlS class with a minimum of 290. The Vescos are pleased with the car, with no major malfunction at this meet. With the car geared for 210 in first, they were surprised that it pulled away from the hot-rod 11second jeep serving as push car. The Vescos, Al Teague, Nolan White wi th a top time of 388 so far in his 'liner, and some others, may be able to return to the salt later in October or in early November on private time. One other car with a motorcycle engine set a record, Jim Burkdoll's 'liner powered by something from the Scott Guthrie collection of TZ motors, this time in the K/GS class

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