Cycle News

VOL. 52 ISSUE 32 AUGUST 11, 2015 P153 pletely unworthy and unprepared for the task ahead. "Go out there and f****n' give it to it!" Pete yelled over the thundering mass of brain-warping horsepower that sat beneath my jewels. Rolling down pitlane and onto the track, Hunta didn't actu- ally seem that heinous. There was power, my God, there was power, but at average speeds I began to wonder if I'd worked this motorcycle up in my head to be something I simply couldn't bet- ter, like meeting your idol only to find out they too can be a miser- able bastard like the rest of us. But as I trundled around on my outlap, I made a promise to myself. I knew, even in a job like this that specialized in motor- cycles built on the wrong side of human sanity, that riding a bike such as Hunta was a very rare occurrence. With that in mind I said the words out loud in my helmet, "I'm not backing off un- less this thing flips." Once you say it, you're com- mitted. Out of the old turn nine hairpin, thumb on the left bar airshifter, full gas. The T-713 went from no boost to total power, charging the front wheel to the sky with the pissed-off- shark intensity. It scared me so badly I instantly shut the throttle, greeted by a massive pssshh- hhh of the blow off valve and a huge thud as the steering head copped the full brute force of a slamming front wheel. I broke a promise I made to myself. I backed off. I knew what I did wrong. I'd ridden Hunta like the RSV, weight neutral on the chassis, not lunging myself forward like I was an Olympic hurdler. It was an instant and potentially painful reminder that this was no ordi- nary machine. I'd never ridden anything remotely like it before and probably never would again, so I had to wise up. The final corners leading onto the .6-mile-long Eastern Creek front straight are a double left to be taken as one. Depending on your speed you can either run it as a big arc, leaned hard over and get big on the throttle, superbike style, or you can go right out wide, turn it late and fire it down the line like a drag bike. With next to no lean angle pos- sible due to the engine jutting out either side of the chassis, I chose the latter. "I'm really not backing off un- less this thing flips," I yelled into the chinbar of the M2R helmet. Right. Second gear, no idea of the rpm, just playing by sound. Hunta straight up, weight over the bar, right foot over the rear brake, thumb on shifter. The next five seconds are tattooed on my brain. Hunter took a sec- ond to come on boost, and with throttle pinned to the stop, didn't so much as lurch forward as rip a hole through time. Before my mind even knew what was going on I was at turn one, frantically working the brakes to haul Pete's bike up before I was next on his blood list for crashing his bike. It wasn't so much that Hunta was the fastest bike I'd ever rid- den, any modern superbike feels fast if you really give it its full lungs, it was the sheer violence of Hunta's acceleration that sticks to mind. This was a land- mine masquerading as a motor- cycle. The noise and speed and evilness of this bike manifested itself into five seconds of blood- curdling, unimaginable terror, the kind you only truly experi- ence a few times in your life, because once you do, you need something faster, more maniacal to top it. I have yet to find such an experience. All these years later, Hunta serves as a reminder as to why I love motorcycles. Hunta was a death-defying, spirit-twisting savage of metal and sound and speed, a complete "get bent" to any form of sense and sensibil- ity the world could throw at me. That's motorcycling in a nut- shell. Motorcycling is the most dangerous, life-affirming thing you can do. To ride is to experi- ence, and to experience is to live. I have no idea where Hunta or Pete are now. I hope the two of them are out terrorizing the mundane and bored, because a bike like that is the exact antith- esis of the two. CN

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