VOL. 54 ISSUE 20 MAY 23, 2017 P61
tions. I hadn't changed a thing
on the bike other than fitting
new chains and checking all the
bearings. It was already a chal-
lenge to ride, and extremely dif-
ficult to handle—riding it entailed
about 70% fear and 30% fun!
But the mountain stands in front
of you, and you must conquer it.
"So my two years of plan-
ning went out the window, and
as soon as I got to Bonneville I
changed to one tooth less in the
back sprocket, which geared me
for about 223 mph. Older, wiser
men told me not to, but I did it
anyway. I think when you un-
load your race bike at the track
you grow fangs! So I thought I
would take a nice mature pass
down the track to start out with,
and at least learn how to ride
the bike again, after all, I'd only
ever made five passes down
the salt on it, and I needed to
gain some familiarity with what
was such an awkward machine
to ride. But when you leave the
line, you leave all your good
intentions behind!"
"I was entering mile three, and
I finally had the Double Duck
pinned wide open somewhere
around 190 mph, when it spun
out and pitched sideways—it
was a big slide! In my head I
started laughing and thought,
'oh shit, I'm 11 feet long, and this
isn't looking good!' So I backed
off the throttle a hair, and tried
holding it there. By the time I
saw the flying mile markers my
helmet was shaking so violently
I just tried to tuck it down behind
the front tire, thinking, 'wow, this
feels like the fastest I've ever
gone!' I left the traps and slowed
until I could pull off the course
and stop to wait for Carl and the
back-up crew to pick me up. A
young lad pulled up in a truck
and said, 'hey, want a water?'
'Yeah, great, thanks. Did you
hear the radio?'
He said, 'yeah, you did a 205!'
"I threw my arms into his open
window and gave him a big hug,
then I pointed up to the sky and
said, thank you Jesus! I'm still
alive, and I'm in the 200 MPH
Club!
"There are many stories I
could tell about each of the
runs on the bike. Most of them
I couldn't see properly because
of the salt spray off the front tire,
and it's hard to keep it straight
because the horizon is always
moving. It was very stable at
high speeds with that steering
arrangement, but you could feel
the rear tire spinning up repeat-
edly. I didn't have any gauges to
look at in front of me—they were
out back! So I could only go by
vibration because I couldn't hear
anything but wind noise. But
I'm just so happy to be alive. I
went off-course twice, and ran
over lots of flags, but only broke
my brake reservoir, which kept
falling off, so I did most of the
passes with no brakes available.
Didn't seem to affect the perfor-
mance any!
"I threw my arms into his open
window and gave him a big
hug, then I pointed up to the
sky and said, thank you Jesus!
I'm still alive…"
Bjorklund's best
one-way pass of
205.827 mph beat
the previous record
by 35 mph, using
stock, unmodified
999cc desmo V-twin
engines fitted with
Power Commanders
and autotune.
