FEATURE
TOP OF THE WORLD LAND SPEED TRIAL
P106
"Bonneville is at 4000 feet;
Uyuni is at 12,000 feet," Akatiff
explained. "So the difference
from going to Bonneville to
Bolivia is eight percent less wind
resistance. For example, if you
have so much wind drag against
the bike and you have so much
power available and you go 400
at Bonneville, the same bike
at Uyuni with the same power,
you're all of a sudden going 432:
eight percent faster."
The altitude is purely an ad-
vantage, as the turbo on the Ack
Attack will prevent any loss of
power in to the thinner air.
"If you had a normally aspi-
rated bike with no supercharger
or turbo on it, it would be a huge
mistake to go [to 12,000 feet],"
Akatiff continued. "But we have
a turbo charger on the Ack At-
tack. Up there, if you can spin
the turbo fast enough to make
25 pounds of boost, you're
going to have the exact same
power as we have at sea level,
or at Bonneville."
Of course, the turbo will need
to work harder to feed the air to
the engines, which presented
another potential challenge.
Fortunately a run-in with Garrett
Turbos at the SEMA show in
November resulted in a custom
turbocharger for the Ack Attack.
"The Garret turbocharger
guys were really interested in
[the Top1 Ack Attack]. We talked
to them about what turbo we had
on it. They told us if you're turn-
ing the turbo at 100,000 rpms
to make 25 pounds of boost, to
make the same boost at 12,000
feet we're going to have to turn
it 128,000 and you're in danger
of exploding the wheels. So they
designed us a new turbo with all
solid machined wheels and it is
absolutely able to make 30 to
40 pounds of boost up there no
problem," said Akatiff.
"We're going to be able to
have as much or more power
than we've ever used at Bonnev-
ille and that's a huge advantage.
All these things put together is
why I'm saying we can go really,
really fast. On the other hand,
we could get there and break
something that's not fixable and
be out. You just don't know."
Akatiff's Bolivian venture is not
only a massive undertaking, it's
also a massive gamble—some-
thing Akatiff and his team are
well aware of. Even an hour's
drive from a major U.S. city can
