Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/875372
INDIAN MOTORCYCLE AND BONNEVILLE Feature P92 ry. It was indeed a grand affair, the pits re- splendent with Indian's trademark maroon red splashed across the vast complex as a festival atmosphere engulfed the Bonneville salt. DOING IT FOR BURT "One thing I've always said is, 'success has nothing to do with the number of zeroes in your bank account.' Success in my eyes is more to do with living the life you want. Living it to its fullest and inspiring people along the way," says rider Lee Munro, a man of Burt's stock and one who was more than happy to take up the challenge of honoring the great man under the Utah sun. "We are doing this for Burt, and it means a lot to me. But it's more a case of creating memories and showing the respect I have for Burt, really, as opposed to any re- cords we might take," he says. The Bonneville week marked the second time the Indian Motorcycle salt team and Lee had gone for top speed, having taken a Land Speed Record of 186.681 mph in the MPS-G class at the El Mirage dry lake bed in Southern California a month earlier in what, for Lee, was an essential pass to attain his Bonneville salt license. "We had only planned to go 184, but seeing as we smashed that mark on Lee's rookie run, we had to go faster," says Gary Gray. "We will set our new mark at 200 mph for Bonneville, which, if the conditions are ideal, we should have no problem in getting." The words "ideal" and "conditions" are two you very rarely hear in the same sentence when talking land speed racing and in particu- lar, the pursuit of speed at Bonneville. For the past three years, the salt flat was returned to the state it was for thousands of years—under water and totally unusable. Munro by name, and nature Lee Munro holds one of the most famous surnames in all of motorcycling, but you won't hear him talking about it. The grandnephew of Burt Munro is an accomplished racer himself but not one to toot his own horn, preferring to let his results in street and beach racing in his native New Zealand do the talking. "People used to say, 'You need to use Burt and pro- mote yourself and get yourself more sponsorship through your uncle.' I'm like, 'No, I won't do that.' I think results speak more than relations," says the typically straightfor- ward Kiwi. A pool builder by trade, Munro has enjoyed the highs of the sport away from the spotlight, entering select races back home, as well as the Isle of Man Manx Grand Prix, but this was his first time on the famous Bonneville salt. "When I first saw Bonneville, I sort of looked around and I thought to myself, 'Man, this is like a white, sandy beach with no beach.' It's like the sand's all watery, but there ain't no water. Riding on the sand is more abrasive; the sand doesn't contain as much mush underneath of it. The salt is more like wet, slushy snow on a road surface. So, if you can imagine riding like you've had a foot of snow and then it's starting to melt off and cars are trampling over it, then you're going from lane to lane across in the middle—that's kind of riding on the salt. The beach is more like riding on sort of a slightly more constant surface…it doesn't have those slippery bits." The Spirit of Munro project marked a milestone in Lee's on-again, off-again career, one that means more to him than almost any other. "My uncle John was the instigator in all of this," Lee says. "He asked if I'd be interested in doing a tribute to his dad, Burt, and I said 'Of course! If it's got two wheels and an engine, I'm keen as!' The Polaris guys have been abso- lutely fantastic, working after hours to get this bike done. I'm just so pleased I get to be the guy to ride it." Lee Munro, a New Zealander made from the same grit and graft as his great uncle, Burt.