3 Idiots do Bonneville: Part 2 of 2

The 2nd half of Benjamin Mauceri's story "3 Idiots do Bonneville", of their race efforts at Bonneville Speed Week 2011, where we met them.

"Nate was first to go. I've never seen him more nervous. This is a guy who's been a professional cyclist for years. He's seen thousands of green flags in his life. He's worked on professional race cars. He's won races at Willow. He's travelled on a BMW GS solo through Mexico camping the whole way. But going 3 miles in a straight line gave him butterflies. Its a reflection of the place, not the man.
Bonneville rules say that an entered vehicle can only be under its own power on the course. Once a run is over, a chase vehicle must pick up the entrant on the side of the "return road" (which is really a poorly-marked strip of salt amidst other unmarked expanses of salt). The technique is for the racer to shut down and then turn off the course with enough speed to coast the 1/4 mile to the return, "road". They then sit there until the chase truck arrives.

At this point, I should probably talk about the surface. It's very strange stuff. The closest thing I can think of is really hard-packed dry snow. The salt is sticky and tacky but loose at the same time. It's also bumpy. And it tastes terrible.


We're up and the starter sends Nate into the unknown. Andy and I pile into the RV and head out after him along the chase road.

4 minutes later (remember the scale of the place), we find Nate on the side of the return road pumping his arms and screaming with joy. He can barely form words. When he does, he yells, "We can go faster!" We put the bike on the lift and head back to the timing tower to pick up Nate's slip showing his speed.

124mph.

Andy's up next and we get back in line to run again. Nate's trying to tell us what he experienced but he's failing. We get it and forgive him when he stops trying.

In line, we chat with other competitors and it strikes all of us how much everyone wants everyone else to have a good time. "Good luck!" and, "Hope you go good!" are exchanged freely among everyone there. It's wonderful.

An hour later, Andy lines up and sets off. Nate and I lay chase in the RV.

We find Andy at the end of the course with tears in his eyes. There were five separate times this trip when it looked certain that he wouldn't make that run. I can't imagine what it felt like for him to finally do it.

"It's just going in a straight line, right?

Yes. That's all it is.

We pick up Andy's slip. 129mph. The bike was turning over 10k in 6th. Surely this is all it has. It's a stock SV for pete's sake. At altitude. On salt.

By the time Andy's done, it's clear we wont have time to make another run before they close the salt at 7:30. I'll have to wait for tomorrow.

Dinner. Another $7 shower. Bed.

The next morning, we're on the salt at 6:30. After some coffee and some waiting, it's my turn.


I'm in Nate's un-ironically retro leathers which probably offer no protection and I'm sitting on a bike I've never ridden about to go as fast as I can on a surface I've only driven in a car - at 45 mph.

Given the situation, I'm surprisingly calm. I'm usually the one in this group with nerves. I'm also usually the slowest. Andy's gone faster around Willow on an SV than most people thought possible. Nate's usually 3-5 seconds a lap faster than I am. On the line, my only hope is I manage to crack 120.

The starter gives me the signal and I'm off. I forgot who I was for a minute and I whack the throttle open and spin the rear wheel. I'm surprised when my reaction to the spinning rear is to keep it pinned and grab second. More spinning. Then grip. 3rd. 4th. 5th…. 6th. "Get small" I think. I lift my ass off the seat and put my head under the screen. I squeeze my elbows as tight against the tank as I can. I breathe. Hard. 1 mile. Breathe. Tuck. Smaller. Turn the throttle harder. 2 miles. Smaller still. Breathe. 3 miles. Roll off, sit up and start the bike turning on this odd surface.


I kill the engine and roll to a stop along the return road. I'm on the moon. I've just had one of the most intense 90 seconds of my life and I'm now 4 miles from anyone else on a surface that looks like the damn moon.

After the violence and intensity of running a motorcycle as fast as it will go, everything is so quiet. So serene. It's amazing. It's overwhelming. I break the silence by pounding on the tank and screaming in my helmet.

Then I see the RV headed towards me at 50 mph. It pulls up and Nate and Andy jump out screaming. I'm screaming. High-fives, hugs and arm pumping all around. They take the bike from me and I crawl into the RV and try to speak.

"It's just going in a straight line, right?

Yes. That's all it is.

I pull off Nate's useless leathers and put on shorts. We pull up to the timing tower and I jump out to get my slip.

134.7 mph bitches!

Andy and Nate howl. Andy tells me that earlier, he and Nate talked about how excellent it would be if I was the one to take it to the next level. That's why I love these guys.

We pull back in line and wait for Nate's next run.

Andy starts to talk about how we need red hats.

When you do 200mph on the salt, you are inducted into the, "200mph Club". There are fewer people in that club than are in the "People Who Have Stood at the Top of Everest Club". One of the things you get when you join the club is a red hat. On the salt, those wearing the hats are shown immense respect.

Andy spends the next hour thinking about what we'd need. "A Hayabusa for starters" I say. "Yup" says Andy calmly. Crap. We're going to buy a Hayabusa.

Nate manages to up the best speed we record by another mph. On Andy's next run, he nudges above 130mph. It's now 1pm and the guys wanted to head back to LA an hour ago. They ask if its okay that I only made one pass. Of course it is. It's only going in a straight line after all.

Many many thanks to Andy and Nate for making this incredible experience possible. There are no other guys I'd rather do this with (or with whom this would have been possible). Many thanks to Kyle and the guys at Lowbrow Customs for saving Andy's experience. Their generosity will not be soon forgotten. Guys - Please reach out to us if you're in LA or NYC or when you want to go roadracing. Thanks to Stephen for lending us the RV. We missed you this trip. Thanks also to tech crew for putting up with us and to all the experienced racers and 200mph Club members for making us feel welcome.

We'll be back next year.

Pictures are here."

3 Idiots do Bonneville: Part 1 of 2

This story was written by Benjamin Mauceri, whom we met along with his friends out at Bonneville Speed Week 2011. The following is part 1 of 2 of the story of their racing efforts and some photos of their time on the salt. We enjoyed it and thought you might too. Enjoy.

"There's an argument about who's idea Bonneville was. Since I'm usually the guy in the group suggesting oddball things to do with a motorcycle, I assume it was me. I remember talking about it for a few years as something cool we could do. Nate's been across the salt on his GS on the way to meeting me at Miller for the WSBK race and thinks it was his idea. Andy's dad ran there and since he's built all the bikes on which Nate or I ever raced, he fundamentally believes neither of us have had an idea about motorcycles that he didn't place in our heads.

No matter. A few months ago, I get an email form Andy that Bonneville is happening and asking if I'm in. I was marginally offended by the question.

I flew in to Salt Lake City from a friend's wedding in Northern California. I picked up my rental car and headed East the 100 miles to the flats to meet Nate and Andy who have been there since late the night before.

Along the way, I get a text from Andy telling me that he hopes I fit into the speedway leathers Nate bought. Hmmmm. When I show up at the flats around 4pm I find out that Nate and Andy have spent the entire day trying to get the bike to pass tech.

Andy brought three bikes for us - all of which would pass tech at every roadracing organization in the country. In a move that's very unlike us, we neglected to read the rule book and just showed up.

When the boys rolled the bikes through tech on Monday morning, they were handed a list of things they'd need to fix. Bikes at Bonneville need a metal chain guard (we used a piece of fencing Nate and Andy found at a hardware store in town). They need a metal battery tie down (we used a large hose clamp). They need a front sprocket cover (we used a masonry trowel that Andy cut the handle off of and drilled bolt holes in to). They need metal valve stems (luckily one of the bikes we bought had them - so we swapped wheels).


Then there was the issue with the leathers. At Bonneville, leathers have to be free from perforations or stretch panels. Our custom, perfectly-fitting protective roadracing suits wouldn't work. We were also told the humps on the suits would bump us into the Partially Streamlined classes.

Nate and Andy watched this trip evaporate in front of their eyes. No leathers, no riding.

While the conversation about 130mph get-offs in modern roadracing suits was unfolding, Nate saw something. Hanging in the back of the tech trailer was a set of speedway leathers that were maybe 30 years old. Nate asked how big they were. He tried them on and $250 later, they were his. Luckily, I didn't gain any weight back and I'm still Nate's size. Andy, though, was out of luck - or so it seemed.

Confident for the first time that we would actually ride, we rolled out the grill and made steaks. After dinner, we drove to the nearest truck stop for a $7 shower then we piled back into the RV and went to sleep.

We were up at dawn the next day and headed the three miles out on to the salt.

Sometime in the morning, Andy saw a guy his size working on a beautiful old Triumph. Andy waled over and casually asked if he could borrow this guy's leathers. Without hesitation, the guy said sure. Andy was going to ride.

This is Bonneville. Here's a guy going for a record and happy to lend his only set of leathers to a perfect stranger who's predicament was entirely his own fault.

The atmosphere is everything you might imagine it would be. Nate called it a Burning Man for cars. I think that's right. The machinery surrounding us was unlike what you'd see anywhere else. Nice paint was traded for beautiful engineering. Old rusted-out bodies held immaculate small blocks which were more often than not topped with blowers. While some cars looked suspect, Bonneville is a place where the all of them sound and run excellent.

We passed tech and filled out all the necessary forms. We each looked at the, "Bonneville 2011 Participant" stickers and patches we were given with a sense of awe and legitimate reverence. We giggled at the notion that Andy's endurance bike (the one we ended up riding) was now wearing a SCTA sticker that corresponded to an official log book. Somehow, this became very important to all of us. We all knew we wanted to come out here but I don't think we knew why. People kept saying to us, "I don't get it. Isn't it just going in a straight line? And not really that fast?" Yes. It's exactly that.

We attended rookie orientation at 11am and then finally headed for the courses.

Here's where the scale of the place sets in: There were three courses this year. Course 3 was the bunny slope at 5 miles long, Number 2 was 7 miles long and if you go over 175, they'll let you on Course 1 which is a full 9 miles. For us New Yorkers, that's Battery Park to the George Washington Bridge.

You can read that - and you can look at the pictures, but until you've stood there (or done a run), the size doesn't sink in.


On Course 3, you're allowed to be under power for 3 miles. After that, the last two are for slowing down. We're on a stock-ish SV650 making 79hp and we're at 6000ft elevation - and we're on salt. We thought we'd be good for maybe 125mph if we were lucky. We honestly had no idea.

The guys who do this a lot call the salt the Big White Dyno. You can talk all you want about how much power your car makes or how fast you've been down the 405 but the salt changes things. This is where the truth is. The salt will tell you exactly how fast your vehicle is not."