Bonneville 2010 Photos

Just a smattering of photos from Bonneville SpeedWeek 2010. All photos courtesy of Jon Glover.

Bonneville Timing Tags

There were a couple of SCTA envelopes in the mail, upon opening them Kyle and my brass timing tags had showed up from Speed Week 2010. No photo of Kyle's because it is probably already at his house, him polishing it slowly with a sock while whimpering like a puppy. Very neat though. I had a dream two nights ago that I showed up at Bonneville to race but had forgot my leathers. Bummer.

Aussie Invasion at Bonneville Speed Week!

One of the first days of racing I see this bike on the start line while I am waiting for my turn to run. I literally did a double take, took some pics and watched the bike take off....a Vincent...Really?! It was another day or so before we got to meet this crew from the other side of the globe. Ends up they were here to run at Speed Week then stay on and run the BUB trials also, all in all they were spending about 5 weeks in the US traveling in between just crushing records in their classes.
L to R: Mal Hewett, Shane Hicks, Mark Hamilton (Digger), Bill Lockwood, Col Kranz, and Paul Wilkins and their World Record Holding Vincent!
Here is most of the Aussie crew, along with my dad, Tyler and myself waiting in line for one of our last runs at Speed Week.
These guys are the real deal, they left Australia and came halfway around the world to race the salt and make some history. And evidently terrorize some casino waitresses I hear! Hope to see you guys next Speed Week!

The Salt Ghost At Bonneville Salt Flats 2010

These are just a few teaser photos from Jon Glover who hung out and lent us a hand and photographed the activities for a couple days during Bonneville Speed Week 2010 while we were there with the Four Aces crew racing. I can't wait to get the CD in the mail and check out the rest of the photos, these look amazing.




Here is a pic of Theo Ozen who built this bike and raced it for a couple decades at Bonneville Speed Week in 1967. Stay tuned for more info on both man and machine.

Bonneville Speed Week 2010 Photos

You can check out our Flickr album of personal Bonneville pics here, it includes photos from when we first left until the end of our trip. Unedited just a bunch of photos, lots of cool stuff, there are 251 of them for you to peruse.


Michael Van Parys hung out on the first Sunday and took photos, these 42 photos are the first batch he sent us. More to come from him, and also from John Glover of Salt Lake City who helped out on Monday and Tuesday and took tons of photos. Stay tuned to the Blog for more as they come in.

Pulled the Head Off My Green Race Bike

Finally had some time to work on my bike since getting back from Bonneville a week ago. Pulled the head off to take a look, as I know I bent the right hand exhaust valve when preparing to do a back-up record run. Piston crowns look fine, cylinder walls look great, no issues there. But I can tell that my right exhaust valve was having an affair with the piston, it just slightly kissed it. What a harlot.


No real damage though, head is boxed up and already shipped off to Wes at Four Aces Cycle to go through, also sent him my Chronometric Tachometer to be rebuilt. I am having him put together an identical spare head for me too, it is a chunk of change to have sitting around, but it could save the heartache of being at Bonneville but not being able to run because of an issue like I already had.

Tyler

My Green Triumph Going Off The Starting Line, Bonneville Speed Week 2010

Here is a video that Mark Williams from Baltimore took of me going off the line at Bonneville Speed Week 2010.

Tyler

Ohio or Bust!!

We're cruising along in the middle of Wyoming and due to the miracle of modern technology we can post this blog from the RV! Today was the last day of Bonneville Speed Week 2010 and qualifying runs ended at noon so we packed up the pit and hit the road, headed home for Ohio. I (Kyle) got a few runs in today, all over 100 and worked on dialing my bike in and making adjustments and enjoying the much shorter lines at the course. Wes got 2 runs in on the Salt Ghost both around 119, not quite as high as Tyler's earlier run of 121 but pretty amazing for such an old race bike. We have a ton of photos and a couple photographers who will be sending uis a bunch more, so keep your eyes peeled for those!




We want to thank everyone who came and supported us as well as all the great people from all over the world we met there also! And a special thanks goes out to the SCTA, the BNI, and all the volunteers who make this massive event happen! Here's a picture of the motorcycle tech crew, just a few of the people who helped us out through the week. See you guys soon, we are making plans to go back as I type! Cheers, Kyle

Finally sorted my issues out and got to run again!

After days of mechanical issues now and huge frustrations I finally got my parts in and got my bike running right! I got out onto the line with Tyler when he made his qualifying record run and got to see what my machine can do. I took off, the bike ran great I shifted at 7000rpms, not pushing it too much and it pulled through the first three gears great, and then I didn't get a positive shift into 4th gear and lost about a thousand rpms before it engaged. Big bummer but I just hunkered down and held it wide open. I got picked up and taken to timing and even with the issues and not running since last weekend I ran 97.317mph! Almost the ton! Pretty respectable for a vintage 650 on the salt.
I went to impound with Tyler and got to work going over everything on my bike, checking plugs, making adjustments, cutting a few inched off of my clip-ons to bring them in tighter. I also found that my throttle had slipped and rotated back and I don't even know if I was wide open during my run! It is amazing what can and will shake loose in such a quick short run. Tyler makes his record run in the morning and then I will be making a run and really wind my bike out and make sure I have clean shifts and see what it can really do! Two days left to see how fast she can go. We'll keep you posted! Cheers, Kyle

A Good Way To Spend A Tuesday

You may have seen photos of this bike on this site or elsewhere, it is owned by both Wes White of Four Aces Cycle and myself, and we call it the Salt Ghost. It was raced at Bonneville Speed Week and El Mirage starting in 1967. We decided that it might be a good idea to race it again. Here is a photo of it in line at the short course at Bonneville this morning.


It has a similar setup as my personal bike, long and low with rearsets and a reversed shift pattern, so I got the good fortune to be the first to ride it. I was actually pretty nervous just because on my own bike I know every nut and bolt and am very in tune with it, and this was a bike I was just getting on and going wide open.


The way it is set up it is difficult to get in position on it until you are in motion. Start it and constantly blip the throttle as the Amal Grand Prix carburetors have no idle circuit, they are meant for all out speed. Wes started it up for me, I took over the throttle, he pulled off the kick starter lever and Dangerous Dave shifted it up into first for me by hand. Once the starter let me know the course was clear I took off, swinging my feet up onto the rearsets and tucking in.

119.9 mph, it blew me away, I guessed 105. We got right back in line and I shifted into 4th half mile earlier and tucked in as tight as I could, laying my head sideways on the tank behind the tach and watching the orange cones on the far side as a reference point. I just kept full throttle until I saw the 3 mile mark then cut to the left. 121.675 mph, just 2 miles shy of the record. Needless to say, I was happy. We got in line again and Wes was going to run the bike, he is 35 lb lighter than me and we figured that could pick us up the couple miles we needed. Unfortunately one of the Amal GP carbs pulled out of the manifold just a mile or so down the track and on top of it the mag gear spun off, killing the spark.

And that is our day in a nutshell. Tomorrow we do something new and different, wrenching and racing motorcycles all day. I can't believe it is only Tuesday I feel like we have been gone forever.

Tyler

The "Salt Assult". (tm Wes White 2010)

First off sorry for the lack of updates yesterday and today, these long days on the salt are killer and pass so amazingly fast! By the time we leave shower and eat we are exhausted and ready to hit the hay!
Sat Aug 14th, Rookie runs:

Kyle: We lined up sat afternoon for our Rookie runs, just to prove you can follow the course rules and handle your machine. We were pretty comfy sitting in the back of the RV as we inched up in line and I got a little more tense the closer we got! When we were about five vehicles back we suited up, unloaded our bikes and watched the racing from the starting line. Pulling up to the line was pretty hectic, about 5000 things running through my head, but as soon as I was waved I took a deep breath and let out the clutch and took off. It was pretty amazing I don't think I have ever been that focused and I think I truly understand what "living in the moment" means. I shifted my gears at 6000rpms but had some tuning issues and had to pull off course before the second mile so I never got timed. As soon as I was clear and stopped moving I pulled my helmet and gloves off, I am pretty sure my heart was beating 150 bpm! I spent the rest of the day tuning, which is definitely a different animal out here! We got back in line for another run at 6pm. We didn't quite make it but left our trailer in line and were 2nd up for Sunday morning!

Tyler: Getting up to the line that first time was an experience in itself. Most times I felt cool as a cucumber but at others my nervousness and anticipation spiked. Riding in a straight line as fast as you can isn't difficult in itself, but add all the factors at Bonneville into it and it makes for a different experience. On my rookie run I took off and was on autopilot not even thinking and I was in fourth gear and 7000 rpm before I hit the first mile marker. I kept it at 7000 and got my elbows and knees tucked as tight as possible and slid back against my seat and tucked my chin in right behind my front triple tree, tach staring me in the face. At the 1.5 mile mark all of a sudden I started dropping RPMs, felt it falter, and tried to keep the throttle open to hit the 2nd mile marker and get a timing mark so I could see how fast I was going. I sat up as I slowed and pulled my clutch in and hit my kill switch as soon as I passed the 2 mile mark and turned out onto the open salt towards the return road. I was surprised to go pick up my timing slip and see that when I sat up and felt like I was doing maybe 60 I was doing 96 and change. I think I was in the 100-teens somewhere before my revs faltered. I think I blocked the vent on my gas cap with my leathers and hence kept gas from flowing to my carbs. All in all it was great, so exhilarating, and the first run made the following runs so much more comfortable. These runs don't last that long as far as actual time goes, but it is crazy how long them seem to last in the moment.

Sunday August 15th:

Kyle. We woke up early and went out to the starting line first thing Sunday morning, and got to see the sun rise on the salt, it was such a cool way to start my birthday! We had to wait for a couple record runs (If you qualify for a record, your bike goes into impound and you can't run until early the next morning. Your two runs are averaged and if your average is better than the current record, it's yours.) before us and next thing you knew we were geared up and ready to run! I felt much less nervous and much more focused on my run once getting rid of the first time jitters. I took off and immediately knew I had issues, my bike started breaking up at 5000rpms and I pushed though but couldn't even get the speed to get to 4th gear, killed the bike and coasted through at a whopping 55mph! Not what I had hoped for, but we got right back in line did some more adjustments and did our 3rd run. I had just about the same issues so we headed back to the pit and I spent the next 8 hrs going over everything, valves, timing, a lot of time on carbs, magneto. Finally around 5pm, very frustrated, and still running wrong, I decided to advance my timing past what it should be and my bike just roared. We got back to the starting line around 6pm and same as yesterday we dropped the trailer and are about 4 people back after the mornings record runs. I think I am on the right track and hopefully can turn out some much better numbers tomorrow!


Tyler: As Kyle said we were up and in line bright and early. I fired my bike up and it was popping and cracking a bit at idle so I swapped out the jets and went one size up. First run was almost an identical one to my 1st Rookie run, though I was sure not to lay on my gas cap vent and plug it. I did 96 and change at the 2nd mile timing light once again. As soon as I stopped at the return road I was ready to roll and Kyle and Denny (our Dad) picked us up in the RV chase vehicle and we got right back in line. The line was amazingly short and we each had time to do a bit of tuning work on our bikes and next thing you knew we were hustling to finish getting suited up and up to the line. When I pulled my plugs I found something interesting, my left spark plug electrode was basically gone, pummeled by my piston. I think at the high RPMs I got a bit of float or crank flex so I put another spacer on each plug to give a bit more clearance before my 2nd run of the morning. The following run wasn't much different, I wound it out and shifted from 3rd into 4th at 8300 RPM, which dropped me to about 7000 RPM, though I slowly ticked down to about 6500 when crossing the 2nd mile mark. 98 and change, slow and unsatisfactory, and another spark plug electrode smashed to hell. So go figure running on 1 cylinder isn't the best way to set speed records. I spent the rest of the day tuning and I think I sorted out my issues, my bike is sitting right now about 6th in line on the Salt and I hope to haul ass in the morning and see if my tuning did the trick. I think I still need to drop a jet size but I would rather run rich than too lean at the moment just to test my theories. It is amazing how many issues crop up when racing, between fixing parts in the pit to tuning to keeping your bike from vibrating apart when keeping it pinned at high RPMs for extended periods. The Salt changes everything, I, like most others who come to race, think they are going to set the world on fire. I am still working at it but I am headed in the riight direction!



We also want to thank all the guys from Chopcult and the Jockey Journal , and all of our customers who came by to check out our bikes, see how we are doing, and wish us well! I tried uploading some videos direct to YouTube but without a good wifi signal (we are doing all computer stuff via our phones) I can't get any good quality video online. BUT we have some good stuff that will be uploaded when we get back, if not sooner. Stay tuned for updates..
Cheers, Tyler and Kyle