5-Ball Bonneville Racing

It all started when my mother ran over my metal- flaked Honda 55 Super Cub with a single shotgun pipe. She stormed into our tiny stucco house in Long Beach and announced, “Get that damn thing out from under my car.” Her car was a massive ’59 Ford station wagon. It was 1964 and I […]

A Salt torpedo progress report reached a high-point on my to-do list, but the 83rd Sturgis rally hit today, yikes. We have less than three weeks to prepare and roll to the Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trials is Wendover, Utah on the 25th. Scrutineering has been the major obstacle to our progress. Or should that be

We were facing $10,000 to take the team to the Texas mile to make some trial passes, when my son called and spoke to me about financial reasoning. I paid attention and saved. Found out later there might be a Colorado Mile event by the Texas Mile folks in the near future. I quickly made

We made amazing progress on the Salt Torpedo. We now have a solid team and will be up on three wheels for events in 2023, with what appears to be the first Streamlined Trike. We need to raise enough money to make the run to perhaps the Texas Mile in March, Bonneville BMST in September,

Salt Torpedo Getting Ready for the SaltWe’re beginning to prep the Salt Torpedo for the BMST event from August 27 until September 2 in Bonneville, Utah on 65-square miles of salt. This event will take place just a couple of weeks after the historic Bonneville Speed Trials for everything on wheels. The BMST was developed

The ongoing pursuit to preserve the Bonneville Salt Flats has scored another victory and SEMA, along with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Utah Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Utah Geological Survey (UGS), and Intrepid Potash Inc. marked more progress in restoring the area’s precious salt. A new well installed in the summer of

    On Tuesday, January 22, we nervously took the Salt Torpedo into the desert for some passes on a desolate paved road. I can’t tell you where we went. It’s top-speed secret, that only coyotes and bleak desert bikers know about. What a trip.   Zack and my Grandson, Frankie helped us load it

A week before the Bonneville International Speed Trials in warm Wendover, Utah, the wind was mild and the salt wet. It wasn’t a stellar year on the salt. Speed Week was shut down for 4 days due to rain. The only pass we made was around the block and I was knocked out, but we

We are so damn close, yet let’s see. I will rattle off my Salt Torpedo list. We are considering using one of the new Feuling oil tank vents to prevent blow-by. Unfortunately, they haven’t developed one for Twin Cam engines, only the new M-8 configuration. I made progress on the team T-shirts, and Micah had

I’m going to make this super quick. I need to get back to the shop. It’s Tuesday morning and George “The Wild Brush is about to show up to help with fiberglass and our canopy. Actually, I spoke to him last week and he told me that no problem, he could help with the canopy.

We hauled ass on this project every week this year with few stumbling blocks. We didn’t know what the hell we were doing half the time, but we never hesitated to reach out to experts. All seemed to be flying toward a start-up and running this puppy around the block, until we faced fiberglass. It

Remember when I mentioned the following: Okay, so the Salt Torpedo got close to being ready for fiberglass work. I spoke to Gary Maur, of Kustom Fab, in Detroit, and he convinced me that we could handle it in the shop. That was a confidence builder, but I still didn’t like the notion of grinding

You know me, I can’t sit still and talk about old times when we’re burnin’ daylight. My grandson Frankie showed up with the lovely Em who is another well-known tattoo artist. Harold and I said hello and peeled for the shop. I had to monkey with the Torpedo exhaust system again. The turn-out was going

This chapter will contain lots of questions. I always wanted to be able to adjust the height or ground clearance, but that’s becoming more of an issue. So initially I would like to know if I can buy larger diameter front wheels, which I will research today. Micah wants it as low as possible. “Less

The last few weeks have been interesting and challenging. We are actually getting close to watching the Salt Torpedo sit on its own three wheels with the help of Yelvington Shocks. A set of 9.5-inch rear Yelvington shocks could reach us this week, but I made two sets of struts to hold us over. We

Wham, we are cooking. In this chapter we will discuss frame progress, front suspension progress, seat progress, harness progress, rear brake progress and more. We are now working with the team three days a week, in the afternoons, Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday. I’m the janitor and responsible for cleaning the shop between sessions. I’m also

It’s been a wild couple of weeks. The goal this year was to slow down, but that isn’t happening. We are scrambling to reconfigure all of the Bikernet web sites, trying to get someone to make a movie around one of my crappy books, not go broke and build the first streamlined trike in the

We found ourselves lost in the Holidays, but fortunately Kevin Kahl returned from Kansas after a surgery to relieve the pain in his legs. Most of my homework assignments were completed. He didn’t recuperate for a couple of days after the long drive but immediately came to the shop with his compact car packed with

Content I hope to have a front section mock up of the nose of the frame middle of next week. this will include cutting and shrinking of the alum seat and building a cage for the driver. We will mock up / tack together the frontcage using exhaust pipes bent for maximum clearance to prove the

This is a tough one. We all have dreams, but dreams take resources. And of course, your resources need resources. Our Bikernet, 5-Ball Racing dream is to build the first streamlined trike, the Salt Torpedo. Several companies recognized the concept and stepped up, including JIMS machine, Paughco, MetalSport, Carl’s Speed Shop and BDL. We got

I know it, and I am sympathetic to all our struggles, and I believe it’ll all be worthwhile, with any luck the next update will help bring on additional sponsors.  Just sent the cop bagga bike home last week and almost finished with the Victory metal work, so I can start building the trike frame

  In his latest film, THREE MILE, hot rod film maker Brian Darwas shows us how important of a resource The Bonneville Salt Flats are to the automotive world. With salt levels diminishing at an alarming rate, causing the cancellation of Speedweek for two consecutive years, THREE MILE is the film that everyone needs to

…. Rollin to the Bikernet, Global Headquarters, Wilmington, Ca. Thanks, Thanks, Thanks….. for unlimited encouragement and more. Keith R. Ball, www.bikernet.com, Brad, www.aerocharger.com, Kent Riches, www.airtech-streamlining.com, Chance Darling, www.barnettclutches.com, Alan Alvarez, www.daytona-twintec.com, Jimmie, www.horsepowerinc.net, Randy Torgeson, www.kingofcubes.com, Paul Kittrell, www.lyndallracingbrakes.com, Paul Thede, www.racetech.com, Reggie Sr. & Jr. www.rrcycle.com, Nitro Bill, www.stddevelopment.com, Guy Caputo, Tiger Racing,

This has been a very strange weather pattern year for the Bonneville Salt Flats. One day, it can be a mess and three days later, it’s ready to race. I spoke to Bill Woods yesterday and the salt has been under constant investigation. It rained again last Friday (August 14), and yesterday the team members