Sept. 6, 2007 – Today is the last day here at BUB, and of course the most beautiful of all week. The sky is clear, slight breeze and perfect track conditions, at least for this wet year. Streamliners have been held off because of bad weather for the last two days, but not today. They are flying down the track in between AMA record setting motorcycles. The whole vibe today is good.
Val made her first pass at mid-day. She clocked 151 on the first pass and 161 on the backup, using the Nitrous on the backup.
The track was suppose to close at noon today, however they’re letting them run till three. We could have walked away, setting a record in an 2000 APS PF class again this year, but Bandit and Berry Wardlaw, the engine builder and master of Accurate Engineering, want one more run up and back since they seem to have the bike dialed in. Isn’t that always the case? On this last day we now have the bike tuned in and camp set-up figured out.
Val just ran again, as I typed this; I’m waiting for Bandit to call, with the time. It looked good. I ord came down that she ran over 154 mph and we were hoping for a return run.
At the end of today, the bike will go to impound for scrutinizing. Gotta make sure it is what we say it is. After a week of tuning, timing and nail-biting the rules call for taking the top end off the bike, so the judges can measure the bore and stroke. After that we head back to the hotel to relax until the banquet tonight. It will feel good to head home. We’ll leave tomorrow morning for State Line, (Primm) spend the night and get home on Saturday.
There won’t be a news today; working on this laptop is difficult, however I will post more photos later. People are continually coming in and out of camp with needs so can’t be on the computer for too long.
Wish us luck people. Two hours from now we will have an official record for our class, Special Construction, fuel, pushrod, 2000cc, partial streamline. Whew!!
I’ll post the final speed in a bit.
–Sin Wu
THAT’S IT IN A NUTSHELL– Except for a thousand nail-biting details. We’ll bring you all the harried elements over the next couple of weeks. I’m dodging the Bub’s banquet just to bring you a handful of images and a brief note. The complete effort will be published as a book by Wolfgang publications and distributed near Christmas.
Just today we fired the Nitrous to the Assalt Weapan for the first time. Our AIM sports data acquisition system worked fantastically. We could tell shift points, rpms, wheel slippage and exhaust temps. One cylinder jumped up during a brief 30 horsepower blast and the other dropped to a cooler level as expected. We discovered a severed line and returned to the pits. Get this. They told us we could make two more passes for an enhanced record, if we qualified before 1:00 p.m. Then we were told record runs could be attempted until 3:00. We were on line with an improved tuning package at 1:30. We made our initial pass by 2:00 and jammed back to the impound area to make a return pass.
Wait until I tell you about the conditions of the salt and the trips on this long rigid frame from starting points and back to the pits. We were ready for our final pass, and a 170 mph run, when the AMA official, Ken, shut us down. We were supposed to qualify before 1:00. We were toast yet tuned like never before.
Larry Petri, the builder, from the notorious Chop N Grind crew took me aside after the event closed. “You guys did an amazing job,” he said. “The conditions on the salt have never been this bad in the last six years and you made passes at 162 mph on a ground up concept bike, at your first meet. You should be damn proud.”
We may still be the owners of the Worlds Fastest Panhead and own another AMA World Land Speed Record. We’ll fill you in next week and more in the Sunday Post, when I’m not trying to hunt and peck on this bastard lap top.
Ride Forever,
Bandit
P.S. This just in. Like I said, I’m missing the banquet to bring you some news. I just received a call from Barry Wardlaw that the Assalt Weapan won the Best Engineered Motorcycle Award for this Bubs Bonneville meet at 8:44 this evening. Damn, all Bikernet Readers, sponsors and Chris Kallas, our concept drawing, illustrator, should be proud.
