Adventures of the Bonneville Flyer

Back at the pits we gave everything a once over, made some jetting changes, then went back out and lined up for another run. It was still early in the day so we figured the cooler air would help. Our changes helped and the next pass was in the 71 mph range, which was better than our previous record, so back to impound we went. Bike had to sit overnight again, so there wasn't much to do but hang out and enjoy the salt flats. We rode the other bikes all over the pits, then wound up doing a photo shoot.

Here is Rich and I cruising around the pits checking out all the cool rides. This place is VERY motor bike friendly.


Bonneville Adventure by Sportsman Flyer, on Flickr

This lakester was just too cool! That's the real deal. A WWII drop tank from what I was told, not that I'm any expert on these things. I just liked how it looked.


Bonneville Adventure by Sportsman Flyer, on Flickr

Here is a picture from the photo shoot. This is the back-up bike. The model did a great job and all I can say is this part of the trip was a lot of fun!


Bonneville Salt Flats by Sportsman Flyer, on Flickr

Towards the end of the day the weather got pretty bad. It rained hard again and the winds were kicking up. The race bike had to stay in impound so we covered it up as best we could, stuffed the other bikes into the trailer and headed back to town. Later that night we ran into a couple of the course officials and they told us the winds had kicked up past 60 mph and knocked over a bunch of bikes in impound, our's included! Now we were faced with potential damage and we had to make a backup run the next morning. The race area was closed so we had to wait till the next morning.

Turns out the bike was fine. We were worried about oil in the cylinder if the bike had laid on it's side too long, so we pulled the plug and turned the engine over. All seemed good. We went back out and ran our back-up pass. The average between the two runs came out to 71.040 mph so we bumped up the record! The rains from the day before had left the salt pretty soft when you pulled off the actual race course surface. Check out this salt build up.


Bonneville Adventure by Sportsman Flyer, on Flickr

Over the next few days we ran the Bonneville Flyer two more times. Both runs were faster than previous runs so we again pushed up the record. We finally left the 2012 A-PF 175cc record at an official speed of 73.526 mph. Considering the old record was 64.5 mph I feel pretty good about what we accomplished. Eight months of hard work behind us and an experience of a life time! We couldn't have done it without Gunther dreaming this up and figuring out the rules, Shane from AGK building some beautiful push rod four stroke engines, my brother Rich for spending many late nights helping build the two bikes, and Dave and Skip for all the machine work and tuning. You guys helped make it all happen. Thanks for everything!


Bonneville Adventure by Sportsman Flyer, on Flickr