Concept:

We did a quick mock up with the totalled RS125. It is quickly apparent that a hub center steered vehicle will help keep the frontal area to a minimum. A standard fork and triple clamp will force the riders head up a another 2-3 inches creating greater frontal area and additional drag.


Chris and I start building the frame. I machine all the hard connection points and Chris joins all those points with tubing.


We are feeling the need for speed and let
speedy building techniques override aesthetic
decisions. It yields a product slightly agricultural
but gets the job done.

2006

As many of us new to land speed racing rookies now say "This all began after watching the film, The Worlds Fastest Indian." This film documents a mans quest for speed and sparked memories of a visit to the museum of Science and Industry in Chicago as a nine year old where I viewed "The Blue Flame" jet car after reading about it in Popular Mechanics. The Blue Flame owned the outright land speed record of 622MPH set at Bonneville in 1970. This was more than an incredibly exotic object, it represented romantic motor sport adventure. So it was now time to start planning an our own adventure to the infamous Bonneville Salt Flats.

A friend, Chris Bernard of Puffin Engineering, had mentioned going to Bonneville with a race car he had built but we were such bike nuts it seemed best to do this on a motorcycle. Another certifiable bike nut and friend, Dwight, had just survived a wreck on his Honda RS125cc grand prix bike destroying everything but the motor. The AMA 125cc records looked achievable so off we went with Dwight's motor. We set our sites on the Special Construction class as Chris and I both own machine/metal fabrication shops and figured building it from scratch was the best idea. Given we had four months until the BUBS speed trials, maybe it wasn't. Onward.