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Show 2. Page 10 Wednesday, October 4, 1978 WHAT DO C? ByDocMurdock At seven in the morning the phone started ringing. Who do I know who would be calling that early? No one. Let it ring. It rang twenty times, stopped, started again. OK, OK, I'm coming. "Yeah?" "Hello, Doc? How would you like to ride a new Harley XLCR on the salt this year? Speed Week starts tomorrow." I was caught completely unprepared. What were my plans this week? Nothing I couldn't cancel. In answered quickly, "You bet! A new CR 1000? How fast do we have to go for the record?" "141 point something." "Give me four hours. I'll be in Wendover tonight." ; So it began. Speed Week at the Bonneville Salt Flats is an annual week long fling for the world's speeders. Several hundred cars and motorcycles from all over the world show up to try to establish new land speed records in many different dif-ferent classes. There are separate classes for everything from the giant, awesomely expensive rocket cars (622 mph record) to the little six cubic inch popper motorcycles (we set the record last year, 74.012 mph). Let me try to picture for you the Speed Week scene. I arrived in Wendover late that night. The motorcycle was shining new on its trailer behind the big mobile home of the sponsor (Jim's Casino). The bike was right off the showroom floor, almost no miles on it. It was clear we had some work to do. The first night at Speed Week is usually a sleepless one; this one was to be no different as we worked most of the ijj&ht stripping strip-ping the bike down to its salt-flats-legaeleton. The sponsor wanted to run the bike in the production produc-tion class so we had to leave the machine in street legal appearing condition: leave on the lights, stock seat and tank. We ripped off the turn signals, removed the stock handlebars and the little fairing (which would have placed us in a higher, 190 mph record classification). Wheels and tires can be changed. Other small details can help a lot: removing the generator gears, putting on slick high pressure tires, lowering the front end, as well as an array of minor, but important, im-portant, motor changes. By dawn we had made our decisions; as to gearing, ignitiori timirigl eatb tunihgSpark plug heats, etc. At eight a.m. the inspection station opened. We rolled in with the bike on the trailer. It was carefully gone over and had to meet a rigorous safety check as well as the requirements require-ments of the class. My racing license was checked. Then my helmet and leathers inspected. By 10:30 we had passed the inspection and were heading out onto the salt to take our place in the qualifying line. It was an amazing spectacle. Stretched out in three long lines were the fastest vehicles in the world hundreds of them. Twenty-five foot long jet cars were lined up next to elegant little Porsches Por-sches that appear street stock but snarl with hidden hid-den power when they are push-started off the line. Futuristic plastic bodied little screamers waited alongside mechanically dominating dragsters with huge engines that tower threateningly just behind the driver. Everyone on the line was waiting for their chance to qualify for a record run. To qualify they had to pass through the timing traps at a speed greater than the existing record by making two runs, each a mile in length, in opposite op-posite directions at an average speed greater than the existing record. All record runs are made early in the cool mornings, thelfuel supplied sup-plied by the timers who will compjijMy tear down every engine that sets a record. ? After taking our place in the waiting line we got out to inspect the salt. It was very hard repacked every year for the past thirty years in an exact straight line for eight miles. As ; we gradually moved closer to the starting line we checked over the motorcycle, answered the ;many questions of spectators who wandered by, tried to avoid posing for the hordes of !camerapersons who prowled around. And we ; talked with other racers. Many were curious to : find out how fast this brand new model Harley would go. A couple of other XLCRs just like ours nnnuMTM wwauui V k '"A ... .. .. ..... -m ;;w'isias fife were in the line and we compared notes. (If there is direct competition on the salt is is very low key.) Several Harley dealers from around the country were there and they all offered advice and friendly race conversation. There were as many plans as there were people; everyone seemed to have a different approach ap-proach to going fast. Our plan was to establish a speed at around 600 rpm and then work mainly with gearing and only minor tuning for the rest of the week. After three years of being on the salt for Speed Week we had learned to make only minor changes; more complicated alterations usually lead to more complicated problems and blown engines are as common here as slick paint jobs. ' After about two hours we had finally made it up to the starting line. I put on my helmet and warmed up the bike. The pit crews moved off to the side, preparing to speed down the pick up road which runs parallel to the race course. But then the officials' radio crackled out a warning: shut down all racing; a car had gone out of control far down the course and crashed. I pulled off my helmet and went to sit in the pickup pick-up car. Everybody waited. It was an hour before they towed in the car. Several trucks headed down the track to begin repairs to the salt. Rumors of what had happened hap-pened swept down the line. Apparently, a car blew its engine out about the two mile point scattering motor parts along the course for a mile. Somehow, the next car, a beautiful little lit-tle Chrysler powered '55 Studebaker, was not flagged off the course in time and followed the other car down the track. At 203 mph the Studebaker drove over the broken parts and blew a rear tire. It started spinning out of control and got up on its side, ripping off the left panels of the car. But it stayed wheel's side down and the driver was unhurt. Alter another hour's wait, while they cleared the course and repaired the gouges in the salt, we were again ready to go. I rolled the bike up to the line. The starter walked over to me. He was listening attentively to his headset radio, looking like an airport tower controller as he talked quietly into his headset mike. I started the bike and looked over the front and rear tires and axles my traditional last check. The starter pointed to me and nodded once. I rolled off the line fairly slowly, listening to the engine. I was hoping they had done a good repair job on the salt. They said most of the damage was at the two mile marker, just where I would be hitting top speed. I went through the first three gears carefully, leaning down next to the cylinder heads to listen to the motor. I wasn't too con-.-fident of the new motor and a blown engine on a bike at speed is always dangerous; if the rear wheel siezes, you almost always go down. At 85 I shifted into top gear. The bike was still accelerating ac-celerating smoothly. I laid out flat on the bike, "putting my feet on the back pegs. Tucked in like that, 1 couldn't see anything ahead but by glan cing to the side I could tell how close I was to the edge of the track. As I entered the timing traps the tach indicated 6300, the speedometer 120. But I was still accelerating, exiting the traps at about 6600 and 124. At the turn out marker I backed off the throttle and started the gradual turn by slightly pulling the handlebars in the wrong direction. This puts the bike into a lean so I can use my body weight to turn the motorcycle without sitting up. Sitting up into the windstream too quickly can rip a rider right off the bike or put it out of control on the slippery salt. As exciting as that first run was, it was to grow tedious as the week wore on. Run after run we made slight changes in the motorcycle, gaining fractions of miles per hour. Despite the 124 mph reading on the bike's speedometer the official clocks had me at 114. (So much for the accuracy of speedometers. ) By midweek we were up to 118 officially and then some borrowed gears put us over 120. The nights were mostly filled up with working on the motor and race talk but we did wander down to the casinos at least once a night. There the racers could be found either partyjng, or more often, seated at the bar makingcom-plicated makingcom-plicated little drawings of head flow patterns or of delicately reworked valve sea$and manifolds. Maybe our most helpful session was at the casino's back bar when one of those California motor wizards pulled out his pocket calculator and a "dream wheel." A dream wheel is a little circular chart that converts actual gearing setups and RPMs to potential top speed. It told us that we were not going to go 140 without substantial substan-tial gearing changes changes that would require "a lot more beans from that motor," as he put it. Our last few days were more relaxed as we sorted out the tuning and tried radically differing gearing setups that were generously supplied by a California dealer. The dream wheel was right, we couldn't pull the higher gearing. But we did manage to squeeze out 122 mph ( 134 according to our not so trustworthy speedometer ) . We were still nineteen miles per hour away from the record and the motor was pulling strongly it just - wouldn't, build RPMs fast enough. On the last day everyone was more laid back. The talk turned to next year. We made plans to ship our bike to the west coast motor magicians for a major winter rebuild job. Cars and bikes were-doaded mw trailers land the; long lines; of traffic to Texas and California and Illinois formed for-med up on the interstate. ' As we pulled onto the highway a black van packed full with racers and their friends roared past us. Several of them gave us the thumbs up sign. "Next year." one of them shouted. Next vear. I MM MM I fe.-.i NEW CONSTRUCTION, REMODEL, REPAIR, SEWER & WATER CALL Potty bros. Plumbinq JIM AT 649-9497 or STANLEY AT 649-7981 October Special 10 off on checking' heaters. We will safety check & clean your heating systems & remember when No. 2 doesn t go thru Call The Potty Bros tUK VALLEY TRAILER COURT 900 i nnin. mm citt ' (DF.HIHD THE HI COUflTRT Ifltl) - " TRAVEL TRAILER MCES 13.30 fllGHT. 1 1 7.30 WEEK . riODILE IIOriE MICE $03.00 nOfiTH i . (FIRST HOHTH REflT FREE) 034-2902 OR 034-1434 j Doc heads down the salt for a 120 mph qualifying run. SfEo SfeDnaalEkaiBS , . E. W. Kearley, carman, Provo, Utah; R. G. Erskine, yardmaster, Salt Lake City, Utah; Gary Sorenson, hostler, Salt Lake City, Utah; L. M. Ford, engine VS3 house foreman, Salt Lake City, Utah; Melessa Jacobson, PICL clerk, SJ Provo utan; GarY Barker, laborer, Salt Lake City, Utah. M"winnnr r.zi We can handle it f' ' ' Un'n Pac 0 Li I , M t iawsk ... , .. .. , ' . . 1 m-mJmmm : ;.-'.-'-'- '.. ; ., .. ' '"' t. . , .. , . '-, ; . , : ' , ' ''" f V( V " .' )..'... |