posted September 09, 2006 12:02 PM
So, I went back to my pits and decided to do a more thorough salt cleaning. Here's what the underside of my front fender looked like.
That stuff was thick. I had to chip it out of there with a screw driver.
posted September 09, 2006 12:04 PM
The rest of the passes were uneventful because the wind kicked up. I knew that I wasn't going to get 190mph running into a 10mph head wind. So, I'll start posting the other pics and stories from the weekend.
posted September 09, 2006 12:15 PM
Edited By: wannabe on 9 Sep 2006 13:20
This is Belen and Wiltz Wagner. They both took really good care of me the whole week thanks to Doug telling me to drop his name. I like to think that they would have taken care of me even if I didn't drop Doug Meyer's name. They are really both that nice.
This is the best 'small world' story that I have. I was standing in line talking to Belen. I told here that I remembered seeing her on the Discovery channel and asked her if she had done any other shows. She told me that when she was 18, she did one called "The Lazy Man's Zen."
I knew that film. It was one of my favorites when I saw it in college. I told her that a line from that movie was one of the reasons why I always wanted to run at Bonneville. The only part of the movie that I remembered was a guy explaining the meaning of 'lazy man's zen.' I told her that I remembered a guy in the movie explaining that there are some Zen monks in Tibet that sit in a corner and practice for over 15 years so that they can get to the point where they are not thinking about anything else except sitting in the corner. The guy continued to explain that when you're riding a motorcycle on the salt at over 150mph, you are instantly not thinking about anything except riding a motorcycle at over 150mph....hence, "the lazy man's Zen."
I told Belen that this was ultimately the reason that I was at Bonneville that week. All of a sudden, she had a huge smile on her face as she told me that it was her father who said that in the movie. She dragged me over to him and made me repeat what I just told her. I was really happy to finally meet the guy who initially put the idea of going to Bonneville into my head.
Wiltz seemed to be just as excited as I was. He told me that "Dude, you're the reason I'm here" is probably the biggest compliment that he had ever received on the salt.
posted September 09, 2006 02:52 PM
Man the more you add and the more I read the better this story gets. Sir that screen name does you NO justice!!! You Sir aren't a Wannabe for sure. You have seen the mountain and you climbed to the top! You are in the elite group of guys like Doug and others! Thank You for doing All us ZX12R family proud
posted September 09, 2006 03:23 PM
Wannabe,
Thanks for the GREAT posts. You are truly ruined for years to come. Best of luck dealing with the obsession.
What a great story about "The Lazy Man's Zen". You might be interested to know that the opening scene in that movie where the camera rotates around a lone rider standing next to his bike at dawn is.....me.
The on-bike camera shots were of me on my 1989 ZX-10 (which ran in the low 190's) and the opening shot of the Bonneville segment where the bike goes past the camera at speed is also me. I rode past the camera, set on a tripod, at about 185 (missing it by about 6 feet). Did that twice, once coming and once "going". It was my aquaintance with Etienne Soiret, the producer of that film, that brought him to Bonneville.
Wiltz and Belen are awesome people and you have made some great new friends.
Nice.
Doug
posted September 10, 2006 08:01 AM
Wow!..........GREAT going. The pics and story are just awsome. I'm going with Doug in that you should be known as "Ustabeawannabe" from here on out........... Congratulations and thanks for sharing............. up
____________
I'd Rather Be Roadracing.
quote:Wannabe,
Thanks for the GREAT posts. You are truly ruined for years to come. Best of luck dealing with the obsession.
What a great story about "The Lazy Man's Zen". You might be interested to know that the opening scene in that movie where the camera rotates around a lone rider standing next to his bike at dawn is.....me.
The on-bike camera shots were of me on my 1989 ZX-10 (which ran in the low 190's) and the opening shot of the Bonneville segment where the bike goes past the camera at speed is also me. I rode past the camera, set on a tripod, at about 185 (missing it by about 6 feet). Did that twice, once coming and once "going". It was my aquaintance with Etienne Soiret, the producer of that film, that brought him to Bonneville.
Wiltz and Belen are awesome people and you have made some great new friends.
Nice.
Doug
Doug, many thanks again for all the advice before I went. If it weren't for you, I would have thrown everything in the back of my truck instead of bringing my trailer. Half my stuff would be in Salt Lake City if I would have done that.
I can't imagine zinging by the camera on the tripod that fast. I was scared enough when I started drifting towards the flags. It must be even more scary purposely going that close.
I can't seem to find a copy of "Lazy Man's Zen" anywhere on the internet. I was hoping to buy a copy for myself now that I've met a lot of the people in it.
posted September 10, 2006 01:51 PM
Edited By: wannabe on 10 Sep 2006 14:52
quote:I am PROUD OF YOU GUY!! You have DOne the Deal! I am tickeled like it was myself!
Get some rest Mentally then clean that Bike!
We will talk later!
Thanks, Vincent. I finally understand your obsession with going 200 mph at Maxton. Here's a picture of Ali from Virginia. He and I were 2 of the 3 ZX-12's that were at Bonneville this week. Ali was spraying, so he ran in the MPS-AF (fuel) 1350 class. Ali mentioned that you and he were eternally stuck at 199 mph at Maxton.
Well, Ali is not stuck at 199 mph anymore....
In his record breaking passes, Ali went 198 mph into a 10 mph wind and 206 mph the other direction. Afterward, he showed all of us one reason why there aren't more ZX-12's in the record books. It literally took Ali almost the whole day to take the bike apart and unbolt the motor so that they inspectors could get in there with a probe to measure his displacement. He nearly gave up about 3 times during the tear down process while he grumbled about how easy the busa guys had it during the inspection.
With some help, Ali was able to complete the tear down in time. Congrats to Ali for his record and 200+ mph pass. (By the way, this was Ali's first time on the salt too.) He's the man. I'm still a wannabe.
posted September 10, 2006 01:58 PM
While I was at Bonneville, I got to witness some history being made. I was told that normally there is maybe only 1 streamliner going for the absolute top speed record. During this event, we had 3.
First, a little history for those of you who are like me and didn't know any of it. This first pic is of the old Easyrider streamliner that was piloted by Dave Campos. Campos owned the record for 16 years as you can see in the picture. He retired a long time ago, and he just brought the streamliner for display purposes.
The one on the right in the below picture is the Ack Attack streamliner. They drew first blood and went 344.9 mph and backed it up with a 341 mph pass to shatter Campos' 16-year-old record by 20 mph.
There is a good website with pictures of the Ack Streamliner build here:
posted September 10, 2006 02:06 PM
We all thought that Ack owned the record. But, the next day, the BUB streamliner (below) busted a 354 mph and a 346 mph pass right off the trailer to take the record away from the Ack boys.
I would have been happy just seeing those two running. But, the brawl just got even more heated when Sam Wheeler came in on his EZ Hook Turbo Kawasaki streamliner. I'm guessing that everyone here would have been rooting for him like I was.
Sam went out and busted out a 355 mph pass to leapfrog over the BUB boys. Unfortunately, during the shutdown, his front tire blew and sent him on his side at over 300 mph. He was unhurt, and the streamliner only suffered some rash on its starboard side. The painful thing was that he did not have a spare tire, so he was not able to make a return pass to make the record official.
I was stoked to be witnessing this back and forth battle among the streamliners. During the banquet, Scott Guthrie told us that this was the only time in history that they had 4 guys who all went over 300 mph on a motorcycle in the same room.
Here's is Dave Despane (sp?) interviewing Sam Wheeler afterward.
posted September 10, 2006 02:13 PM
Here' s my last story for the week. I was also stoked to see that they were filming an episode of one of my favorite shows on TV. Biker Buildoff.
The Chopper King himself told me that the episode is scheduled to air at the end of October. So, pencil it into your calendars and see if you can spot my fat ass in the background.
In this episode, they put Matt Hotch (everyone knows him) against Roger Goldhammer from Canada. I admit that I had never heard of Goldhammer until this week. What's funny is that he was behind me in line for a whole day, and I was BSing with him the entire time. I didn't even know that he was in the buildoff until the next day.
So, the idea was that they were supposed to build the bikes and run them at Bonneville. Then the riders and mechanics at Bonneville would vote on the bikes. (I always wanted to vote at one of these things.)
posted September 10, 2006 02:18 PM
It was very interesting to see the two builder's visions of what they thought Bonneville was about. They both came at it from two completely different directions.
Matt knew the long and wonderful history of the Vincent motorycle at Bonneville. So, he built a beautiful rendition of a Vincent which included a specially built $85,000 one of a kind Vincent motor.
It just seemed like a shame to have the salt scratch the paint on this bike. Matt made 2 runs and was able to go about 99 mph with the bike. He said the first one scared the crap out of him because the front end was bouncing all over the place.
Wanna see what an $85,000 motor looks like? (This bike is already sold.)
Roger had a different idea. He figured that if he's going to go all the way to Bonneville from Canada, he was going to build a beautiful bike that had potential to break a record. He ended up building what I thought was the most beautiful bike that I have ever seen on the Biker Buildoff show. (I love it when form and function come together.)
Roger started with an Aprilia 2-stroke motor. He ended up going 123 mph on the bike. He actually broke the existing record in the class. But, just like me, someone else destroyed his time by going 152 mph. Yes, Belen Wagner was running in the same class on her Honda NSR 250 without the fairings.
This picture doesn't do the bike any justice. It looks much better in person. (Guess who I voted for.)
posted September 10, 2006 02:59 PM
Again.........thanks for all the great pictures and stories. You write very well wannabe...........I've read it all twice now and am still enjoying. ____________
I'd Rather Be Roadracing.
posted September 10, 2006 04:29 PM
Thanks GUY! You have just told me why I do not want a Record there!
I will have to speak to Ali to see what they had to get to! I think I can drop the front of the engine while leaving theback of the engine attached to that they can put their tools in the spark plug hole (Hopefully that is what they need to do for Bore & Stroke!.
Still, U R Da Man because unlike Ali, You are "NORMAL" SIzed!
BTW, I was working on my Rag today and was flow testing the Spray Nozzles only to Find that for SOme reason I Still need "BIGGER" NOS Jets (I was testing using #42's at about 800 PSI!)
SO Againm First I am glad you got to do it and second that you did not Fall over with the Bike and third that you had A Record!
I would say that you had a 110% Week! It cannot get netter than that!
____________
Made History @ Daytona and still one fast old man!!
quote:Still, U R Da Man because unlike Ali, You are "NORMAL" SIzed!
There's a funny story here. For the rest of the folks here, Ali is 125lbs soaking wet. I made a couple passes before Ali showed up. We were all talking to each other in line when Ali mentioned that he went 199 at Maxton, so he expected to go 190+ right off the trailer. He pointed at me and said, "If he can do 185, I can do 190."
I had to call him on it. I pointed out the other guys who expected 175 and only got 150 their first time out. I repeated what everyone said. "The salt is totally different." Then I told him that he'd better run 190 because he was not going to hear the end of it from me after making a comment like that. I even said it loud enough for everyone to hear.
Ali originally planned to make a pass without the spray, but he said that he didn't want to take a chance of coming in under 185 mph after telling everyone that he should be able to go faster than me. During his pass, he sprayed and was releived to see 199.97 mph on his time slip.
posted September 10, 2006 06:24 PM
The funny thing about size is that weight doesn't seem to matter. I spoke to Noonan and a couple other guys who are running big turbo busas. One guy told me that the standard busa swingarm weighs about 16 lbs. With all the lead that he bolted to his arm, he said that his swingarm assembly weighed about 185 lbs. Noonan's arm looked like it weighed even more.
So, it appears that when you're pumping big HP, traction counts more than weight.
posted September 10, 2006 07:22 PM
Edited By: dougmeyer on 10 Sep 2006 20:23
Wannabe, Uh I mean Ustabeawannabe,
I have two versions of "Lazy Man" on tape, the 60 minute one that aired on Discovery and the 90 minute un-edited version. When I get back from the Reno Air Races next week I'll make a few copies on DVD and send them to you. They must be for personal use only as they are copy write protected. Just Email me your address.
Awesome pictures!
DId you know that before Sam Wheeler decided to Turbocharge his liner it went 304 with my ZX-11 engine in it? 304 on carbs and gas....... Just took it out of my bike and bolted it in the liner. He had handling probs on the return, so it's in the book as "Wheeler / Meyer 285 mph"
BTW, My ZX-12 swing arm weighs about 40 pounds. It's for sale- we'll talk.....
Doug
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posted September 09, 2006 12:02 PM
Edited By: 
posted September 10, 2006 08:01 AM
Congratulations and thanks for sharing............. 
up
(By the way, this was Ali's first time on the salt too.) He's the man. I'm still a wannabe. 
posted September 10, 2006 02:59 PM
