Lake Gairdner 2014
The Big Velo has run another year on the salt at the 2014 Lake Gairdner speed trials and ended the week with a new record run of 183.374 mph ...295.112 kph
It
was not all plain sailing this year as dyno time was cut short by a
last minute main bearing failure necessitating a new scratch built
crankshaft. This lack of final tuning led to the first couple of runs
being hampered by some massive nitro backfires almost stopping the back
wheel
around 150 mph. Luckily the engine is built like a tank and
somehow withstood this brutal punishment. After 3 days of work searching
for the correct set up and a salt surface that was very soft and rutted
like
a sandy motocross track and an engine that was starting to show metal
in the oil ,a rear chain that was threatening to self destruct from the
sledgehammer blows of the big supercharged single firing once every
wheel revolution, the organizers opened a new track which gave us our
one and only chance for a record run. The gearing was raised and the
supercharger drive altered ,fuel changed back to straight methanol and
with a last minute start line ignition timing alteration and fingers
crossed we were off.
With
very little warm up the almost 100mph first gear launched us down the
track with a light hand on the throttle because on an earlier run,
almost uncontrollable wheelspin had started a tank slapper and almost
ended the weeks fun..... I short shifted into second and again
into third at
less than 150mph and did not use full throttle until well tucked in
behind the screen and the bike
started to dodge and weave across the ruts caused by some of the
Hyabusas and big cars that had run before me. The revs started to creep
up past 6500 as the engine temps approached melting point and the Velo
started to waltz a little on the soft surface as the final mile marker
flashed by and I reluctantly closed the throttle on another year on the
glorious white expanse of the Australian salt flats.
The question now is......Just how fast can a Velo go ?
