Something to discuss while we wait for good salt?

[Stan Back]

In "The World's Fastest Indian" wasn't there something as foolish as the flathead pickup pulling along side of him at the Nine and telling him to shift??

[dw230]

Not foolish at all. That was Jim Travis in a reprise performance of his "racer friendly" attitude to our guests.

DW

[NathanStewart]

^^^LOL

[bbarn]

The push vehicle must release the racer by 1/4 mile. Look in the Tribal Knowledge Handbook.

DW

You know....the Tribal Knowledge Handbook is conspicuously silent on the push vehicle being thrust powered...Just sayin'!

I've often thought of a nice little JATO unit mounted on the back of the push vehicle. If you could keep it straight I bet you could get 300+ by the quarter. Of course you'd need chutes on the push vehicle too then.   

Remember: If you aren't living on the edge you are taking up entirely too much room!!!

[JimL]

We were doing motorcycle tow starts a long time ago.  We mostly held onto the door handle and got towed up enough to let go and then start the engine.  The bikes didn't have many gears in those days, and some of the really strong bikes could only use high gear without breaking stuff (especially on a full load where you didn't close the throttle at ALL until you finished the run!)  There were many bikes with inadequate kick-start or no-starter setups so that we had to fire the engines after tow-out.

I don't remember anybody falling down, but some had tow-outs that the engine didn't fire when we let go of the car and dropped the clutch (me included...forgot to pull the red rubber balls out of the velocity stacks) .  That kind of stuff wasted time for everybody because the tow car was out of position afterwards, and we were pushing off to the side on foot.

It was not easy to do, any way you looked at it.  With Bonneville gearing (and heavy clutch springs), the tow pull on your right arm could be pretty ferocious.  I lost a right glove on one tow-out when the sweaty wet leather got caught in the gap between the chrome door handle and the Chevy door.  My hand let go ok, but the glove rode all the way to the return road hanging on the door.

[dw230]

Many of the things we used to do, tow starts, warm up loops for cars, push further than 1/4 mile, etc. have gone the way of all things historic. Most because of safety, others to speed up the show to accommodate the many more entries than we had in the 60s, 70s, etc.

DW