Hello to all,
My name is Scott McLeod. I will be driving down to my first LSR event with Jason McVicar on July 15th at El Mirage, and then go to Bonneville in August for Speed Week. My goal is to get into the 200mph club, and any records set in the process would be icing on the cake. It's something I've always wanted to do ever since I was a kid, so I figure its time I crossed it off my list. Last year I rode my street bike to a drag strip to experience wide open throttle with out any traffic. I was instantly hooked. I never realized there was a sportsman level of drag racing.
In the last couple of months I've been researching what it takes to go fast on the salt, safely. In the process I've gotten to meet and talk to a lot of cool people. After Bob Bakker told me about his Can-Am wind tunnel testing and sent me a copy of his test results, I did a search for wind tunnel data on motorcycles. My search turned up empty but to my surprise, I found out there is a commercial wind tunnel just a couple of blocks away from me on the University of Washington campus. I talked to the managers and engineers who run the tunnel and they agreed to use me as a guinea pig during academic testing week to help establish a program for future motorcycle testing. A friend, "Russ Wicks" from the American Challenge team, stopped in and helped me swap body parts with the aeronautical students during the testing.
Once we found my bike's most aerodynamic configuration with me on it, I challenged a few student engineers who were working in the control room to jump on the bike and try to get a lower drag number. With in two minutes, there was 10 students standing there begging to go for a ride in the tunnel. Jack Ross, who runs the tunnel agreed to let the students try their luck in the name of science. The clever students wrapped themselves in masking tape to keep their clothes from flapping. There was a lot of masking tape used that afternoon.
Now that I was off the bike, I could compare the riders back profiles and helmet position in relation to the windshield and tail section while watching the raw drag data from the computer. Everyone had to wear my helmet, jacket and gloves, and was tested at 90mph with a left and right rotation of 6 degrees to simulate 15mph crosswinds. I had a blast during the 2 days of testing and got see first hand the effects of wind traveling over different surfaces.
I can't wait to hold the throttle wide open for an extended period of time on a long flat lake. The slippery surface makes me a little nervous, but going a Bajillion MPH makes me smile.
Scott