The Bonneville Salt Flats was once again a magic place, which lived up to it's name this year. Ed, along with Doug, Sue, and the 4 boys from England, Andy, John, Mark, and Paul hosted 3 of my high school mates at our pits and spend nearly all our waking hours changing things and fixing things. I'm sorry not to have been able to wander around and missed many of my good friends.
Bit of a trial by fire for me. On our 3rd run we came within .5mph of our record and were confident of bumping it up. But on my 4th run at 148 mph, I must have dozed off after the timed mile and found myself to the left of the flags. I could have stayed there till I slowed down, but thought I could pull it back on course but not! Took out the next flag pole which took out my windshield and ended my quest to bump the APS record.
So we stripped it down to run the naked class. On my first run, I shifted down into 1st gear at the mile 5 pop-up tent (long course) and took out another transmission. We spent the entire next day rebuilding. My best run without the fairing was 126 mph on Alp's 133 record. We changed jets and timing and gearing, but always hit the wall at 125 mph.
Upon returning home, I did a leak down test and found about 12% leakage, which appeared to be blow-by. Will new rings make that much difference?
As I reported under the Tech section, I acquired an old Carlson Dyno, so I'm hopeful to gain a few more horses by next year.
Meanwhile, congratulations to Dennis, Chuck, Tony, Jason, Bill, Tom, Alp, Mark & Paul (the English lads with Honda 125 pushrod bike) and all you other record breakers. Of course we had a great time with all our pit-mates as well.
Tom