Just got home from the Top One Shootout. Man, what a week! Mike Cook, Mike Junior, and the rest of the gang were outstanding... We had 12 miles of hard, fast salt. Started right next to hwy 80 and ran till the salt turned to mud on the other end. Kati and Dennis Maloney fed everyone hot grub each day (compliments of Top One) and Seldom Seen Slim and Nancy did the play by play until they had to leave. Ray the Rat never missed a beat from there on.
We pitted between the Nish liner and Leo Hess and his nitro burning billet V Twin racer. Leo and his crew were a lot of fun and it was such a shame to see Leo go down Thursday afternoon. I wish him all the best and hope they come back some day and continue their quest. Terry Nish was fun to talk to and I learned a lot just hanging around him for what little time we had.
My new best buddy is Tom Burkland. What a machine and what a guy. He let me take a peek inside his cockpit and told me I could climb in if I wanted to. I took a pass but thanked him for the invite. I heard that his 427 return run was at somewhere around half throttle because he couldn't get hooked up for whatever reason. Big horsepower and Tom's got big b___ uh, brains. Very smart guy... Betty, Gene and Rex were a wealth of information and they seemed to appreciate what we were doing on two wheels as much as the 4 wheel racers.
Sam Wheeler will always be my hero and he ran hard. 352 through the lights leaning dangerously askew. By the time he regained control he missed the second light but luckily kept her right side up. On the final day the stars aligned and the Ack Attack did what we all knew it could do. Two passes back to back over 360 mph. Both times the cockpit popped open on the right side and all I could hope for was that I too had enough b___ uh, brains not to screw things up. When it was over I hugged everyone and everything that had a pulse. Wow!
Then Sam got to go one more time. If anyone has the right stuff, it's Sammy. Mechanical problems put an end to his attempt just as they did to us in 2006 when we thought we had more to show. Ron Main and George Poteet were a lot of fun and worked their butts off just like us, changing engines and setting records. These guys are cool. Well...they did built a rubberband powered car but they're still cool in my book
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The Mormon Missile was impressive and very fast. Sorry to see them catch fire and I wish their driver a speedy recovery. I talked to Terry over at the Buckeye Bullet headquarters. They didn't run till the last day due to a complete electric motor rebuild. They had a lot of down time and when I came by I noticed a hand lettered sign hanging from their welder: Will Weld For Beer. College guys...you know. Terry explained to me how that thing worked. I scratched my head and nodded intelligently and then left before he asked me any questions about what he'd just told me. They did get to run on Friday and it was cool to see them zoom down the salt making little to no noise.
Great meet, and I hope the first of many to come. Thanks to Mike Akatiff and the crew for everything they did. I get to ride the fastest motorcycle on the planet and they won't even let me work on it (except the parachutes). Thanks to Top One for all the promotional aspects of the event and again to Mike Cook and his gang for being the true professionals they are.
Hope to see you all next year!
Rocky Robinson