Landracing Forum
Bonneville Salt Flats Discussion => Bonneville General Chat => Topic started by: Old-N-Slow on November 29, 2019, 04:59:21 PM
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50 YEARS AT BONNEVILLE:
Scott Guthrie Remembers
Chapter one: Mickey Thompsons Challenger, and the dreams of youth
1959
I slipped quietly into the room, moved silently to a rear corner,
and sat with my back to the wall. I could see the two doors opposite,
and the entire room of 50 people. My Friend Ace Fogarty
slipped me a paper bag, not looking as he did so.
I palmed the bag into my hip pocket.
Ace would go on to become a legend in the car world
at an early age. In his junior year in high school,
Ace would take 2nd in the national Soap Box Derby
in Akron Ohio, winning in 1959 dollars a $4,000
college scholarship. In his senior year, Ace won 2nd
in the Fisher Body model building contest, and securing
another $4000 scholarship. He was the quiet force
behind our young hot rod group.
It was a bright cool Florida morning in 1959.
Today was an important day to our small group of maybe
eight friends. Today, we would happily call each other ?nerds.?
We had all gravitated to this back corner of the classroom
where we could pass notes unseen and could not be
approached unknowingly, especially from the rear.
Today was the day that fresh magazines hit the newsstands.
A distant bell sounded, and the study hall was immediately quiet.
I moved my large American History book to my wooden desktop,
and eased Aces bag into the concealed space, unseen behind the textbook.
Ace gave me small knowing look.
From the smudges on the bag, I knew my hand was
not the first to remove the magazine inside.
While facing my textbook, I moved only my eyes down to look at the cover.
HOT ROD Magazine, December 1959.
Mickey Thompsons 4-engine car, in white, on the white Bonneville Salt.
Mickey standing beside the car, right hand on the handle
of the big floor jack, ready to lift the car. The Salt flat, smooth
and appearing like white concrete.
Many men in attendance, and most working.
If that 60-year-old picture was on the cover of a magazine today,
it would not appear immediately to be a vintage picture. Maybe
something about the clothing and haircuts;
but that could be overlooked as a hipster style.
That photo and magazine cover was my first, and most indelible
image of Bonneville, and it has carried me through
all my nearly 50 years on the salt.
Small groups of casually dressed folks working on home-made vehicles,
making ready for historic deeds, in the face of deadly peril.
Someday, I dreamed, I would be in that place and time.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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Hoping that there are many more chapters to come.
Franey
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I hope you are planning on going in 2020
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Chapter two: An unlikely path to speed
I had learned to ride a motorcycle in 1958, and to drive a car in 1960.
I was not particularly good at either effort. On the bike, I could barely
get around corners, and in the car, fear kept me from going very fast,
Probably not qualities one looked for in a future Bonneville racer.
My teenage eyesight was so bad that in two (2) seasons of little league,
I had a combined average of zero (0). In two seasons, I never got a hit.
My on base average was a little better, since I was so little, pitchers
often hard a hard time finding my strike zone,
and I would wind up with a walk.
Intent on a college education, I left Sarasota, Florida in 1962 for
Florida State University. Car ownership, even just possession,
was forbidden to undergraduates. However, I could, and did,
buy a small motorcycle for simple and inexpensive transportation.
Top speed MAYBE 25mph.
Powered by a 2-HP Briggs and Stratton flathead engine, this was
basically a lawn mower with two wheels.
Sometime in 1966, I wound up with a 1955 700cc made-in-England
Indian twin-cylinder motorcycle project, which was WAY beyond my
mechanical level AND my riding ability. My GOD, that thing must
have had more than 30 horsepower !
I had time, but no money.
I also had no English sized (Whitworth) tools.
My dad had only American size tools.
Easy problem to solve. After somehow removing any nut or bolt
from the poor bike, I would step to a borrowed bench grinder
and grind the hex to American size.
Presto ! An English bike, marketed as an American bike, using
a mixture of Whitworth and American size fasteners.
My life to that point had been pretty plain vanilla. Ballroom dancing classes
in junior and high school. Never had a real date until after
high school graduation. Hung with the physics club guys.
I needed something a little on the wild side.
After re-assembling the Indian, and getting it running for the street,
I found all the cars a little threatening. I reconsidered, and took
off the lights off the bike, and went riding off-road.
The sand was softer than pavement, and while cars moved,
the trees generally did not.
On a whim, in March of 1967, I entered a scrambles race event,
and took a 1st place. No-one was more shocked than I was.
After a brief moment of glory, I reviewed my abilities and (mostly) my weaknesses.
I sold the bike, made a down-payment on a 2-door 1957 Ford; and got a job
teaching shop in a rural Florida junior high school.
My dreams of Bonneville put aside for more practical matters, like eating.
However, late at night,
the Bonneville dreams persisted.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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"HOT ROD Magazine, December 1959.
Mickey Thompsons 4-engine car, in white, on the white Bonneville Salt.
Mickey standing beside the car, right hand on the handle
of the big floor jack, ready to lift the car. The Salt flat, smooth
and appearing like white concrete."
I actually remember that issue. I was 12 years old and my oldest brother at 7 years my senior had a subscription to Hot Rod Magazine and I would steal them away and read them till the covers fell off. A couple years later, I built my first bike, a 2 hp REO lawn mower motor in a bicycle frame.
Can't wait to hear the rest of your story.
Tom
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Scott, I'm enjoying this.
Kind of like William Finnengan's "Barbarian Days" only instead of boards it's bikes.
Don
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I can't remember if it was that Dec'59 issue or not- that included a photo with young Danny Thompson kneeling by Challenger's front wheel. Truly invaluable image. :-)
'59 was when I became a Pontiac fan (60 years so far?), based at least somewhat on Mickey's exploits. By December I had acquired my first Pontiac engine- a '57 Tri-Power 347- and was terrorizing the roads with it in a '37 Buick opera coupe.
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I can't remember if it was that Dec'59 issue or not- that included a photo with young Danny Thompson kneeling by Challenger's front wheel. Truly invaluable image. :-)
'59 was when I became a Pontiac fan (60 years so far?), based at least somewhat on Mickey's exploits. By December I had acquired my first Pontiac engine- a '57 Tri-Power 347- and was terrorizing the roads with it in a '37 Buick opera coupe.
Pictures, Jack, or it never happened! ;-)
Mike
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" '59 was when I became a Pontiac fan (60 years so far?), based at least somewhat on Mickey's exploits. By December I had acquired my first Pontiac engine- a '57 Tri-Power 347- and was terrorizing the roads with it in a '37 Buick opera coupe."
Jack - - You and I must have been thinking alike, although mine was a '37 Chevy with a 347 Pontiac motor.
(https://i.postimg.cc/43fBH60y/My-37-Chev-motor.jpg) (https://postimages.org/)
(https://i.postimg.cc/Zqwj89kc/My-37-Chevy.jpg) (https://postimages.org/)
Tom
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 YEARS AT BONNEVILLE
Chapter three: The dream becomes a goal
In 1968 ? against everybody?s judgement - I sold my last Indian, and bought a used 1967 Harley Davidson 883cc Sportster ? with electric starter. The electric starter was a must have. In years of swimming competively in breaststroke ? including in the NCAA National Championship meet in 1966- my knees were so torn up, I could not reliably kick-start a big motorcycle.
The Harley was available for take-over payments from my acquaintance Richard ?Dickie? Betts, a guitar player who found himself in need of money for newer musical equipment. His wife Dale, who was pregnant at the time, was a high-school friend of my wife Ellen. They were expecting a child, and the bike had to go. Dickie would later play for a southern Rock music group called the Allman Brothers Band, based in Macon Georgia. I still own that bike my first Harley.
By 1971, I was earning a little money in the evenings, having taught myself a little more about how to wrench on bikes, while working a day job teaching in a rural high school in lonely South Georgia.
The vague possibility of Bonneville again made a distant call.
At about that time, I was looking at an older issue of CYCLE Magazine, and saw the results of the August SCTA Bonneville Speed Trials. I read that someone had set a motorcycle WORLD RECORD (The promoters, the SCTA, called them national records then and now) on a Harley Davidson Sportster.
I owned that 1967 Harley Sportster, and I thought I had made it fast.
Could this be the beginnings of Bonneville Glory?
This being the early 1970?s, I felt the need to do something a little dangerous before I turned 30 years old.
Was that to be Bonneville ?
I remarked about the dreams of my soon-to-be-lifes obsession to a friend, and he gave me a long, cold look: You, in the outback of North Florida and South Georgia, could build a world?s fastest motorcycle. Sure !
Well, he had called my hand, and I was holding nothing !
The short background of this was: in the CYCLE article,
it seemed POSSIBLE that a no-talent rider, (such as I) with primitive
mechanical skills (Yours Truly) could actually SET A WORLD RECORD !..............
Being less than studied on the subject, I didnt know ANYTHING
about how altitude figured into the equations of power, or how
aerodynamics (that?s something about airplanes, right ?) affected SPEED.
Most importantly, I didnt know enough to NOT try it !
Boy, was I heading for an education FAR more interesting AND EXPENSIVE than college??..
Over the next 18 months, I studied all sorts of things about
making bikes fast, hiding from the wind, and staying safe.
I set to work.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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Though this is about the salt and bikes, I am glad you mentioned the swimming. Having competed with you (avoided the same events when you were there :oops:) I can attest to your expertise in that endeavor as well. I am still at that and having just aged up and am after all the Maryland state records. Miss seeing you at meets. Best of luck and keep up with the remembrances. :cheers: :cheers:
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Hoping that there are many more chapters to come.
Franey
Thanks for asking, my racy friend....there are ENDLESS episodes to come !
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I hope you are planning on going in 2020
I always PLAN to go, but sometimes the weather resists...............
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"HOT ROD Magazine, December 1959.
Mickey Thompsons 4-engine car, in white, on the white Bonneville Salt.
Mickey standing beside the car, right hand on the handle
of the big floor jack, ready to lift the car. The Salt flat, smooth
and appearing like white concrete."
I actually remember that issue. I was 12 years old and my oldest brother at 7 years my senior had a subscription to Hot Rod Magazine and I would steal them away and read them till the covers fell off. A couple years later, I built my first bike, a 2 hp REO lawn mower motor in a bicycle frame.
Can't wait to hear the rest of your story.
Tom
How cool TOM that we share that history !
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Scott, I'm enjoying this.
Kind of like William Finnengan's "Barbarian Days" only instead of boards it's bikes.
Don
I never quite know what I am going to remember when I sit down to the keyboard !......By all means keep reading and positing positive thoughts.... You can PM the negative stuff, though.
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I can't remember if it was that Dec'59 issue or not- that included a photo with young Danny Thompson kneeling by Challenger's front wheel. Truly invaluable image. :-)
'59 was when I became a Pontiac fan (60 years so far?), based at least somewhat on Mickey's exploits. By December I had acquired my first Pontiac engine- a '57 Tri-Power 347- and was terrorizing the roads with it in a '37 Buick opera coupe.
Yes, very powerful images then and now. I remember Micky and the 4-engine car being on the cover of HOT ROD at least twice so thats an option.
I always lusted after an early 1960's 421 tri power with the funny allow wheels.
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Though this is about the salt and bikes, I am glad you mentioned the swimming. Having competed with you (avoided the same events when you were there :oops:) I can attest to your expertise in that endeavor as well. I am still at that and having just aged up and am after all the Maryland state records. Miss seeing you at meets. Best of luck and keep up with the remembrances. :cheers: :cheers:
You kind to remember me Jack especially about swimming.
For others, you should know that Jack has for DECADES been one of the top ranked swimmers in the world.. I started masters swimming, and Jack started in 1990 - almost 30 years for him. In that time, Jack has scored several national championships, and has placed almost 100 TIMES in the highest rankings.
Jack and I are the same age of 75, so I will NEVER escape him..............
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JUST A PASSING NOTE......This board does funny things with punctuation
so I try to edit to avoid all those intrusive question marks and emojis.
That makes apostrophes unusable and other non grammatical aberrations frequent.
Its kind of like my table manners.
I have em but I dont always use em.
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Its kind of like my table manners.
I have em but I dont always use em.
Boy, living a bachelor existence can I ever relate to that! :cheers: :cheers: :cheers:
Pete
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How come boldface font this time?
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50 YEARS AT BONNEVILLE:
Scott Guthrie Remembers
Chapter #4
The first turnings of the wrenches 1971-73.
Or: The Creation of a Whole New Bureaucracy !
In late 1971, I located a basket-case 1957 883cc Harley Davidson Sportster at an affordable price. For me, that meant accepting a partially - disassembled engine, with not much usable inside. And as it turned out, useless running gear.
But, it was cheap !
I decided on the 1957 year for several reasons: The first year for the Sportster was 1957, and I figured that the factory assembly line tooling would still be sharp, and everything as good as the factory could make it for a new-model introduction. Also, the original model was low-compression, and had small ports in the heads. My particular bike was early enough that it was made in 1956, so as to be in dealer showrooms in the fall of 1956, for the 1957 model year.
1957 Harley Sportster: maybe NOT the image of speed at Bonneville (see photo below)
Although many tuners eventually went with larger intake and exhaust ports, I thought that was not the way to get top-end power. When Harley produced the Iron-Head XR750 Factory Racer in 1970, they reverted to the small port castingsmuch like my 1957.
The stock frame was OK, and I could rebuild the engine, and maybe put in high-compression pistons. Add some high-lift PB Factory Race cams, and a bigger carburetor. Maybe a close-ratio C transmission.
Bonneville started to seem more like a goal, and not just a dream.
(You will probably notice that, with almost no thinking, I had decided to race a Harley Davidson Sportster at Bonneville. Later, I would be forced into a painful re-examination of this decision?..)
How to get us and the bike TO Bonneville ?
My daily driver was a VW van, of embarrassing 1959 vintage with something like 180,000 miles, and late on it?s 2nd 36hp engine. I had driven this humble conveyance to San Francisco (where I met my soon-to-be wife Ellen)
and back to Florida in the summer of 1968,
The VW was reliable, but with zero towing capacity. It had 36 horsepower and a top speed in the 55mph range. Not ideal for Bonneville transportation.
I bought an ancient Dodge A100 van, also cheap, but with only 96,000 miles showing, to get to and from Bonneville. The power train included a ultra-reliable slant-6 engine, and a 3-on-the-tree transmission.
(See photo below)
Wow: A Whole new bureaucracy was being created. New race bike, NEW truck; this Salt thing was starting to take over my life !
My van was VERY unusual, having the double doors on BOTH sides. This allowed housekeeping and dining on one side, and bike maintenance on the other side. My changing
room was the aft 48 inches of the cargo area.
Eventually, I was ready to drive to, and to race at Bonneville in 1972. Bonneville was only 2,500 miles from home, a mere three days of driving for my oh-so-slow Six-banger van.
I had seen the speed numbers put up by the soon-to-be-famous Ralph Bigger Balls Hudson, and I knew to avoid those annoying 2-strokes. (Yet another decision that would haunt me.) The new-for-1969 Honda CB750 4-cylinder overhead-cam bikes would be a real threat if bored out for my class !
In 1972, there was a Class-C / 883cc class, and there were NO production 2-strokes or overhead-cam bikes that were big enough to fit into class C- 883cc.
At the time, the SCTA deferred bike stuff to the American motorcycle Association (AMA), and used the AMA rules.
That included a production-based engine class called Class C, which was (among other things) limited to original bore and stroke and demanded engine parts, like cases, cylinders and heads to be original to the bike and year.
PERFECT for a Harley sportster with 883cc?s.
However, there was NO pushrod class back in those days !
ANOTHER detail that would also soon haunt me.
Anyway, we were full speed ahead to hit Bonneville
In August 1972, and KICK Acura !
BUT, 1972 was a no go for me.
A view of Bonneville in the monsoon season (photo below)
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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Still have all the question marks, no matter the font.
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No worries Stan, around Scott there are always question marks.... :? :cheers:
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50 YEARS AT BONNEVILLE:
Scott Guthrie Remembers
Chapter #5
The first glimmerings of productive thought
The rain-out of 1972 actually helped us.
Had we raced in 1972, I might have found out how bad the 1972 bike actually was, but I would have taken two weeks of vacation time, spent lots of money, and driven 5,000 miles to find that out?..Largely money down the drain.
So back to the drawing board and the shop for the fall, winter, spring and summer of 1972 / 73.
Back in early 1972, in deserted-road testing, my bike was FAST, but the handling of the bike at high speed, and with a stock chassis was uncertain, (Read: Scary??. ) and not at all confidence inspiring. Certainly NOT good enough for five miles of top speed at Bonneville.
While I wondered how to make improvements to the chassis, I concentrated on the Harley engine and chassis. The engine got better bearings and improvements to the breathing. L.A.-based Jerry Branch (With the permission of the Harley racing department) did me a pair of factory spec twin-carb heads with BIG valves. Tom Sifton made me a set of type A cams, and I installed a D close-ratio transmission. I had many of the engine and transmission parts hard chromed for friction reduction.
To the small extent that I had thought about such things, I felt that smaller ports would increase the intake air velocity, Likewise, the bigger valves would encourage more air to enter the cylinders. Dual (rather than the usual single) carbs would allow me to tune each cylinder independently.
Cylinder-head temperature gauges offered tuning tips, too.
Although such things might be deemed unnecessary now, at the time, I largely didn?t know exactly where the magic was, so I had to do everything. Also, if I was very lucky, I would make an astounding 70 horsepower, and the drive-train need all the friction reducers I could find !
My acquaintance Warner Riley Jr ? an early Bonneville 200 mph Club motorcycle member entering aboard a Harley Sportster, built me a crankshaft that was nicely balanced and VERY true. Warner was one of the first motorcycle members of the Bonneville 200 mph Club; riding an Iron Head Sportster on large amounts of Nitro. His crank got me through testing and racing in 72 and 73, and was never a problem.
My friend Roger Reiman in Illinois had been Grand National motorcycle racing champion on Harleys, and he had won the biggest motorcycle race in the world ? the Daytona 200 - several times. I asked Roger how to improve the stock Sportster chassis to be good for 150 mph. After a long pause, Roger said: you can?t
This could only lead to MORE time, trouble and money ? maybe missing Bonneville another year.
I made a couple of phone calls??????
I had done a little R&D work for the Harley Davidson Racing Department, so I approached Racing department head Dick O?Brien for some ideas and maybe a little help.
Dick saw to it that I received a number of REAL racing parts, and in early 1973 that included a new factory XRTT road-racing chassis.
Frame photo by John Steel
I dropped my engine into the Factory XRTT chassis, and set the bike up for Bonneville, with the Reiman rear wheel (see below picture), and my no-brake home-made front wheel. I had bought some used Dunlop racing tyres at Daytona in March, and I spooned those on my wire spoke wheels. Chassis and engine ready with a home-made gas tank and modified race seat.
Thankfully for my diminishing budget, Roger had some old-fashioned Harley race parts around, which had no use in modern bikes. He sent some of those on to me. He also supplied the fairing for my partially streamlined attempts, made from 1973-77. This was the same fairing he had used to win a Daytona 200 mile race in the 1960?s. I chose the earlier narrow Harley KR fairing ? developed by California?s Wixom Brothers - over the later wide-body fairing; going for the smaller frontal area.
Roger Reiman, with Old guys and Old parts, 1966 Daytona 200 winner. I used the rear wheel and fairing.
Traveling and testing in 1972, the Dodge van slant six engine had proved weak, and I doubted it could make the 5,000 and something mile trip to and from Bonneville without trouble. So in the summer of 1973 I used a chain fall to drop the engine and transmission out the bottom of the van. The engine dropped onto a metal sheet that I used to slide the engine out from under the van on the grass of my back yard.
With my minimal skills, I replaced bearings and synchro?s in the transmission. The engine got the better deal: polish the crank, new crank bearings and rod inserts, new rings and seals; also a valve job. Never Seize anti-corrosion lubricant everywhere to prevent the salt corrosion I expected at Bonneville.
In 1969-71, I had been a graduate assistant in the Department of Physical Oceanography, while working my way through my master?s degree in education. My day job for the department was as a machinist. This included assisting the design of, and the fabrication of, equipment that might see a 15,000 foot depth. Never Seize had become my friend.
All six exhaust valves looked like this: Usable but marginal. Better to do it at home than on the road, and maybe miss speed week !
The same metal sheet slid the engine and transmission back under the van, and I winched the engine up and into place.
A two by four could be put between the window frames of the van to hold the chain-fall to raise and lower the engine.
In my summer spare time, the 1957 Harley engine was then converted to better Bonneville specification??..
Continuing on the bike, I found a likely hub for a Bonneville (no brakes) front wheel. I used Reiman?s Daytona-winning rear wheel, since I could change gearing with the change of rear sprockets. The stock Harley wheel essentially offered NO changes.
I bought a used alloy rim; bought some blank spokes, which I cut to length, then taught myself to form threads on spokes, and to lace and true wheels.
Front wheel photo by Ed Hunt
My new day job, starting the fall of 1972, was still teaching school, but only part time, so the cost of racing was a REAL factor!
We were so very hopeful about setting a record and fulfilling a dream
that we missed the storm clouds ahead..
(In creative writing, this is called foreshadowing )
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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50 years at Bonneville; Scott Guthrie remembers
Chapter #5 - 1973
Actually going to Bonneville for the 1st time
In the summer of 1973, my wife quit her job, I took a long summer break from school teaching and we set of on a 10-week meandering trip to and from Bonneville.
This once-in-a-lifetime trip showed us the beauty of the United States??and the questionable quality of my own workmanship. Happily, the Dodge van engine, though still weak, was ultra - reliable. The transmission was not so much, having developed a personality that seemed to love 3rd gear ? and to NOT shift out of top gear when coming to a stop. The van was SO loaded with racing and camping supplies that starting from a dead stop on a hill was killing the clutch.
I became adept at sliding under the van (it was that high on it?s springs), removing the transmission inspection side-plate, and manually shifting the transmission out of 3rd. If I was careful to select a berm on the left side of the van angling the van up so I would not lose any transmission fluid?
Since I had a compressed-air tank for working at Bonneville ? filling tires, and light ratchet work ? I found I could make the whole Transmission repair quite quickly.
Somewhere in Kansas, we drifted into a self-service gas station about dusk, the orange sun setting over the fruited plains. I asked the attendant if I could borrow a little of his asphalt parking lot to repair my transmission. The pump jockey frowned at our forlorn little van, and sighed that Yes, we could make the repair, over there, out of the way, and where spilled oil wouldn?t matter.
He went back to his indoor desk, put up his feet back up on the desk, and resumed reading his HOT ROD magazine. We went to the side of the pavement. I quietly got out my air-tank, coily-cord air hose and air ratchet with the 6-point, 9/16 socket and went to work.
(photo)
The simplicity of Three on the Column
?Brrrr WOW, Brrrr WOW? went the ratchet 10 times. Off comes the side inspection plate. My pry-bar ?encouraged? 3rd gear to release. Behind the wheel, Ellen jiggles the column shifter, and we confirm we now have 3-forward speeds. 10 more hits with the air wrench, and the transmission is buttoned up and oil tight again. We must have ?reused? the same gasket about eight times?..
Photo
The simplicity of the 60?s van. Many recent innovations, like heat. The engine is in the ?center seat? Easy to access in the rain, but hot in the summer. NO air conditioning in those long-ago days !
Elapsed time was no more than 10 minutes.
I drive us over to the pumps, and we fill up.
The attendant wanders out to collect our credit card (no spending cash when we might need it later at Bonneville), and looks bemusedly at me at the pump. Decide to not work on the transmission ? he wondered.
No, I said nonchalantly,?ten minutes was plenty to get into the box and rearrange the gears?..
He looked longer than necessary at my oil and grease free hands, shook his head, and took the card inside.
This was becoming the adventure of a lifetime !
On our way through Colorado, and into the purple mountains, we stopped to visit one of Ellen?s brothers atop a 7,500 foot mountain outside Boulder. Starting at the bottom of Brother?s Hill, @ 5,500 feet altitude, the heavily loaded van, with the even-more asthmatic slant-six, and the 3-speed was geared too tall to make the grade, even in 1st???..
FAIL !
I did a 180 degree turn, as if to go back to the bottom of the hill, and slipped into reverse. Reverse was a substantially LOWER gear than my highway-derived 1st gear.
(photo)
Main gear set in the van. Notice the smallest gear in the reverse position, which gave the van the ultra-low ratio when backing up.
We BACKED UP part of the seven miles???.
After two miles, much under 10 mph, I vowed that if we EVER needed to do that again, we would just call a taxi !
Having enjoyed the new snow on 11,300 ft. Berthoud Pass west of Denver, we achieved never-before-seen van speeds on the downhill run, eventually arriving in Wendover, but frontwards.
We arrived on the salt comfortably early, and went directly to the pits. I was able to find a little work spot where I could have an EXCELLENT view of the long (only) course.
I found myself wondering why this prime pit spot was available??.
Tech inspection was surprisingly quick with no problems; nothing to fix. Next morning, with GREAT nervousness, I went out on the race course, and promptly hammered the bike down the track to an amazing top speed of 98.500 MPH (by time slip) on my very first run on the salt.
(Coming down out of the Rocky Mountains, I had been faster in my slant 6 Dodge Van, on the way to the track??.)
Don McCaw?s standing record in class MPS-C-1000 was 136.003.
I had a LONG way to go !.......................
My assumption was that, since the
tach reading was for a substantially higher speed, than my clutch must have been slipping. It was NOT conceivable I could spin the rear tyre at 98mph with (maybe) 70 horsepower??..
Of course, I also wondered if I had made a rookie mistake with my tire choice. At the Daytona 200 motorcycle race in March, I had purchased a couple of used RAIN tires for use at Bonneville. My feeling was that the softer rain tires would give better traction on the moist salt, but now I was wondering.
So, with some disappointment we returned to the pits, and slipped the bike onto my homemade trackside workbench. We drained the primary (clutch case) oil, and took out the multi-plate dry clutch pack. Everything looked perfect, and no stinky smell of burned clutch plates.
About this time, I took a break, and looked to the track, and noticed that there was nobody
running. Remembering the lack of sounds, I concluded there had been no one running for some time.
Les Leggitt was in the next pit, loudly (and fragrantly) tuning up his AA Blown Fuel car, so I asked HIM what was up.
Les shouted: They shut down the course ?cause the
clocks are fouled up. (We are both deep breathing nitro fumes in the previously clean Bonneville air) Some guy went through the traps on a Harley at an obviously good speed, and the clocks seemed to be off by maybe 50 mph
(photo)
Throughout the week, each time Les revved the blown-fuel motor, I realized WHY this pit spot had been available??.
Back together went the Harley clutch, and back in line
(You spend a LOT of time in line at Bonneville)
we went to attempt to qualify to run for record the next morning.
I would soon learn to do this sort of routine maintenance while waiting in line. The more time spent in the pits, the less time available to race. The line time remains the same.
On my first run with the bike back together, I needed over 136mph to qualify to run for record the next morning by exceeding (going faster than) the existing record. However, a 135.54 mph on my first full power pass was not quite enough. BUT, it showed that I was in the ball park !
My next run was at 10 am that same Tuesday morning, and I found 137.61 mph ! I had reduced the front sprocket from 20 teeth to 19 teeth (against a rear sprocket of 40 teeth) to let the engine wind up a little more.
I had qualified !
To run for record, I was required to be at the starting line, and ready to get into my (cold) leathers the next morning at 7:00 SHARP!
SIDEBAR
Bonneville, in those days had qualifying on one day,
and two(2) runs for the record the first thing next morning.
We would run north (called ?down?), toward floating mountain, and then the return run would be south (back), toward the interstate highway.
This meant having to break the World Record not once,
but TWICE to become the new record holder???..Once in qualifying, and at least once the next day in record runs.
We were allowed to take the bikes into town
and work on them at leisure overnight, which we did in a closed gas station, with flashlights.
End sidebar.
I checked everything, hoping for enlightenment, and maybe some unfound speed.
We found a few things to clean up or adjust,
but nothing to add to even 2 mph.
Ever cost conscious, we camped out of the van near the track in an area now called ?the Bend in the Road.?
Free, and only 5 miles from the start line.
We parked hard on the side of the road, maybe 10 feet from the pavement, all ready to be up at 6:00 am !
If we were late to the Marshaling hour
of 7:00 O?clock, we would not be allowed
to run, and have to start all over by qualifying again?..
There was a problem, Houston.
We had forgotten to bring an alarm clock.
I made a stray piece of cardboard into a sign saying:
We Qualified,
Please Honk.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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Pictures from koncretekid show up, but that's it.
No pictures from Scott .
Franey
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Franey (and everyone else):
If you go back a handful of pages you'll see where Scott explained that the hassles of getting pics into a Forum post are more than he chose to do, especially since they are available elsewhere.
Yeah, I could figure out a way to get them here, but I'm just the head handlebar holder, and Scott and all of youse guys pretty much get to decide how you wanna do it.
Sorry - no pics, but I tried. Find the relevant copies of Bonneville Racing news, or follow the stuff on some of the Facebook pages, and who knows where else Mr. Guthrie has displayed it. Don't miss any - it's worth digging.
:-D
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154?__tn__=%2CdC-R-R&eid=ARC-si0pP2LvRR1kv3CcntrTRvQfgMNuDBpBwMavMKq4Bmac1y5o79Si97AQcG5Rtuk4ftY2su-eB9dp&hc_ref=ARRr39I-dzize38JHepMq20VnJAxkD4JVDLxHLBtQDnI9tWSmbzkJ0JXdA-LAx2tJ0I&fref=nf
I joined just to get info on a couple of forums.
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I joined just to get info on a couple of forums.
Thanks, Tom.
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So near, and yet so far?.
Chapter #6
We Qualified,
Please Honk.
Other qualifiers honked loudly and frequently, so we made it to impound on time. Other campers were NOT amused??.
This was ?The gathering of Eagles !?
In those days, ONLY record- qualified racers were allowed at the start line. Record runs were run in both directions, and the reverse direction ran through the original starting line. So folks waiting to qualify were kept back in the pits, and to not be in the way if somebody ?went long.?
The ONLY folks in this group were ?the anointed;? those faster than the existing records !
This was rarefied air at the Mount Olympus of speed. Would we mere mortals be allowed even to breath that same air ? Would we be found worthy ?
We HAD qualified on the ?first? attempt,
but would glory be ours ?
There was a ANOTHER problem, Houston !...............
Over the winter and spring of 1972-73, I spent so much
time on the bike and van that I did not notice the
(unannounced) elimination of the 883cc class.
I would have to run against the 1000cc bikes.
And, as Ry Cooder might have said, THIS particular black cloud did NOT have a silver lining!
I was not the only competitor caught unawares. Also surprised were the riders in the 200cc, 600cc and the 700 cc classes, whose records ?disappeared? in the re-calibration of the rule / record book.
Interestingly, there were relatively few classes for larger bikes. There was of course the imposing 1000cc class, the next up category was the 1,200cc division. The only remaining category was the maximum class of 3,000cc.
NO 1350cc, NO 1650cc, and NO 2,000cc classes. Those would appear later. So, if you had an 80 cubic inch Harley, you had to run in the 3,000cc class???
1973, in addition to the new, all-inclusive 1,000cc class, brought the appearance of the Kawasaki 903cc double - over- head cam bike (code named in development by Kawasaki as the New York Steak).
Last year, I would have been safely in the 883cc class, and I did NOT look forward to competing against a full-factory team in my first efforts, especially while giving away overhead cams and more than 10% of my displacement !..
The new Z-1 Kawasaki, was perfect for the new 1000cc class, with 903cc, double over-head cams, and unlimited funds for development, and press introduction at Bonneville.
(photo)
The Yoshimura Kawasaki Z-1, 1973
1973 also brought ?Pops? Yoshimura to Bonneville.
(photo)
POPS AT WORK in the 1970?s. Note the ball cap turned a
little sideways in ?pre hip-hop? style.
A legend among US soldiers in Viet Nam period Japan, Pops would go on to dominate motorcycle road racing in the USA, and gain world-wide respect. Pop?s Kawasaki Z-1 was a true factory bike, with everything done that could be done.
Plus, ?the Z? was ridden by a real racer, an AMA expert, named Dale Alexander, a retired Indian factory rider, and professional pilot who flew for the ?Flying Tigers? in WW2.
The Yoshimura team had been very clever, having hired as riders both Dale Alexander, an AMA Professional rider, and Bruce Flanders, son of the Earl Flanders ? the AMA steward for the race meeting. ( Handsome Earl Flanders, born in 1911, and a champion rider himself, supervised the first over 200 MPH record at Bonneville speed week in 1956) If THEY didn?t know how to run a Bonneville race program, than nobody did !
(photo)
Flanders Co. Earl is 4th from right
(Actually, 4th from left)
Their experience and knowledge of racing was beyond my wildest dreams, and I was sure that the only chance I had for victory would come along with a ?lucky earthquake? that somehow swallowed all the teams bikes equipment.
That Kawasaki was substantially faster than my poor old 1957 Harley. We just needed a time slip to see how badly I was going to be beaten !
We eased our Humble Dodge A-100 6-cylinder van up to the starting area, and shyly unloaded the bike into line.
I had a lot of misgivings about this whole Bonneville thing ! This would be the first race bike I had even built from scratch, including the engine. Evenings O?plenty had been spent at the drafting board, and with paper and the primitive calculators of the day. It was an advanced device that allowed both ?the square? function, and had ?pi.?
I though my intuition, ability to mechanic and fabricate were OK, and my ability to ride was adequate ? after all, it was all in a straight line??
So, here we were, at the Bonneville starting line, 3 runs TOTAL under my belt, standing next to a fully-funded factory effort. Some said later, I looked cool and collected; while actually I was petrified by the possibility of total failure and huge embarrassment. In a way, I was too nervous to ACT nervous.
As befitting a true factory effort, the Yoshimura / Kawasaki team
was on the salt before we arrived. Their specially-made van held
ALL FOUR of their bikes . All four bikes were qualified, serviced and all the riders were suited up.
We were greatly impressed, and hardly optimistic.
Dale on the Z-1,our direct competitor, was to run ahead of us, and he would probably
be substantially faster than I would be.
HOWEVER, there was always the
chance ? though remote ? that Dale might have
engine trouble, or have ignition failure.
Right !
Dale sped away from the start line and EVERYBODY
at the start area and in the pits stopped to watch and listen.
This would be the first time anybody in the world
would hear this fabulous bike make it?s glorious double-overhead-cam,
4-cylinder sounds for five miles straight ahead without letting up.
We were all transfixed.
It was the sound of my doom.
And it sounded wonderful????
(photo)
The 1973 YoshimuraBonneville-only Z-1 Kawasaki set up for unfaired, modified class. The ?D? on the number plate indicates that this bike ( A,B, C, D etc.) was
set up to run it?s Fourth class of speed week. So NO, I did NOT invent ?class jumping !
In anticipation of the cool morning air, I had rather hopefully changed my sprocket back up from 19 to 20 teeth. In Florida, I had calculated that would be the best choice, but now I was nervous. If the engine wouldn?t pull the taller gear, I would be knocked back down into the 130?s. Maybe far enough down that we would not ?record.? Oh well, Dale was going to go a lot faster than I would, so why not try. I would learn something about Bonneville racing, and maybe confirm my ?winter thinking.?
My pre-race thinking came back to me as we warmed the bike: The cams were pretty ?radical? for the application, and I hoped they would both produce power and not break the two-coil valve springs. The lift was a little ?sudden? and that never helps longevity. My understanding from Tom Sifton was that these had been developed for flat track, and were NOT intended for Bonneville, and the long, high-RPM application.
Time to shut off all the questions and worries, and to concentrate on riding??..
Minutes later, Bob Higbee gave me the track, and I wandered hopefully down toward the timing lights.
The Harley had too much compression to kick start or push start, so I held on to the driver?s side door of our van, while Ellen pulled me up to speed. The Sifton ?A? cams were a little ?tall? for low-engine speed, so I hung on while Ellen got up to the top of first gear in the van, and then well into the van?s 2nd gear. When she hit 40 mph, she tooted the horn, and I dropped off.
(photo)
Foto by Freud, 1974
Immediately engaging the Harley?s clutch, I started the bike, and cruised along, letting the engine warm a little, for maybe 10 seconds, and then off I went in 1st gear. Shifting to 2nd gear at 7,000 rpm, maybe 75 mph, I could feel the Harley asking for more. It pulled up to 100 in 2nd, and then I made a ?slick shift? into 3rd. . In my heart, I knew this was as good as this bike was going to run. This was it. Dropping the bike into high (4th)gear, the Harley pulled cleanly and hard to about 6800rpm and 145.68 mph for the full mile .
We were over the existing record by almost 10 mph. Would it be enough ?
At ?the other end? we all tended to our
little tasks of getting our bikes ready to
return within the one-hour limit.
No changes or any new parts allowed, but we
could check chains and timing.
(photo)
YOSHIMURA. How do you compete with a team that builds their own chassis, and gets their engines direct from the factory.
Dale had gone down the track fast. He showed me his timing slip, and at 159 mph, he was a FULL 14 mph faster than my Harley. HE was about 25 mph over the record??..
Dale had indeed beaten me like a drum.
In those days, we were required to return in the order we ran down, so Dale would run first. He would get the record and it would be about to be the same as if Ellen and I never
even come to Bonneville ???.
This was not ?Campbell and Seagrave? stuff.
But I had hoped for just a moment in the bright sun
of a successful SCTA Bonneville land speed record??..
I was well and truly beaten !
Spanked like a bad dog???????
Waiting with our bike ready for the return run, we sadly started preparing the van for the trip home.
At this point especially, I was asking myself why I was doing this Bonneville thing anyway????..
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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EAST INTO THE SUN
Chapter six.
My very first record run
The pre-dawn cold brought welcome
shivers from the small Gypsy band
moving slowly in the dim twilight.
Soon the sun would appear, and
with it the triple digit solar pounding
of a day in the salt desert.
No ordinary desert, this salt pan
could suck the life from unprepared
visitors and experienced old hands alike.
For now, the unnatural quiet presaged
an explosive moment that could
come unexpectedly at any moment.
The crowd, a mix of young and old,
mostly men, went knowledgeably
about their work, almost wordlessly.
Old hands did the work they knew so well,
light almost unnecessary.
There was a reverential hush over
the small roped-off area,of Impound
that, many years later, would
become known as Warnerville.
Drowning out all voice and thought,
an engine fired next to me; the harsh,
almost unbearably loud bark
of Les Leggitt?s AA blown fuel car.
One of the most satisfying sounds
when pushing 300 MPH, the sound now
at such close range was almost irritating.
A gentle breeze carried the pungent smell of the
special fuel throughout the impound area.
Nervous men remarked: ?Nothing like the
smell of nitro before breakfast.?
We sat on the starting line, watching the starter,
Bob Higbe, trying to anticipate his demeanor.
Would he soon give us the sign?
Would I speed down the still pre-dawn track,
or would there be another ?full course hold?
while the last sleepy volunteer returned to
long course shutdown, and announced
his semi readiness on the hand held FM radio.
My Harley engine was warmed up, and I was
fully suited in leather from collar to toe,
helmet and gloves in place. My wife Ellen
was at my side, but behind the wheel of
our humble 1969 Dodge A-100 van.
The van quietly idled, and I leaned the bike
against the van?s left flank. I was astride
the bike, with my right hand firmly
gripping the door handle.
My bike, an 883cc Harley Davidson of
ridiculous 1957 vintage, had been rebuilt
with such high compression that it was
virtually impossible to push or kick start,
even with several folks pushing.
The unusually high first gear was good
for almost 90MPH. The only effective
starting routine was for me to hold tight
to the van?s door handle, and have Ellen
?tow? me up to about 40 MPH, and then
I would release from the truck,
drop the clutch, and power away.
As the August 1973 sun first peaked
over the eastern mountains,
on my first record morning, the starter,
Mr. Bob Higbee turned to me.
Bob was a fixture at Bonneville,
and Bonneville had never known
any other starter. He knew the
?race face? of every competitor,
and he knew who was ready
and who was not.
Ready at history?s doorstep.
Bob looked me over intently enough
that his usual smile was forgotten for a moment.
At a glance, he could see the bike and
Ellen were ready. My riding gear looked fine.
Seeming to be checking my helmet strap,
he looked into my eyes, and I was convinced he
could see how nervous I was,
and would not release me.
Quickly. his confidant smile reappeared,
and he gently said in a voice surely
only I could hear,
? You are all set; the course is yours.?
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Go.....this made me smile big time. Oh more more more.
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Redemption and peanut butter
Chapter #7 - Redemption.
The world will little note,
nor long remember....
All through my life, short as it was at that point, I had wanted to be part of something larger than myself. Something with the status of the SCTA?s Bonneville Speed Week, and all that meant.
Also, I wanted to do something a little crazy, with some risk taking. Swimming in a pool, and ballroom dancing somehow did not fit the requirement. That ?something? had to involve danger, and doing it on my own.
Building a motorcycle from scratch and riding it at crazy speeds ? AND setting an SCTA World speed record ? now THAT would be an adventure !
That cool August morning in 1973, the returns runs started about 9:00 am. We were required to return in the order that we went down so Dale would run ahead of me.
As Dale Alexander?s number was called for him to start his return run, he was adjusting his Yoshimura Kawasaki carburetors with a long screw driver, and looked to the starter and said: ??send the Harley, I?m not quite ready yet?.?
The record-return starter turned to me, and gestured toward the far end. Off I went, not aware of the significance of what had just happened.
The 1957 Harley pulled away from the northern impound, and bellowed for the interstate highway to the west, running the full course miles without a single note off-song. Smooth and powerful.
Bang on the red-line the whole run, and going VERY fast for a ?Class C? (stock) Harley Davidson. What a pleasure to run AWAY from the morning sun, and see Bonneville through the windscreen of a world-class on-record-run motorcycle !
The bike was running so well that I forgot for a few minutes what a hopeless exercise this was ! The fresh main bearings (roller) and rod bearings (also roller) turned with almost frictionless smoothness. The new, very-straight shafts and new gears in the transmission had been treated to an application of hard chrome, to reduce friction, as had the entire primary drive assembly.
I could almost FEEL the smoothness in the primary case and in the transmission from all the hard chrome. If anything, I thought the bike might be maybe a little faster today; maybe a good, hard, long run had seated the rings and valves, and ?polished down? the rough parts in the engine and drive train.
I flew through the measured mile at almost 6,700 rpm, against a slight headwind. Faultless run; down about 100 rpm, but couldn?t have been better !
I eased off the throttle, but kept the bike running in gear to let the morning air cool the engine and the oil.
Rolling slowly up to the finish area - the original start line - I found myself AGAIN ?over? the record, but with returning against a slight headwind, I clocked a slightly slower 141.95 mph.
The average of the two runs 143.817, was over the record, but it would mean little, since Dale was right behind me, and he would SURELY better my time !
I pulled off my hand-painted helmet and aviator-style goggles, unzipped my white leathers, and allowed relaxation to sweep over me. A rare moment of extreme satisfaction !
I had beaten the record !
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Re your second paragraph:
Remember what Ernest Hemingway said, "There are only three sports- mountain climbing, bull fighting, and motor racing. All the others are just games."
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That's an excellent point Neil, and I have
that in my rough drafts for later.
At the time of Hemingway's remark, I
think he had climbed Mt. Kilimanjoro.
He had also run with the bulls in Pamplona.
Hemingway, in his time, might have known more
about bull fighting than any other American.
However, he never got to motor racing.....
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Redemption and Peanut Butter
Chapter #8 ? Peanut Butter
I had beaten the World Record !
As my awareness expanded to include the rest of the world, I heard the insane howling of Dale?s 4-cylinder Kawasaki at red line; coming my way. Power personified, and up-to-the-minute technology.
With a sudden echoing silence when he clicked the engine off, Dale drifted to a stop beside me; we exchanged satisfied glances. We had done our jobs, and done them well !
We were politely directed to take the bikes ?to impound.? I wasn?t sure why for me, since I had been surely beaten by about 15 or 20mph.
The steward remarked: ?Well, you never now??.That Kawasaki might not pass the fuel test, and maybe his engine might not pass tech???
Factory team, so fat chance, that !
Side by side, we tore our bikes down for inspection in what would become ?Warnerville.? I concentrated on cleaning the salt off my pushrod covers and from around the heads before opening things up. With no air filters, I sure there was enough salt inside the engine already, without dropping extra directly into the oil system.
I was trying hard not to stare in too-much awe as the Yoshimura ?crowd? of mechanics, all smiling at each other and murmuring quietly in Japanese, effortlessly and confidently performed each step of their disassembly in perfect synchronization; picking up the correct tool for each bolt, hardly glancing in the tool box, all with no manual or questions.
The riders, hands clean, stood at ease, chatting with ?Pops,? about which class to destroy next??
YOSHIMURA PHOTO-ULRICH
I took consolation that the Harley had made five runs perfectly, with no repairs, and three of the runs over the existing record. The rings looked good, the pistons perfect, no clutch slip, chain still wet and usable, no bent pushrods, and the carburation close to right ? at least from my amateur view of the spark plugs.
Dale and I both passed tech, and Ellen and I stepped over to congratulate Dale and Pops Yoshimura.
Smiling as ever, Pops gave a small bow.
Pops????..
Dale, extending a friendly hand, shyly said: ?Sorry to be the guy to break your record so quickly.?
My record ?
Dale explained: ?Well, even though I was
fastest down, you were first back, and your
average speed broke the old record.
That means YOU held the record that I just broke.
I am proud to have broken YOUR record !?
My first Bonneville record ? My ONLY Bonneville record - the dream of years ? had lasted 10 minutes??.
AND??.only through the kindness of a fellow racer?????
? * * * *
AND, THEY DID EAT LIKE KINGS??
After setting the record - such as it was - we needed a celebratory dinner somewhere. Since we were camping out, we could afford as much as $15 for the both of us. So, we headed off to the traditional place for celebration, The Hideaway !
In the 1950?s and 60?s, the HIDEWAY in Wendover had developed a reputation as the place to go to celebrate ? or just to have a good meal in a friendly atmosphere. So, it was understood, that if you set a record ? or just wanted to see those who had ? you went to the Hideaway for dinner.
After being seated, our drink orders filled, the waitress asked about our main courses. ?Steak? I said with assurance. ?Biggest one you have. We just set a world record today on the flats, and we want the best steak you have !?
The whole Hideaway suddenly got very quiet, in the way that saloons in western movies get silent when the gunslinger drifts in.
Our waitress slowly asked: ?Have you been in here earlier this week, and ordered that steak ??
Dumbfound, I said, ?No. I just set the record this morning, and we want to celebrate in just the right way, at just the right place. Here, with a big steak.?
There was an embarrassed silence all around. Our waitress replied: ?There is a huge national shortage of beef right now. We have to order from Salt Lake City at least 2 days early, to see if we can even get one. Sorry, I can?t help with the steak.?
So, after setting a record that lasted 10 minutes, we celebrated with peanut butter sandwiches???
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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50 Years at Bonneville:
Scott Guthrie Remembers
WEAK SOUP;
all you want,
same price !
Chapter #9
Not surprisingly, having held a record for only 10 minutes was pretty weak soup for me. I wanted to return to Bonneville and regain my honor, small as it might be.
In the heat of competition, it is often hard to step back and both analyze progress (or lack of it) and assess future goals. Once home, I realized that without being quite aware of it at the time, I had actually learned a lot about racing at Bonneville.
In my case, I saw that even without a record ?in the book,? we had done almost everything right ! We had gotten to Bonneville on time, and we were ready to race the first day. With the exception of the first-day SNAFU in the clocks (NOT our fault), every run was a good one. Three of the five runs were over the record, and we in fact made it into impound and safely through tech.
My biggest mistake was to assume that the class I had entered in 1972 would be there for me in 1973.
On balance, we thought it would be fun to continue with Bonneville, IF I could learn to read AND understand the rule book.AND maybe build a competitive motorcycle !
After Bonneville in August of 1973, I had spent more than a week in LA, going from shop to shop, getting to know folks personally that had a proven hand in racing. I asked their opinions, and listened carefully to what they had to say. I digested all that for about 6 months before changing the bike for August of 1974, and Speed Week.
Anxious to continue development, and to get more riding experience after Bonneville 1973, I fit new Morris cast wheels and dual-disc front brakes to the ancient Harley and went road-racing. Both of these mechanical items were ?firsts? for a non-factory-team Harley race bike. After running in maybe three races, I found myself mysteriously ranked 3rd place nationally by the AMA, surely a mistake, since I could barely ride around corners..
The 883cc Class C (AMA class C = stock) engine had proved powerful, and the chassis handling was now GREAT. This was suddenly a REAL race bike. With a stock bore of 3.0 inches, and stroke of a plodding 3 13/16 inches, the engine displaced 883cc. At the redline of 6,800 RPM, that was an average piston speed of 4,300 feet per minute, and a maximum piston speed of 6,800 ft/min. Certainly not Formula One numbers, but that?s what I had to work with.
If only the rider had some talent.
(photo)
Scott Guthrie, racing his factory Harley Davidson XRTT at Gainesville FL in late 1973, after Bonneville Speed Week Cycle paint by David Burley, Helmet design by Phil Hunt, Photo by Virginia Miller
Over the fall and winter of 1973-74, I considered my sins.
I had indeed set a record at Bonneville, but it had lasted only 10 minutes. My name did NOT appear in the record books, and basically, only I knew that there had been any success at Bonneville. NO press coverage !
I NOW understood the rule book much better, and had, with Dales and the Yoshimura team?s help - figured out changing classes.
With Dale Alexander and Pop Yoshimuras encouragement, I made a test run at 138mph one way, naked, (The bike naked, not me) without any streamlining. Not a big number nowadays, but not bad for basically a stock 1957 Sportster on pump (Literally; from the Shell station) gas.
That 138 mph speed was right in the thick of 1973 Bonneville competition: It was ALMOST as fast as Dr. Alan Abbott, riding a bicycle (140.5 mph), and at least a notch quicker than Bob Barker on the 125cc Can Am motocross bike at 136.536 mph (2-way record)
(Photo)
Can Am 125cc dirt bike, 1973 ? Factory
bike partially funded by the Canadian military
(photo)
Dr. Alan Abbott?s 140 mph bicycle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUmabVbz0ys
So: After two YEARS of struggle, on an 883cc Harley,
I was ever-so slightly faster that a 125cc dirt bike,
but not quite as fast as a guy on a bicycle.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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50 YEARS AT BONNEVILLE;
Scott Guthrie Remembers
After the end of the 1973 Speed Week, we were slow to pack up and leave for Florida. I was afraid this would my one and only experience at the High Church of Speed-Bonneville, and I wanted it to last. We helped the SCTA clean up and close down the course, and watch as another competitor arrived to run on ?private time,? having reserved the track for just himself.
https://www.si.com/vault/1973/12/17/618848/fastest-foot-in-the-west
The car was now in the livery of the sponsor ?ENGLISH LEATHER, a mens cologne. The racer turned out to be non other than the famous Craig Breedlove, then still quite youthful in his mid 30?s.
Craigs car started life as a sprinter, or a car for acceleration, like drags, and he set a highest speed of 377.75 mph in a standing-start 1/4 mile at Bonneville. It was this car he brought to Bonneville in 1973.
My impression was that Kitty ONeil would later go faster with a speed of over 412 mph in 1977.
Craig wandered over to our pit area to chat, and perhaps to borrow some tools?.We talked about getting into Land Speed Racing earlier in life, and realized that we had both read the HOT ROD issue with Mickey Thompson?s car at about the same time, almost 15 years before.
We would meet again.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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August of 1974 had started on a high note !
I was confident that we could run on ?and set records in ? six different classes at Speed Week. So, I sent the SCTA a check for my entry fee ? and for five class changes ? a total of SIX entries??...
We moved ahead, confident as always ? and as it would prove- frequently mistaken.
My wife Ellen and I would have a friend's help for speed week. The Bike engine was ready, except for updated pistons ordered from Venolia and anticipated the week before departure. The Van engine was fresh, and even the van body had a fresh paint job in Harley colors. We had (some) cash for the trip, and plenty of vacation time scheduled.
We were going to Bonneville, and looking for Blood ! With our winding route, this would be at least 2,500 miles, and at least 5 days of driving. AND, we DID have an alarm clock !
If only we had those Venolia pistons??..
The morning we were scheduled to leave, the pistons finally arrived by UPS. After work, into the engine they go. The engine turns over, but binds near TDC.
Modeling clay told us the valve pockets in the pistons were too small for the bigger 1974 spec. valves, and the valves were hitting the edges of the valve pockets in the pistons.
It is now late in the evening, and we have not packed. I do NOT have immediate access to a milling machine, and I am NOT going to do this with a drill press. Besides, I don?t have a jig to hold the piston in the drill press.
We carefully rolled the race bike into the van and strapped it down. We then packed, and tossed everything quickly into our humble slant-six van, and off we went at dark-thirty in the morning.
As the 1960's band Steppenwolf said:
Get your motor runnin'
Head out on the highway
Lookin' for adventure
And whatever comes our way
We are one the road, and heading to SCTA's Speed Week. However, the bike is still incomplete in the back of the van. The engine is in the frame, minus the heads, intake system and pushrod gear. It has the new but interfering pistons in the bores of the special aluminum cylinders. I have had 12 months to get this program working, and now a week before Bonneville, I am dead in the water.
Sometimes you just need to have faith????.
Being a Harley guy, I had brought a bunch of hammers and a handful of chisels. With the heads off, I used the engine cylinder, while mounted on the engine, in the frame, as a jig to hold the piston. With the piston mounted normally on the rod, and at the top of the stroke (TDC), I chiseled away the valve pockets. We?re going 65mph through Louisiana, and I was banging away with hammers in the back of the Van. Our friend spelling Ellen behind the wheel, watched me bemusedly in the rear-view mirror.
This is NOT CNC, but it IS the will to race !
As we wondered west, we wound up going through a number of small towns. Since I was lacking the HUGE carburetor jets we anticipated needing, we stopped at every Japanese bike shop looking for Mikuni parts. No cell phones, no telephone books, no internet.
Good as we made it sound and look, we were still very much a shoestring operation, even if I didn?t let it on. We had NO spare engine parts to speak of ? only one extra pair of pistons, a few sets of rings and some gaskets. NO spare engine. NO spare crank. Not even spare cylinders (which would bite us later?.) Not even a spare tire for the bike.
By Houston, pistons thoroughly ?chiseled,? the engine is now completely together. The engine spins 360 degrees with no interference, and clay confirms valve clearance. We will, however, be arriving at Bonneville with a new build, that we have never even fired up.
I am tired of sitting on the floorboards instead of a seat?
By the time we make Denver, we have all the jets, and we believe the Harley engine is ready to run ? and run fast !
Avoiding the steep climbs through the Rocky Mountains, we take the longer ? and flatter ? route north into Wyoming, and head west. Near the Utah-Wyoming border, the van gradually develops a driveline vibration, so we reduce road speed and limp toward Salt Lake City, already behind schedule. So near, but yet so far.
The now-100,000-mile Dodge driveshaft started making a fatal shudder just outside Salt Lake City, and we nursed ourselves into town. I felt like I was driving a blender set on ?milk shake.?
We were directed to the independent drive-shaft shop of one Eldon Pugh, in the industrial area on the west side of town. I avoided the Dodge dealer, afraid of the associated costs of a ?real? replacement part.
Eldon wandered out into the parking lot, peeked under the van, and remarks: ?I don?t see what your problem is, but you sure have a LOT of weight in a ? ton rated van??might need a new u-joint AND shaft.?
I am now even MORE worried about costs??..
Eldon says: ?We?ll just pop that thing out of there, and see what we can do??? I watch helplessly, while the van rises into the air on the lift.
Eldon?s men removed the driveshaft and put it into (what I now recognize as) a drive shaft balancer and aligner.
Elden reports: ? Well, for whatever reason, your old shaft has a little hop in it??(I am momentarily stopped when he says ?your old shaft,? and I am refocused instantly on the cost side of the equation)
Inline image
Trial balance weight in place
? I think what you really need is a new shaft, maybe with a little thicker wall to resist flexing. We can weld a new U-joint on the one end, but heavier duty. The new shaft will accept a more-sturdy CV joint replacement than what Dodge puts in the 100 series vans. ?
Inline image
Old bottom, new top
?We will true the shaft after we tack-weld it, and balance it for 150mph. Should be good for another 100,000 miles, and then you just being her back, and we?ll service it.?
Inline image
New shaft under construction
I am still thinking costs while I sit around in Elden?s modest office while the work takes place. We are WAY behind schedule, and I cannot concentrate on the HOT ROD magazines available in the men?s room???
There is a dusty picture of the Summers Brothers 400 MPH car on the wall, in faded black and white. Cheap plastic frame.
I asked Elden about the picture. He replied: ?Those boys towed that heavy race car on a trailer all the way to Wendover from LA. First time they drove it, the better-looking brother said it vibrated so bad he was afraid to go any faster that 200mph. They brought it to me, thinking it was drive shafts.
Wasn?t the shafts.?
Inline image
JohnBaechtel.com
?We put the car up on some HEAVY jack stands, and ran it up in top gear, and you could just SEE the vibrations. That vibration was road speed, NOT engine speed. I put my hand on a fender and said: ?ain?t no drive shafts, gotta be something else.??
?They pulled the shafts out, and I pulled out a BIG old motor we used for ?in place? tire balancing on semi trucks. We spun them tires really fast, and sure enough, it was the wheel bearings. Them boys had trailered that heavy car all the way to Wendover without taking the weight off the wheels. Brinelled the bearings REAL bad. Had to replace ?em right here in the shop.?
They got some sort of record, and they sent me the picture saying on it, ?thanks for all the help?. Been there ever since.?
I asked Elden how much all my driveshaft work was going to set me back, and he thought a minute: ?I gotta have a bunch ?a money, ?cause of that heavy-duty CV replacement joint. I reckon $55 will do it????
Greatly relieved, slightly poorer, and still a day behind schedule, we set off for Wendover. Reminded by the heat and the (now former) vibration, we stopped at Leatherby?s Family Creamery on West North Temple and bought milkshakes for the road.
With no real problems, we passed inspection, and pick a promising spot in the pit area, a quiet spot a little further from the friendly and competent Les Leggitt operation, with a nice view of the track.
Happily taking my completed inspection form to the registration trailer, I was greeting "old? friends from last year, and anticipating being handed my inspection sticker, and heading off to the staging lanes.
The kindly lady with impressively long nails in the trailer smiled and said:
Oh, YOU are Scott Guthrie !
The SCTA has been trying to get in
touch with you for some reason.
They asked me to give your check back,
because they can?t accept your entry.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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Somehow a lot of Scott's great story is strangely familiar after 25 or so trips to the salt over 40 years for me...?.. :cheers:
Keep it up, this is great!!!
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Somehow a lot of Scott's great story is strangely familiar after 25 or so trips to the salt over 40 years for me...?.. :cheers:
Keep it up, this is great!!!
Jack is (as I am) a MASTERS SWIMMER,
so we are some of the few people to set
speed records BOTH on land AND on water !
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Thanks Scott- have a meet today and aiming at 3 Md State records. But my coach of 35years passed on Jan1, funeral yesterday which has cast a pall on all of the local (and national) swim community. :-(
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Jack, my dad was a swimmer too. He went to the 1933 Olympic tryouts in Cincinnati but, unfortunately for him, that was also the year that Buster Crabbe, Johnny Weissmuller, and Duke Kahanamoku also tried out for the US Olympic swimming team.
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Jack, my dad was a swimmer too. He went to the 1933 Olympic tryouts in Cincinnati but, unfortunately for him, that was also the year that Buster Crabbe, Johnny Weissmuller, and Duke Kahanamoku also tried out for the US Olympic swimming team.
What great history Neil. At my first YMCA Masters nationals in 1987 I met a guy, then 70+ named Vanderweigh (not sure spelling) who went to the '36 games ( the "famous" ones in Berlin) and placed second in the 100 backstroke (said he should have won but coaching issue). I was really impressed with the times he was doing then at 70 (I've since beaten- ;) ) Anyway, great memories for your Dad I am sure and he might have run into or known Vanderweigh.
Ok, Back to cars and bikes.
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 Years at Bonneville
?Emphasize process over results?
Nick Saban, Alabama Football coach
Still in a state of shock over the SCTA?s refusal of my entry form, I found my way to yet another trailer, where more paperwork was handled. Another kindly lady took one look, and said: ? We can handle this pretty easily?.? And she handed back my original registration form, with the five class change papers, and my check for six (6) record attempts.
?The SCTA has never had ANY vehicle ? car or bike ? attempt six records in one week with the same vehicle, and we are not even sure we know how to keep the paper work from getting confused. Just cancel your check, and go to registration and give them ONLY your initial entry, and a check for JUST that initial entry. If you want to run more classes, please do so, and pay for one class change at a time.?
Back to the lady with the imposing nails.
Relieved, paper work done, we concentrated on inspection; which we completed with NO demerits, and then continued setting up our pit. An interesting Saturday.
Now increasingly confident, but still apprehensive about the un-tried motor, early Sunday morning we towed to the starting area, and waited some hours for our turn on the single course. I warmed the bike on the quite-hot warm-up spark plugs, which were just normal ?street? plugs.
The engine had never been fired before, and I was worried about the lack of break in. I had installed hard chrome piston rings as part of my low-internal-friction plan, and I wasn?t sure how long it would take the rings to fully seat. It would turn out that I was right to be concerned, but for different reasons.
When the engine was toasty, I installed the quite-cool ?race? plugs. Which, as per factory race team instructions, were Champion N-60R ?cartridge fire? (recessed tip) racing items.
(photo) Typical of the Harley factory-recommended racing plugs, like mu N-60R.
The R meant Retracted, not Racing.
My first run was a creditable 148 mph, but did not qualify. We were able to get in another run, and I put larger jets in the twin carbs, thinking the bike was running lean at top speed. I had fit cylinder-head temperature gauges over the winter, hoping to understand the combustion temperatures. No help;
the erratic information from the new gauges was of no help. The huge engine vibration was shaking the bejesus out of the needles, and the readings were worthless.
After the second run the resulting 146 mph hand-written timing slip told me I had guessed in the wrong direction. Even smaller jets than original produced a first-day qualification of 153mph. Picked up seven (7) mph with a simple jet change !
Not bad for a bike that started the trip still partially in boxes !
This was in the old 3-run-for-record period, where the qualification run just got you to record runs; nothing else. Without the need to impound the bike, we could go in town and worry all night about whether we were ready for records the next day.
My memory is that we missed Monday for weather, and record runs came to us on Tuesday.
We all marshaled up at about 6:30 am at the starting line; slapping our arms trying to keep warm. We had learned the year before, 1973, than services on the salt were primitive, no ice, no coffee, no food, no electricity. There was NO gas station at the interstate intersection, and NO fast food outlets in town. But, there was plenty of salt?..
Well prepared after last year, my wife Ellen started fixing breakfast around 6:45. You will recall from photo?s that our van had double doors on BOTH sides; an unusual feature in a 1969 Dodge A-100. As I prepared the bike on the right side, Ellen catered on the left side. A large metal table was placed beside the van, with folding chairs ; a red-and-white table cloth was lofted to cover the metal. We fired up our two burner Coleman. Within minutes, Ellen spread the welcome smell of drip-brewed coffee in cups for an appreciative record-run crowd, and she and began making cheese blintzes with raspberry sauce for any hungry friend.
Ellen?s Land Speed Racing catering
career had begun to rave reviews.
Our time to run came, and Bob Higby gesturing to us. We towed off the start line in our usual fashion, me clutching nervously to Ellen?s door handle until we reach the ?drop-off? speed of about 40 mph.
Freud Foto
Ellen Guthrie tows her husband Scott up to a ?drop off? speed of 40 mph, and the bike fires up. Yes this is the 1970?s, and yes, his hair is longer than hers.
Released from the van, I released the clutch in second gear, and was satisfied by an immediate bark from the two straight pipes. After warming the engine for about an eighth of a mile, I quickly accelerated through the four gears to a ?down pass,? into the eastern early morning sun, of 156.744mph. A nice improvement over yesterday?s 153mph. Probably cool weather, and not my riding or tuning skills. This was fast enough for us to be pretty upbeat anticipating the return run within the hour.
Photo - Warner Riley at the start. I had learned my tow-start trick from watching Warner, but he did it much better. Custom handle at the back of the van (safer), and one window open for the mechanic to relay commands, and to watch out.
In the old 3-run days, one did not have to be over the record on the first record run, but the AVERGAGE of the two runs had to be over the old record in order to set a new record. With the old method, there had to be two runs made over the record to put a new line in the book. The first had to be the qualifying run, and one of the two following record runs also had to be ?over.?
The Harley came home southwest, away from floating mountain in the increasingly warm morning air, with a 147.26 mph, to a new record average of 152.002 mph. We were un-opposed, so all I had to do was pass inspection, change classes, and return to the start line for the next record qualification.
The bike was feeling a little off song in the final mile. Another clue I missed.
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 Years at Bonneville
Chapter #12
?Smart Decisions?
Somehow, I had surprised myself by making a smart decision about which order to run for records: I would run the fastest record first, and then successively slower records as the engine wore out. This would turn out to be quite wise?..
In impound, I cleaned the bike with plain water in a cheap plastic garden sprayer. Running no fairing, I had picked up a lot of salt. The salt accumulation was reduced substantially by fitting a ?shaker screen? to the front of the bike ? car dirt track style. The screen (plain old bronze window screen) let cooling air through, but stopped big globs of salt. I had been paying attention the year before when my hero Warner W Riley had been reprimanded for using duct tape between the fork tubes for the same purpose. ?Looks like streamlining in a naked class to me? murmured inspector Earl Flanders of the AMA, who ran ?Warnerville? for the bikes until 1978.
Continuing with record inspection, I removed the intake system and heads from the 1957 Harley, careful to exclude salt from the oiling system. AMA Earl measured my 3.250?bore and 4 5/8?stroke to indicate 1,257cc in a 1,300cc class. Gasoline seal intact. Easy as pie!
Next to us in impound was the soon-to-be-famous-forever double-engine Harley designed and built by future Bonneville star Bob George; most recently owned by Leo Hess. The bike was ridden by drag-racing star Dave Campos. This odd item clicked off an astounding 208.450 record on GAS. I remember this as (at the time) the fastest gas record ever for a sit-on bike. I started thinking about making MY bike a double engine !
Photo: RB Racing ? Bob Behn
The talented and often inscrutable Bob George on the left, and intrepid pilot Dave Campos on the right. Notice the confidence inspiring long wheelbase. The bike is low, and low to the ground. Car tire in rear; minimalist brakes. Small size of fuel lines suggest gasoline. As an artist, I have always loved this photograph. You can see the man between the camera and Bike #40, with his sun-shielding cloth blown hard to his rear. Is there ANY OTHER sign of wind ?
Photo: RB Racing-? Bob Behn
The S&S sponsored George/ Campos beast with fairing. Quite narrow for lower frontal area.
While taking a break from the inspection process, I walked over to look at the inexplicable Mike Corbin entry, #24A ?Quicksilver?. This home made contraption appeared to be welded together from odd parts, with what looked like a Honda CB750 front end. Minus the brakes, but including a speedometer.
Photo: MIKE CORBIN?S QUICKSILVER: SCTA?S FIRST ELECTRIC MOTORCYCLE RECORD HOLDER AT 165.367MPH 8-19-74
I had watched Mike?s ?run silent, run fast? bike leave the record start line with almost NO sound ! Kind of a whirr from the F-104 fighter jet starter motor(s) and off he went. Throttling was easy: just throw knife switches for each silver oxide (Expensive !) battery (there were five) to supply power. Corbin would advance through the years to become a famous motorcycle accessory designer and builder, and eventually manufacturing complete electric vehicles.
Turning the current off against 5,000 cold-cranking amps with nothing but knife switches proved to be entertaining !
New record slip in hand, we buttoned up the top end of our bike, and got back into line. This being a Harley, there was at least a mist of oil around the engine, and the salt crystals stuck. In the joy of the moment, I somehow missed the clue of the slow return run, and did NOT examine the cylinder bores while the heads were off.
I just assumed the slower speed was the warmer air??
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 Years at Bonneville
Next Chapter #14
?Wasted a Chance for a Record??
After a dinner of white bread sandwiches, we disassembled and examined the engine with my little flashlight in a closed Wendover gas station, next to the ?ethyl? pump. This was before the interstate bypass was built, and all the heavy traffic of Interstate 80 ? connecting Teaneck NJ and San Francisco.
Photo - Wendover Will, back when all the neon worked, and his joints were creaky but moving points to the Stateline Hotel. Seen from the gas station west of the STATELINE grill and Hotel. Famous ?two-state? caf? with the east side part in Utah, and west part in Nevada ? hence the name.
funneled through ?downtown? Wendover, and past the Stateline Hotel. Traffic moved slowly on the main street. Wendover had discovered the power of ?revenue enhancement? by giving tickets for 35 mph in the city 25 mph zone, and most people were aware and discreet.
I had always enjoyed the ?malt shop? at the Stateline Hotel. They had put a brass strip down the middle of the dining room, dividing the east (Utah) half from the west (Nevada) half. Radically different laws were enforced within INCHES of each other! Nevada was more permissive on certain matters.
I imagined servers obeying the respective laws for each state; offering soft drinks to the eastern aisle, and whisky to the other side, four feet away. Church goers on one side watching gamblers with ?their women? and hard liquor on the other side???..
We found no problems with carbs or intake tract, so we inspected the valves by pouring a little gasoline into the ports to check for excess leakage. Not perfect, but NOT the source of a 15 mph loss of speed. We went deeper.
I was aware that heat buildup in the Sportster engine ? running full track on gas-station fuel, would be prone to overheating ? hence the aluminum/silver alloy in the cylinders; we were stuck with the iron cylinderheads. I had increased oil flow to the exhaust valve area in the heads, where head buildup is powerful and debilitating. In attempt to cool the intake side of the heads, I put extra oil into the intake valve spring area.
That was another nice but unsuccessful idea. With the triple valve springs, there was no room for valve seals; with no valve seals, the negative pressure of the intake tract sucked the extra oil through the valve guide directly into the combustion chamber.
Result: mosquito fogging like a two-stroke !
That morning in impound, I had not particularly looked at the bores; the bike had mostly been running fine. NOW, looking at them in the nighttime gloom, they did NOT look so fine.
In anticipation of the trip, my father had given me a battery-powered fluorescent flashlight, which gave dim, but shadow-less lighting. The rings had gone bad, and ?scuffed up.? At the time, I couldn?t figure out why (I would later), so I thought I better use some wet-and-dry sandpaper on the bores, put in another set of rings, and hope for the best.
I had ordered two sets of the experimental chrome rings, and had for spare the came-with-the-piston cast iron rings, also two sets. I was qualified by a substantial margin, and I would hate to ?waste a record day.?
photo - History revealed ! My pistons for the 1250cc Harley. Upper right is a cast racing piston for comparison. Lower right is a polished cast item, also big bore. Lower left is a new forged spare piston, and upper left is the used-in-the-race forged unit with the hand-chiseled valve pockets showing. Used rings are knackered, but piston was quite usable, even after 20 full-power trips down the long black line.
In went the second set of slippery chrome rings.
Photo - Actual race alloy cylinders. The numbers are bogus ! Harley practice is to cast (or stamp) the part number in the cylinder base. I went through the Harley parts book and found appropriate blank unassigned number spaces, and adopted them for my parts (The R means RACING). Competitors would secretly look at my engine, see the numbers, and write them down. Later, they migth call the Harley racing department to buy a set, only to be told there was no such part. The engineer, after hanging up, might call out: ?Guthrie got another one!?
We cleaned up the engine well, with two little pans and brushes, one with gasoline for cleaning off the oil, and the other with water for removing salt. Sometimes we had to go back and forth. Engine went together with no additional problems, and we tightened everything up, ready to race in the morning at the 7:00 am marshaling hour. I had no idea what devastation was already inside the engine, that I could not see.
Off to the bend in the road near the track for an abbreviated night?s sleep.
Bonneville, like much of racing, is often about how well one functions on sleep deficit.
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Chocolate malts at the Stateline could be special. Being from Wisconsin, at dinner in the Stateline Utah restaurant, our crew would order chocolate malts from our waitress. When she brought them to our table, we asked her to take them on her tray over to the bar in the Stateline Nevada and have the bartender add one shot of brandy to each shake. It's a Wisconsin thing, brandy. Sort of like a Bailey's Irish Cream. It seemed to work every time.
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Great idea, and I wish I had thought of it ! ....................I'll have to try it with a shot of Kahlua ...........................................................................
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 Years at Bonneville
Chapter # 15
?I Am Resisting Friction?
I had spent a considerable amount of time in the past three years trying to figure out how to reduce friction INSIDE the engine ? less friction equals more FREE horsepower. And with a 1957 sportster engine, you don?t start with much power in the first place.
Photo - Most gears and shafts had hard chrome treatment to ease friction, as did the primary drive assembly and the cams and oil pump. Engine sprocket, clutch chain wheel got the chrome. Almost everything that ?slid? was treated to reduce friction. Even the piston rings were hard chromed. Liberal use of aircraft-quality fasteners throughout.
Photo - Master machinist RICK BRAY of Long Beach CA and I came up with a plan ? in 1972 ? to put low friction ?superblend? roller bearings on BOTH sides of the crankshaft. These ?self aligning? bearings would help with the crankshaft misalignment that came at high RPM with a bolt together crank. I explained the ?new? system to my sponsor Dick O?brien at the Harley race team.
This was some years before the Factory Race team would do the same thing. Could my work have influenced the race team?
Using the same Superblend self-aligning bearing in the transmission reduced the ?scrubbing? of the stock output bearing.
Like everything in racing, nothing can be done without it affecting something else. The new main bearings meant modifying the crank shaft to fit them, and modifying the transmission main shaft to fit THAT new bearing. MORE one-of-a-kind parts had to be produced and installed.
Spare parts were no problem;
all I had to do was MAKE them !
I also converted the cams from bushing to ball bearings ? maybe that helped too. That meant special cam shafts for the special cams??.
Inner crankcase cam bearings changed from bushing to ball bearings. Timing side main bearing replaced with a ?Superblend? roller.
Shiny bushings will have to go. Engine will like the low-friction balls much better !
Much better now !.............Ball bearings survive better with the ?accidental oiling? system Harley developed before 1930.
So: How did this work out ?
When the engine was COMPLETELY ASSEMBLED with valves and rings, BUT PLUGS OUT FOR NO COMPRESSION, the engine would ?settle? with both pistons about half-way down the bores. Turn the crank against the valve spring pressure, and the crank would reliably return to the same rest position!
The engine had SO LITTLE internal friction that JUST the force of the valve springs was enough to rotate the crank, slide the pistons and move the rings. Turn the crank either direction, and the valve springs ALONE would return the crank to the ?rest position? ? Is that reduced internal friction?
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 Years at Bonneville
Chapter # 16
Double-Engine Harleys are Killing It[/size].
?Tom Elrod goes 200mph on Gas Harley,
Bob George Harley goes 231mph on nitro,
Guthrie just burns up more parts?
Up at dark ? thirty at the Bend-in-the-Road campground, (We HAD an alarm clock this year) and off to the starting line, nicely positioned with my new-for-this-year number of 18. Since I would be running my second record this morning, I was designated 18B. In the morning cool, two decent record runs gave us our second record in two days at an average of 150.008 mph. Easily within expectations when the ?fresh engine? record was only two mph faster. The second set of rings were doing fine, after all.
Impound was largely a ?no questions? deal, since the officials had seen the bike the just morning before. We removed the top end for measurement, since this was before the SCTA helped us by sealing engines. Just in case, I replaced the rings with the third ring set, now the cast iron hoops. (the bike was half torn down anyway ? all I had to do was pull the cylinders, replace the rings, and drop the cylinders back on ? maybe an additional 45-60 minutes). I was a little surprised at the weight of the aluminum cylinders, but remembered the high copper and silver content of the unobtainium KO1 alloy.
After more pro-active cleansing and cylinder-sandpapering, we buttoned it up in the starting line (I was getting pretty practiced at this), and we changed to another class. Somewhere about this time, I began to wonder where all that hard chrome was going, so we started rinsing out the oil tank and oil lines every pass. I even washed out the cases by putting gasoline in through the plug used to check crankshaft timing, and draining the cleaning fluid out the sump plug.
Just more effort, twice a day.
After reassembling the bike in the waiting line, Harley 18C went to the start line to attempt to qualify for a third record.
We made an opening run that on Wednesday
afternoon qualified us to run on Thursday,
which made us all very optimistic.
?Just for luck,? I made a ?back up? run to access the engine condition. A Dismal 117 mph told us that again tonight, we would be in the gas station, and doing our second top end job of the day.
It had never occurred to me that I might need a compression gauge ? or better yet, a leak-down tester. If I had used those tools, I could have kept up with the disintegration of the ring sets.
I just would have not been able to do anything about it !
In our now-familiar place in the dim and dreary gas station, after the heat somewhat dissipated, we again set to work.
Concerned that my bores were now beyond what I could fix with sandpaper, I trudged tiredly down to Bonneville 200 Club member Warner Riley?s motel room to borrow his hone. Riley and Nitro man George Smith (George drinking water) were trying to figure out why Warner?s bike was all over the track, and acting scary bad. They were also trying to figure out why, having committed to a new untested Chapman custom frame, they had overlooked bringing the old frame, ?just in case.?
PHOTO. Warner Riley at Speed. Note excellent riding position: Far back on the long seat, and his back raised for aerodynamic advantage. Minimal front fairing puts the bike in a partially streamlined class. NOT much aero assistance ! No flapping drag with tightened leathers. Gloriously LOW bike number: 2.
After a quick call by Warner to the sponsoring dealer in the Chicago area, the old frame was air expressed to the Salt Lake City airport, Picked up and delivered to Wendover, where it replaced the Chapman. Confidant handling was restored.
Photo: Tom Elrod on track, early in a good run. Elrod, a migrant worker for the IBM Company (IBM employees were so often posted to new places that they said IBM stood for ?I?ve Been Moved?) surprised many by going over 200mph with his gasoline powered 3000cc class Harley. Elrod, like Bob George, had forced two 1,500cc Harley twins into a single frame. Elrod would repeat the 200 mph effort in 1979, but with two Kawasaki engines to become the first BIKE rider to exceed 200 mph at Bonneville on two sit-on different brands, and to join the Bonneville 200 mph Club.
PHOTO. Speaking of frames, look at this incarnation of the Bob George double engine Harley. Owner Bob in the saddle. Rare GOODYEAR Bonneville land speed tires front AND rear indicate a serious intent ? the tires were initially rated at 300 mph. The frame looks like an atomic collision between two (2) shovelhead Harley engines mashed into one extended frame. The frame looked to be metallic painted, molded and pinstriped. Did this bike start as a CHOPPER project ?
PHOTO. The huge fuel lines speak of SERIOUS Nitromethane use. Bob, in his leather racing pants, dress casual shoes and a give-away Bonneville shirt. Notice the clear plastic tank vent line down the right front fork. In the event the tank expelled, Nitro would liberally lubricate the front tire??.._Probably would have reduced the steering effort over 200 mph. BOB BEHN photo
Back in the gas station once again that night, and using a borrowed half inch drill, with access to the station?s electrical outlet, I powered up Riley?s hone and made the bores more attractive, and fitted the 4th set of rings ? my last new set - since Sunday. There was an occasional breath of cool breeze to move the still-hot air. Slowly, the cooling night brought the desert smell of dust and faraway rain. Always dust. I was clueless as to WHY the rings were failing at such a high rate !
I doubted we could set any additional records with the engine doing so badly.
[/b]
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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Air filters? Salt ingestion?
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Salt ingestion was very popular with motorcycle
engines - most of which did not want the restriction of an air filter.
My experience was that if I shut the engine OFF while still going
straight ahead on the TRACK, the salt uptake was minimizes.
When I turned the bike off on the soft unprepared sides
of the track, the front wheel would throw a BUNCH of salt around.
When you look at a bike after a run at Bonneville, 90% or more
of the visible salt comes AFTER the on-track part of the run.
I was never able to identify that salt had done any
appreciable damage to the inside of my engines - including
the 2-strokes that send the salt THROUGH the crank cases.
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I presume in the next edition you are going to tell us what you came up with.... :cheers: :cheers:
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Scott Guthrie: More Than The Sultan Of Speed
A true champion means more than going fast.
By Nick Ienatsch- CYCLE WORLD Magazine
February 11, 2020
Scott Guthrie
Scott Guthrie: Hugely fast on land and in water, but his give-back outweighs his records.Scott Guthrie Collection
You will find the name Scott Guthrie in the Bonneville Salt Flats record books almost 100 times, as a rider aboard Harley-Davidsons, Suzuki Hayabusas, Yamaha TZ-based machines, and as a team owner. He?s been over 200 mph more than 200 times and has the time slips to prove it. He has teamed with John Levie to slaughter the streamliner sidecar record to the tune of 320 mph. This same man appears in the Masters Swimming record book too, from 1980 to 2005, as a many-times national and world champion.
Someone dubbed Guthrie the ?Sultan of Speed? whether on the salt or in the pool, but this week?s article isn?t a rehash of this guy?s speed, it?s a celebration of his humanity from a few of the riders he has helped.
My Scott Story: Daytona 250GP
I will start with my own Guthrie story. Daytona 1991. My tuner Steve Biganski and I were there for our first race on the new V-twin Yamaha and it wouldn?t rev over 12,000 rpm. Guthrie and Biganski had raced TZ750s against each other. When Scott wandered into our garage, Steve mentioned our problem.
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1991 Yamaha TZ250
Pictured is my 1991 Yamaha TZ250. Ripping!Nick Ienatsch
If there?s a Mr. TZ, it?s Scott Guthrie. He told Steve to check the spark-plug caps, and sure enough, one had too much resistance. Presto, the bike revved like it should in the next practice and we had to lengthen the gearing! But there?s more?because Guthrie worked with windscreen maker Leif Gustafsson (who we were sharing a garage with) to revise our bubble and had reworked our fairings based on his top-speed expertise, and he worked with me on my tuck. This all came together to put me on the podium. Guthrie?s hard-earned awareness of engines and aerodynamics had just given me a lifelong memory?and education.
Bonneville records
All plaques are Bonneville records, all bikes are TZ-based record holders. After dominating Bonneville and other top-speed venues, Guthrie began to help other racers succeed with the Scott Guthrie Racing Team.Scott Guthrie Collection
More Help
After Scott helped John Levie to the sidecar record, a bunch of fun stories came out of the woodwork regarding Scott?s quiet help over the years. Here are a few.
Wayne Pollack:
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I can say without Scott?s help and mentoring, I would not have gone over 250 mph. I am truly grateful for all of the time I got to spend with Scott and look forward to our future times together.
Walt Kudron:
My second visit to the Maxton Mile [a World War II air base runway in North Carolina] was in September 2006. I wanted to get in the 2 Club (200-mph club). After diligently studying the records, I figured running naked was my only shot. There was a 204 record.
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I tried and tried, and was one mph short. By this time, Dave and Scott had been helping me quite a bit. I conferred with Scott, seeking advice.
He took a look at everything, and said, ?Let me see your tuck.? I showed him what passed for my tuck. It looked like s?t. Scott expressed dismay at my riding gear. It was a leather First Gear zip-together road suit. And it was way too baggy. Scott said, ?You have stuff hanging out all over. Get some duct tape and streamline yourself.?
My ?crew? then proceeded to have a grand old time taping the hell out of me. They were taping away, with Scott going, ?Put some there, and there, etc.? It was so tight around my stomach I could barely breathe, and he said, ?Now tuck.? He walked around, said, ?Good, good, some here, some there?? When he got to my rear end, he waved his hand back and forth and said, ?And do something with that whole mess!? and turned and walked away. Well, after the laughter subsided, the guys went to vigorously taping and the comments flew.
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I went 204 mph on the next run and got in the 2 Club. Scott presented me with my hat, which was one of DaveO?s very own that he gave to me.
Of all the crazy things I have done in my life, that ranks right up there as one of the biggest rushes I have ever experienced. I was on Cloud 10. Scott and DaveO went on to help me achieve many other goals in racing that I would have never done without their help. Truly. I still have the champagne cork from the bottle Scott and [his wife] Ellen opened with me to celebrate.
Jason McVicar:
My Scott story started in 1996 when I brought a nice little two-stroke RG500 to Bonneville. I figured I was going to set the world on fire. During the week, a man in a funny hat kept poking his head into our pits and making strange comments. I wasn?t sure how to respond, so I ignored him.
Later I learned that was the Scott Guthrie! He had more lines in the record book than anyone else by far and I figured he could probably teach me a thing or two.
A couple years passed, and I showed up with my Yamaha R1. I ran 206 mph on fuel and received my red hat from none other than Scott Guthrie and the 2 Club crew (200-mph club). We set five records at Speed Week the next year. I would have set seven if I had listened to Scott!
I got a call from Scott to come to Maxton [North Carolina] the following spring. I threw my leg over Scott?s nitrous ?Busa (cleanest bike I had ever ridden) and got into the Maxton 2 Club. Scott also invited me to Texas where I met Terry Kizer and Shane Stubbs. These were great times! Fast company and great racing!
With Scott?s guidance and sponsorship, we ran a turbo ?Busa in 2005?2008. The bike went 235 mph naked one way and also set the first SCTA (Southern California Timing Association) sit-on-bike record over 250 mph.
After my crash in 2008, I was pretty down and Scott?s calls were a nice escape from my workday. I ended up selling Scott my bikes and a few spares I had left and went to playing with cars. Fast-forward a few years and Scott called to offer my bike back. I thanked him for the offer but, unfortunately, I wasn?t in a financial position to buy it back. In typical Scott-speak, he said, ?There is no money involved, I would like you to have the bike.?
The older I get, the more I realize that racing is secondary, and it?s the relationships formed by a common interest that are the most important part of our passion. I?m truly thankful that many years ago a guy in a funny hat stuck his head into my pit. We have become great friends and he has been a great life mentor to me?and we aren?t done yet!
Paul Verizo:
Scott and I went to the same high school in Sarasota, Florida; he was two years ahead of me. We were also on the swim team. Although, he was a contender and I was second string. He lived a few blocks away; I remember hanging in his room looking at the J.C. Whitney catalog and teen-macho?ing about what we could buy to make his mother?s 1950 Mercury flat-head coupe V-8 a hot rod.
About a dozen years ago, my brother David alerted me to Scott?s successes at Bonneville and of his nickname: ?God.? (His bikes go the fastest and they never break down.) We reconnected and the connection has ramped up significantly in the last few years. I have spent many hours with Scott and his wonderful wife Ellen in Tallahassee; a lot of memories, catching up, and a lot of ?Jeez, this getting old stuff is a whole new ball game.? Like his leathers don?t fit so well anymore!
There is a common denominator in all these Scott Guthrie stories: Scott excelled, but he shared what he knew and always wants others to do well. That is the hallmark of a true champion, not just on the salt flats but in life.
Getting older has both advantages and disadvantages. The latter tend to be what most people focus on. If there is one advantage that I can embrace, it is being able to see the big picture. Life stories, values, lessons learned. Scott Guthrie was a vague friend a half century ago, now a man I embrace late in my life.
hot rod
Paul and Scott discussed hot-rodding mom?s flattie and that hot-rod gene is still strong. Here is a recent picture of Scott and wife Ellen in the Brock Yates Roadster, part of the Guthrie collection.Scott Guthrie Collection
Joe Timney:
I was struggling to get over 200 mph at Loring [Maine]?197, 198, 199?when Scott said, ?Tuck your wings in, what size shoe are you hanging out in the wind??
[I got] 200-plus and a 2 Club hat the next run?all one needs to do is ?listen? to Scott. Thank you, Scott, for all you have done through the years.
John Levie:
Reminds me of the day that I was sitting in impound and some jerk asked me if the bike I qualified was a racebike or a showpiece. He explained that the handlebars, seat, number plates, and just about every other small detail that I had worked on so diligently to be aesthetically pleasing was nothing but drag. Honda 50s have no room for drag, come to find out.
After he said, ?I?m Scott Guthrie,? I quickly changed my outlook on the guy telling me what was wrong; he went from jerk to ?Sultan of Speed.? I knew we would be great friends, once I learned how to decode Guthrie-talk.
After a five-mph improvement on what was a 50-mph record, I found myself looking for 10-percent speed improvements in every aspect of the 10-year-strong partnership with my land speed mentor.
He has become more eloquent with age.
John Levie and Scott Guthrie
John Levie and Scott Guthrie on the starting line: two dominant land speed record holders.John Levie Collection
Tim Holder:
E. Don Smith took me to my first land speed event in 2003. I knew no one except for him. There was an older guy pitted behind us. The guy came and spoke to me a few times and checked out my bike and setup. After three licensing passes, I was ready for my 200 Club hat.
Run after run?179 mph. I was stumped. I knew my setup should go 200. That older guy walked over again and asked how my runs were going. I explained my disappointment. He started to educate me on motor oil and made a suggestion and walked away.
Don walked up and asked what we had just talked about. I told Don that the man was crazy and said I should dump my expensive oil, go to Wal-Mart and buy some GTX Castrol for tomorrow?s runs.
Don looked at me and said, ?That?s Scott Guthrie. If he says to run chicken s?t, you better look for a chicken coop!? I followed Scott?s instructions and my first pass the following morning was 12-mph faster and we improved from there.
Scott with Nick at Bonneville
A few years ago I met Scott at Bonneville to run his turbo Hayabusa, but it popped under Levie during a warm-up run. Disappointing, but the time spent with Scott, John, and their team was terrific, not just on the salt but over extended dinner conversations. Previous to being one of the fastest motorcyclists on the planet, Scott was a schoolteacher, so discussions cover a wide variety of subjects.Cycle World Archives
The Real Deal
Any rider who has succeeded in competition has stories similar to these. Somebody helped them with the right information at the right time. Every one of my instructors at Champ School can remember back to the exact moment, the precise information, and the singular person who contributed help to get them to the next step.
As I heard more and more stories about Scott Guthrie, I started to think about this column. Guthrie?s expertise is one thing, his success another, but it is his humility and openness to share his knowledge to allow others to prosper that makes him the real deal to me and so many land speed competitors.
And this is what Scott Guthrie is establishing: a pay-it-forward community in the two-wheeled land speed world. The men and women Scott has helped have been taught a valuable lesson: How to live like a true champion. The Sultan of Speed?s legacy will never end.
More next Tuesday!
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I presume in the next edition you are going to tell us what you came up with.... :cheers: :cheers:
yes
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 Years at Bonneville
Chapter # 17
Scott Guthrie: poor engine builder AND
lousy tuner.
The morning dawned bright and a little cool ? the way deserts do.
The bike needed little attention, and I had time to chat with friends while Ellen, the starting crew and I enjoyed a taste of fresh-made drip coffee.
I was NOT confident !
However, we were able to set a third record with the same bike ? which I think was the best ever for the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) at the time. We had equaled a national mark never exceeded by ANYONE, and we were proud!
We were able ? somehow ? to keep MOST of the horsepower INSIDE the engine for our third set of two morning record runs, but it was becoming very public knowledge that I was either a poor tuner, or a poor engine builder; maybe both .
Vincent rider Bob Guptill us watched from the return road with a friend, and they both remarked about how badly my engine was running; popping and banging all the way down the track. ?Shooting Ducks? it would be later called by veteran announcer Glen Barrett.
With only one vehicle on course at a time, there was NO doubt whose engine was making funny sounds. With the remarkably LOUD banging the engine was making, it was NO trouble for the badly running bike to be heard for MILES.
Embarrassing !
Photo by Rollie Free 1974. Bob Guptill aboard his 1000cc Vincent powered Norton chassis, assisted by World ? Renowned Vincent Expert (the late) Mike Parti, of North Hollywood. All three men part of the great Vincent history at Bonneville. Mike Parti went on to curate the Jay Leno motorcycle collection.
Photo by RB Racing? Bob Behn. The morning after setting our third record, we again pitted in impound next to the astounding Bob George Double. Bob had given a heavy tip of the nitro can, and Dave Campos had just hammered out the all-time fastest Bonneville record for sit-on bikes at 231.597mph. The class record still stands, unthreatened, 46 years later. Bob and Dave would team up later to set the ultimate bike record at 322mph, (Almost 100 mph faster) a mark that would stand for more than 20 years. At the time, there was no one faster motorcycle rider than Campos in the world, on a sit-on bike. I believe that Dave is the only rider to be BOTH world?s fastest streamliner driver AND world?s fastest sit-on rider at the same time. Today, I would be worried about the center of pressure vs the center of gravity. Notice, no openings for cooling air ? Bob George, a patternmaker by trade ? had made the engine water cooled ! 25 years later, Suzuki would use this fairing style in 1999 for the Hayabusa. What did Bob George know , and when did he know it? A study in contrast of purpose: 300HP nitro motorcycle assisted by 36 HP Volkswagen van.
Bob Guptill?s friend Mike Parti wondered how I could run in the 150?s mph with such an obviously ill-tuned engine. Bob observed that they better be careful since if I ever got it ?cleaned out? there was no telling if anybody?s record was safe.
Photo. The banging and popping was NOT a tuning situation; it was all the uncontrolled engine oil passing the bad rings and ?wetting the plugs.? By this time, I had started to just leave in the hotter warm-up plugs, in an effort to keep the fire lit in the heavy oil environment. I was using the Bomar-modified Fairbanks Magneto, and the sparks grew hotter with increasing RPM; I just had to keep the engine spun up hard. No worry, Fairbanks Morse made some of the finest lawn mower engines in all the land??.
The worst was yet to come???.
That morning, after sputtering, pluffeling and banging through two-way record runs, the bike passed the 3rd record tech. I felt lucky it ran well enough to drive from the track to the impound area!
While staggering from lack of sleep, I wandered over to Warner?s spot in impound. Riley?s engine was out of the frame and sitting down on the salt, top end removed, with one steel connecting rod bent almost double after six miles of heavy nitro use. The piston crown on that rod?s piston was deformed by the power of the nitro, looking like it was Silly Putty pushed down by a giant thumb.
Assuming their race week was over, I politely asked if they could maybe fix their engine. Warner, always well prepared, said: ?Well, we have two spare engines, but the best transmission in in one engine, and the better cams in the other, so we are trying to figure out how to do this.?
I quietly asked for another loan of the hone, and Warner said: ?Just keep it for the rest of the week. If we leave before you, just mail it back.?
This particularly thoughtful of Warner,
since it was his records I was breaking?..
Trying to stay awake and on task, I realized that here I was, within TOUCHING distance to FOUR record-qualified Harley racers: Guthrie, Riley, Campos and Elrod. The last THREE of whom were over 200mph. It did not occur to me that that might never happen again at Bonneville.
So we washed off the bike and carefully removed my only cylinders ? no spares. We gave them another touch from Warner?s borrowed hone, and in went our first ?reconditioned? set of USED rings ?no new parts left!
We slumped back out to the track to attempt to quality.
Standing near the start line, I was able to have a relaxed moment, standing by the bike in my leathers, thinking about the upcoming run down the relentless salt. Ahead of me toward the east, the afternoon cloudless sky was blue in the way that only desert sky can be.
As I held the bike up ? no kick stands on real race bikes please ? I felt a surprise cooling breeze from behind me, and the afternoon sun darkened perceptibly. Behind me ? and behind my wife Ellen, who was comfortably reading behind the wheel of the van- a HUGE storm front was quickly blowing in from the west of Wendover. As I looked upward, the storm front raced into the starting area ? winds maybe 40mph and gusting.
The wind was so hard, I struggled to hold the bike upright. Ellen, seeing my struggle, jumped out of the van to assist me. The gale-force wing swung her front door 180 degrees forward, bending the hinges. Together, we brought the bike back against the front bumper of the van, where we could tie it upright.
In minutes, the storm had blown over the eastern hills, and was gone with minimal rain.
Although we were racing within a few hours,
the door of the van never worked right ever again.
A nice qualifying run on the rain-softened salt showed a surprising 155mph ? within 1 mph of the best ever speed. We gambled we were good to run for the fourth record attempt. This time, there were NO ?extra runs.? NO gratuitous engine wear on the engine!
We ?gas stationed? the bike yet again. As the procession of interstate-semi-trucks passing us by, we labored in the gloom. Truck drivers, maybe looking for a ?rest stop? in Wells, Nevada, paid us little mind.
Carefully, the bike was cleaned, and the top end of the engine removed and examined in the fading August twilight.
With only one (1) run, the formerly good used rings were now fully shot.
AND, we were out of parts.
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 Years at Bonneville
Chapter # 18
Last Chance !
Photo - For a change of pace ? and to be near Warner Riley?s hone and electric drill, we pitted at the old Western Caf? and Service Station. Fortunately for us, they had left some interior lights on, since we had used up all our flashlight batteries.
Photo - STYLES of the 70?s. Mike Corbin and daughter Kelly chat with then - skinny Author Guthrie on right???..Guthrie sports a custom t-shirt made just for Bonneville 1974 featuring the CHECKERED DEMON (Remember your ZAP Comix). Mike?s straw hat has 1974 SCTA/BNI black and white ID front and center. Both men with ?hippie? leather work. Mike climbs power poles to recharge his bike?s silver batteries, and Scott drives one-handed at 150mph??Are these guys totally nuts ? ??..Well, it IS Bonneville ! Corbin Family Photo, T shirt design by Ila Kamper.
We were now to the point of going through all the used rings and picking the best of the previously-rejected items. Night-time dust and day-time salt surrounded us, and ?clean? engine assembly was ? as usual - impossible. I thought we could get by if there was a little bit of dust and salt in the engine, but we oiled everything liberally ? a ?dry? engine was just too scary!
We assembled three-piece oil rings from different used sets. From hopefully looking like factory pros, we were reduced to picking through bad compression rings to find the least-damaged parts, and sanding them smooth enough to use for one more run!
We had used up all the new gaskets ? which were few to begin with, and I started cleaning the old ones with gasoline and lacquer thinner to get off the old gasket compound. The copper head gaskets I reused by annealing them hot over the camp stove. I would put in an annealed set, and when there was time ? like at breakfast ? anneal another used set.
Off to a troubled sleep at the bend in the road.
As every day, we woke up this final Friday before dawn in our modest little van in the camping area. I slipped out of the makeshift bed and directly into the van driver?s seat. While I drove the 10 minutes to the starting area, my wife Ellen made herself even more beautiful and carefully put in her contact lenses. With a long day in the hammering sun upcoming, eye cleanliness was precious!
We went off to the starting line for record runs. I was trying to ignore the pressure of setting an historic fourth record this week ? which had never been done with the same bike. Others too were deliberately not noticing, or mentioning, the possibility. The same way nobody wants to jinx a pitcher headed for a no-hitter.
That was fine, I was nervous enough for all of us.
As I twisted into my tight and cold leathers, Ellen made fresh drip coffee with the camp stove on our little folding table. Fresh-made hot coffee a delight for the ever-smaller group hovering at the starting line. Few of us had survived the week, and most folks were already on their way home.
Rather than wear out the suspect piston rings while extensively warming up the engine on the cold morning, I put fresh oil from cans into a little pot, and heated it on the camp stove. The oil should heat the engine, not the engine heat the oil. While the oil simmered, I heated the engine with a propane torch for additional insurance.
With minimal warm up, just enough to circulate the warm oil, I held onto the door handle of the van and waited for the starter?s signal.
I hoped I had enough engine left to get one more record.
Starter Bob Higbee signaled, and off we went toward floating mountain, against the rising sun. Hammering from the start line, I used everything I had to accelerate ? this was NOT practice, and this was what we had come for ? a World Speed Record.
NO holding back.
If the rings were gonna go bad ? let them!
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 Years at Bonneville
Chapter #19
Dumpster Divers Attempt the Improbable!
I had been working toward this
moment for five years, now it was
down to the next 90 minutes.
Was history to be made, or an historic failure?
Quickly away from the starting line, I accelerated quite hard ? rings be dammed!
Shifting fiercely through the gears, I dropped the transmission into high gear at peak RPM. The bike pulled well, and I had some small hope of success.
The morning sun in my eyes made it a little hard to see the tach, so I just concentrated on finding ?hard? spots on the late-week, torn-up track, for best traction. Glorious weather made it a pleasure to ride, and I?m sure the lower temperature helped cool the engine. NOW, heat would be my enemy!
Something about Chuck Berry, ?Maybelline? and ?cold water under the hood doin? my motor good? flashed through my mind as I accelerated.
My confidence and reverie would soon be shattered.
At about the 1 and ? mile flags (basically one third way down the track), the banging and popping started again, and every duck within 20 miles was on full alert! I could actually feel the bike slowing! And ? speaking of lawn mowers - I used a mower racing trick.
On this, my ?down? record run; while holding the throttle open at around 150mph with my right hand, I CAREFULLY snaked my left hand to the rear spark plug on the left side of the engine. No fairing, and so open to the 150MPH hurricane-force winds battering my helmet and shoulders with no wind protection. One hand on the bars at 150 mph, mile after mile.
There were patches of soft salt, and that allowed the rear tire to spin.
The bike wanted to go sideways, and I was having trouble making the bike go straight ahead !
PHOTO. My hand was protected from engine heat and sparks by my leather glove; I partially withdrew the rear spark plug cap, and made the spark ?jump the gap.? Presto, plug (temporarily) cleaned. I repeated the process with the front plug. Good running momentarily restored! Five seconds later, duck hunting again; so rinse and repeat. I was just waiting for this poor abused engine to give up on me.
I shut off the engine the nanosecond I passed the final set of timing lights, and coasted to a stop. Instead of driving the bike off-track to the northern impound area, we would have to load the bike into the cramped van and haul the bike to the turn around.
I was trying to save the last vestiges of the rings.
Alone on the salt for a few moments, waiting for Ellen to pick me up, I found myself wondering HOW I had come to this point.
Having never even ridden a Harley Davidson, I had purchased my first one in 1968 (which I still own) less than 6 years before.
Photo - Our beloved 1967 Dodge A108 van, painted Harley racing colors, orange, black and white. 1957 Sportster engine in 1972 Harley XRTT chassis with #8. (#8 also on back of Van). 1967 Sportster in center, converted to front disc brake in 1970. 1917 Harley on left, in restoration.
Now, less than six years later, - as a self taught mechanic - here I was setting multiple world speed records on a similar bike!
Still waiting alone in the eerie quiet of the distant salt, the morning sun was warming my face with my helmet in my hand.
I was convinced we had no hope for that magical fourth record.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 Years at Bonneville
Chapter #20
Dumpster Divers Start Their Final Attempt.
From five years preparation, it was
now down to the next 45 minutes.
Safely into far-end impound, and glancing at my north - bound time slip,
I saw we were almost one mile per hour over the current record.
If I could keep up my speed on the return run home to the west, there might be a record.
A puff of wind could make the difference.
After entering the timing lights at good RPM,
the engine started giving up, and I could again feel it slowing.
It slowed the whole last mile.
Somehow, I had brought enough life from the salvaged rings
that the bike had maintained speed while struggling north down
the timed mile, so I did have a mathematical chance.
I was close to the fourth record and if I was able to manage to
go back down the course without having the abused engine lose
too much speed again, maybe we could do the impossible.
My dream was SO close!
At the turn-around, which would last no more than an hour,
we would be allowed to make NO REPAIRS! I would be allowed
to adjust the carburetors, set the ignition timing and oil the drive chain,
check the valves. Change plugs if needed. NO changing the sprockets.
Putting air in the tires was OK, but NO changing tires.
If I had a flat, we were done!
NO changing piston rings either!
The one-hour time limit for going back on the second
(back-up) run was strict! AND, the clock started to run
from when I STARTED my first run. By not driving to the
impound area, and by having to load the bike into the van,
and then remove it, we were consuming valuable time!
We used the brief turn around to pull out the oiled plugs,
and I installed my last set of new spark plugs. I could only
hope these new plugs would keep sparking for the last three miles.
In those years, there were no auto parts houses in Wendover,
and nobody else at Bonneville used my odd Harley hot plugs.
If that didn?t work, a quick 120 mile trip to Salt Lake City would
have to be made, and waste the day. Besides, if I couldn?t have
working plugs NOW, I would NOT get the hoped-for record.
We might have the chance to re-qualify on Saturday,
but that was a big risk. At Bonneville, you never know
if there WILL be a tomorrow to race.
There could be wind or rain.
Maybe the volunteers will have had enough,
and they would just go home.
Still in my leathers, but helmet and gloves off,
I lifted the bike onto a stand that allowed me to
rotate first the back and then the front wheels for inspection.
Photo. On the return run southwest, I kept up the ?plug-cap?
routine the whole run, three miles with
only one hand on the bars at 150 mph.
Harley Factory does NOT recommend this procedure at 150 mph??.
I dipped water from the drink cooler and washed the salt
from the tires and carefully examined the treads for damage.
I did NOT want a tire to ?go down? on this run.
The bike was hard enough to control as it was.
It was quietly ? never publicly - said that there were
occasionally sharp metal objects on the track ? usually
the result of exploding engines ? that were NOT found
by the crews keeping the salt clean and groomed.
I was just being careful.
Some years later, that problem would almost
cost the life of my rider Jason McVicar.
My tires looked good, and the tire pressure was unchanged,
but I had one more problem.
I again had to do some careful planning,
and do it quickly, since I had to run within the next ten minutes.
If I nailed the throttle on the return run, and killed the struggling
rings too early in the run, I would never develop the power
to get the bike up to full speed.
Result: no record.
OR, I could baby the bike, and accelerate slowly and save the engine.
THAT might save the rings, but result in never getting up to a high
enough speed to actually be fast enough to challenge the record.
Again, no record!
The decision was to just do the same thing I had been doing,
and hope that what worked before would work again.
We buttoned up the bike for the return,
and rolled it off the work stand and into line.
The line of vehicles waiting to return was shorter than an hour ago.
There were fewer of us ?going back,? since
some had broken engines on the way east.
Outwardly calm, I sat on the bike waiting the few minutes
for the starter?s gesture. My helmet and gloves on,
and my face shield up.
In a now-familiar motion,
the starter looked down at the salt,
listening to his headphones.
He then looked at my bike and quietly spoke
my racing number into the microphone.
I knew we were close to the start!
After a pause of a few seconds,
the starter looked me in the eyes,
and raised his eyebrows.
Nervously, I nodded my head.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 Years at Bonneville
Chapter #20A
From five years to go, it was now
down to the next two minutes.
Ellen also nodded, and the starter signaled invitingly down the track to the west. Ellen accelerated the van up to our agreed 40 mph.
I released the door handle, and dumped the clutch in first gear to start the high compression engine. A lower gear would spin the engine faster, and produce hotter sparks more quickly.
Photo ? Scott hangs off the door handle as wife Ellen flours the slant-six up to 40mph before Scott drops off. Last chance !
And, I needed hotter sparks for sure!
The rear tire skidded on the unexpectedly soft salt, and the engine would not turn over.
I quickly shifted to second gear, and again dumped the clutch, bouncing my bottom on the seat to ?add weight? to the tire. Using second gear would not spin the engine as fast, but it WOULD give the little traction more mechanical advantage to spin the dead engine.
By this time, I was down to 30 mph. I was hoping that the higher gear would allow the engine to turn over more freely.
If the bike ? oil past the rings and all ? did not fire, the run ? and the record attempt ? were done.
The rules were clear: ?Once the race vehicle has begun it?s run, the attempt will be concluded if the race vehicle cannot continue under it?s own power.?
By using push-vehicles, cars have the advantage. It the race car does not fire up ? or does not keep running, the push car can just keep on pushing ? maybe up to a mile.
For bikes, it was one shot only.
I dumped the clutch.
My 1957 Harley engine fired, and I quickly down shifted back for first gear, believing that the faster I spun the magneto ignition, the hotter the spark.
Once again, Bonneville had scared me and given me that ?steely taste? in my dry mouth.
Jumping hard on the engine, I hammered down the track away from the fresh sunrise. The pure note of the wonderful V-twin resonated all around the Bonneville Basin ? echoing off the hills.
Absolute joy!
Shifting around inside my leathers, I got into my ?tuck? as quickly as possible to cheat the wind, and make every ounce of power count for speed.
My right hand held the throttle wide open, and my left hand was VERY light on the handle bar ? just waiting for the dreaded misfiring to begin.
The bike pulled strongly to the first mile, and then the engine started to ? again ? go all asthmatic on me, and I had to re-enjoy the risky behavior of pulling the plug wires with one hand, while steering with the other hand for almost two miles at near 150mph. This time I knew what to expect and control was a little easier.
Only two more miles ? less than a minute ? and I would know.
The bike had initially felt quite powerful ? and fast, but soon it was running so badly that I had little hope. I could feel the bike slowing a little in the second mile. I could only hope the Harley would not slow too much.
My eyes glued to the tach ? a movement of 50 rpm could be the difference ? I struggled to make myself small, and to cheat the wind. My chin was banging painfully on the tank. Ignoring it, I concentrated on the run. My elbows in out in the wind in a painful position. Ignore it!
Entering the ?measured mile? ? from the mile two marker to the mile three - I was running on hope alone. Less than 30 seconds to go.
I held my breath.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 Years at Bonneville
Chapter #20B
The deed is done
Popping and banging, I labored through the measured mile heading west. In high gear the whole way, I was surprised at how the tach seemed to hold steady as the engine continued with the fits of misfiring.
As I ?hot ? gapped? the spark plugs again and again, I thought I could feel the bike pick up a little speed, and then slow down a little as the misfiring reduced the power. The speed difference was not enough to see a change on the tach.
Maybe it was just my hearing the engine missing.
Would I be able to AVERAGE enough power to make the final few hundred yards over the existing record?
Passing through the lights at the end of the final mile, I gently rolled out of the throttle, and raised my head into the full - almost 150mph - gale of passing air. As I filled my lungs with the still-cool morning air, I realized I couldn?t remember the last time I had breathed.
As the bike slowed, I turned in the direction of the impound area, and the little trailer where the timing slips were handed out.
Surprisingly, the bike slowed, the engine seemed to calm down, as it is was pleased to have done it?s job, and was now content to run at partial throttle without objection ? as if I was rewarding it for a job performed well done.
I coasted to the return road, and waited for Ellen to come pick me up for the short trip to impound.
I sat on the bike, and removed my gloves slowly and pulled off my helmet. Time to savor the end of the week of travail and of success.
Whatever the time slip said, I had still just had the adventure of my life !
In those days, we did not have a CB radio, and we had to wait for a peek at the actual timing slip to see how we did. The easiest way to do that was just haul the bike to Warnerville (impound) and ask the officials how we did, and get our slip.
We hauled the bike into the almost-deserted impound, and I walked apprehensively to the Warnerville clubhouse to get the news ? good or bad.
I was not confident as I was handed my timing slip.
But, by the skin of our teeth ? RECORD ? at 146.956mph.
I was stunned at how much abuse this poor engine could stand, and still perform at 96% or better!
My first record of the week was about 152mph, and the last record 146mph or so.
A total of 22 runs with NO failures, NO DNF?s or turn outs on an engine that was assembled in the back of the van on the way to the track !
SIX sets of rings in four days.
I was asked to again disassemble the bike for inspection ? which we did with no concern for being tidy about the process. Our week had been more successful than I could have imagined, and I just wanted to get the inspection over and done with. After inspection, I just heaped the engine parts into a box.
The bike went home the way it came ? in boxes.
Perfect timing. We had set the last world record on our last possible dumpster set of rings ! Impound informed me that with four records in the week with the same bike, my four was the most of any Speed Week for any vehicle for any year.
Shortly after I started with my tear-down, Jim Yriberry, on his Harley Sportster, appeared in impound too. Jim was running against one of the records that I had set earlier in the week. The fact that he was coming into impound awoke me to the idea that he might be actually BREAKING my days-old record.
I watched apprehensively as Jim received his time slip and nodded to his crew. As they started to unload his Sportster, I understood that they HAD broken my record.
Standing up from my disassembly, I walked the few feet to Jim?s area. Tiredly, I shook Jim?s hand and offered: ?Good job Jim ! I know how hard it was for me to set that record and so I know you worked HARDER to break it !?
Privately, my stomach was churning - all that work to set the record, and so quickly down the drain.
But at least it lasted longer than my first record last year ? which lasted 10 minutes.
There would be no running on the Saturday, either due to bad weather or lack of business.
Scott Guthrie posed photo. Exhausted crew proudly shows bike after last record, the bike number is 18D. When changing classes, we just appended a letter ?A? for first class, and so forth. The ?D? would indicate we had changed to the Fourth class of the week?.Long and low tank replaces bulky factory unit. Shaker screen in front of the engine was made with scrap metal in the garage and mounted with Adel clamps. This was a Harley, so vibration shook most of the salt off the screen. Shaker screen was NOT streamlining, since the wind was unaffected. Harley XR750 fans may recognize this chassis as an ORIGINAL 1972 XRTT ? made only one year, and a production run of less that 20 units. VERY rare.
Crazy from lack of sleep, off we went for Florida. We were blessed with hundreds of miles of pouring rain, which washed off most of the Bonneville salt under the van.
In our moment of greatest glory,
I did not realize that in the future,
Bonneville would be very unkind to me ??????.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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What a great time that must have been.
I really enjoy these reminiscings.
Franey
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Thank you Franey!
It has been a satisfying labor
to put this all together.
And yes, those were exciting times,
back in the Pliocene (Harley) Epoch.
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 Years at Bonneville
Chapter #21
Remember that problem you had last year;
that you were going to fix over the winter ?
Preparing for Bonneville for 1975
With my ringing success at Bonneville in 1974, I assumed that the program would continue in 1975 with equal or better accomplishments.
Read on, as I come to grips with the rocky road ahead, in which our hero is NOT assured of setting records at will.
At least in part due to my four-record sweep of the competition in 1974, Dick O?Brien of the Harley Davidson Factory Racing Team agreed to increased sponsorship for 1975. Part of that sponsorship would be some actual Factory Racing parts!
Those parts would include special ? probably one of a kind ? racing cylinder heads. Many believe that horsepower is made in the head, and in my case, I agreed. I felt I had taken my Harley engine as far as I could on normal heads, and so better heads were the only item that could improve my engine performance.
PHOTO ? cylinder heads I used in 1973 & 1974. Twin carbs side by side. VERY rare !
The new Harley Factory cylinders heads came not to me, but directly to my local Harley dealer, which was how Harley did those things ?back then?. Dallas Padgett, my local dealer, who was a very frugal man, had sponsored me at Bonneville for a total of a footpeg rubber cover.
Early in 1975, Dallas called me to say they had something for me. Delighted that ?The Factory? had trusted me with some ?unobtainium? racing parts, I took off work, and hurried to the dealership.
PHOTO ? Famous serial number ? possibly the only 1957 Harley Iron Sportster engine to set five (5) Bonneville speed records on pump gas.
At the parts counter, the ?old school? dealer opened the package in front of me to confirm the contents, which had an unfamiliar part number on the packing list. He looked them over carefully, gradually understanding the unique items in his hands.
He consulted his invoice and bemusedly remarked, ?The Factory says no charge to the customer. Never seen that before.?
Photo ? NEW FOR 1975 - Special Harley Factory racing cylinder heads, offering much better air flow. Possibly the only set like this in existence. There is satisfaction from feeling that the Factory believes in you enough to trust you with unique racing parts !
The use of the new cylinder heads involved using new cylinders, which were from the same supplier as last year. I still had not figured out the ring sealing problem of 1974, but I hoped (unreasonably it would turn out) that I just had a bad batch of rings.
PHOTO ? Spark plug boss tells the truth. Standard plug reach was an inexplicable 3/8 inch. Race-only from the factory were ? inch reach. Very few were made and even fewer issued to privateers.
Photo ? more bogus part numbers. The RA suffix is ?Harley speak? for a racing part with a subsequent first alteration ? the second alteration would be ?B,? and so on. Cylinders were painted black to disguise that they were aluminum and not cast iron. Attractive chromed ?elephant?s foot? cylinder base nuts resist the salt. Rust lurks.
This year, I started with (I believed) dependable cast-iron rings in place of the seemingly trouble prone chrome rings, and put the problems out of my mind. That simple ? and misguided ? assumption would haunt me all week????..
Photo ? Welded-up and re-ported intake tracts gave direct shot of air and fuel to the intake valve. Bronze guide instead of stock cast-iron original street part. NO other Harley iron XR ever looked this good !
I carefully assembled the received heads and checked the special valve springs. EACH valve has three (3) springs, and the result was crushing seat pressure. I wondered if my cams, lifters and pushrods would survive repeated 3- mile passes on the salt at full throttle, banging the red line constantly.
Photo - Fuel and air point STRAIGHT at the spark plug! I hopped this would improve the power. With the carburetor mount removed, the improved straight-in porting can be better appreciated. I joked that with a flashlight, all I had to do was open the throttle, and I could check the intake valve seat, the exhaust valve seat, and read the plug. I was convinced this engine would produce more power than last year. Would it be worth all the trouble?
PHOTO- EACH of the 12 springs( 3 per valve!) had to be properly shimmed to prevent the valve from (if it floated) striking the piston. I had to have almost 100 special shims on hand to make the tedious adjustments. Must have worked, since I had no problems in maybe 50 full power Bonneville runs. Huge intake valve with little stubby stem is shown after 40-50 runs - maybe 150 miles of full power passes down the long ?white dyno.? Surprising reliability
I had my used racing tires trimmed to thinner dimensions by BUCHANNEN?S frame shop in Monterey Park, California, for the princely sum of $10 each. I had determined ? somehow ? to run 60 pounds of air pressure in used tires?.
As usual, we disassembled the 1957 Harley Sportster to fit
the bike into the old Dodge A-100 van while allowing for living and working space. Before setting off from Tallahassee FL, I had replaced all the brake linings in our Dodge A-108 van with new VELVETOUCH brake linings. All the NASCAR guys liked Velvetouch, so it must have been good?..
Listen: Do we hear banjo music ?
Planning to fully enjoy our third trip to Bonneville, we scheduled extra vacation time to view the countryside. Making a little side visit to Tallulah Falls and Gorge in North Georgia, we saw the deepest gorge east of the Mississippi. We tried to enjoy natural beauty, and store up the cool water memories for while we were enjoying the perfect salt desert at Bonneville. We went mile after mile on lonely rural Georgia two lane roads.
Leaving The Falls, we imagined we could hear the sounds of the banjo music from ?Deliverance,? which was filmed in this area. The film had starred Burt Reynolds ? we called him ?Buddy?- who had played football at Florida State University, where I had taken my degrees.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsC4kf6x_Q0
As we were descending the steep narrow road leaving the high falls, I felt the severely overloaded van start to lose braking power. Once again, a full load of Bonneville stuff was more than the half-ton rated van liked. The van had a manual drum brake system, so I pressed much harder with my foot.
The van did not decelerate any better.
There was a shear rock face upward to our right, carved for the road out of native rock. The left side was a straight drop off of maybe 100 feet. I don?t remember any guard rails, but maybe I was distracted.
I pressed down harder and harder, until I was pushing with both feet, and literally standing on the brake pedal. I told Ellen through gritted teeth we were in trouble, and we would probably not be able to stop for the stop sign at the bottom of the hill. I ground the 3-speed manual transmission into first gear. We weren?t slowing down, but at least we were not speeding up. With the manual transmission in 1st gear, I turned off the ignition to kill all power, using dead-engine compression as an additional brake.
I gasped to Ellen: ? I going to have to slide the right side of the van on the rock wall, and maybe friction will slow us some.?
There was NO run-off at the ?T? intersection ahead of us, just a forest of trees, maybe 12 inches diameter at the smallest.
We continued down.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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VELVETOUCH brake linings work great after you warm them up. The trick is to drag the brakes, as you pull away from the curb, to get them warm. Drag then release several time before you get to the first stoplight/sign. If you drove a car with velevetouch brakes you did this automatically, and the now hot linings would easily stop the car.
The army was sending me out of town. A friend's wife needed a car, while her car's engine was being rebuilt. So I lent her mine, without warning her about the need to warm up the velvetouch brakes. The first stoplight was at a four lane intersection. She roared through the red light with both feet on the power brake pedal, and her hands pushing on the horn-ring :-)
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 Years at Bonneville
Chapter #22
?Fooled my self again? ? Tom Waits
Somehow, with some heat warming up the van brakes, the Velvetouch linings finally took hold, and we stopped just before entering the T cross street.
We drove VERY slowly to the park comfort station, where Ellen refilled our water bottles with pure mountain water, and I changed my shorts.
Off to the salt flats, with NO further brake problems, or car trouble of any kind. Somehow, the ominous banjo music sounded a little more appropriate.
Registration and inspection were also without any memories.
Harleys, and in particular the Sportster model, had a long and successful history on the salt, especially under Leo Payne, Carl Morrow and Warner Riley.
Photo - Studio shot of Leo?s top-gear only Sportster, with typical Bonneville numbers, in about 1969. Reportedly the first non-streamliner bike into the Bonneville 200mph Club for 1969. Leo had only top gear (1-1) and hung on the door handle up to 75mph, and then just rolled into the throttle for a 202mph top speed. Classic Harley SPORTSTER gas tank.
Photo - Leo returned in 1971 with a HUGE entourage, courtesy of Tom McMullen and AEE Choppers. . Mr. McMullen was known in the LA hot rod community for his roadster Ford and his magazine publishing.
The team may have been accompanied by a number of beautiful women who reportedly worked in a small business in Wells, Nevada known for beautiful women on the staff. The girls hosted a ?Meeting? at the far end of the long course, and many from the pits left to ?attend.?
The wives were not amused.
In the 1970?s, I was a contributing editor for Hot Bike and Street Chopper Magazines; both McMullen publications. Although I was in the editorial offices a number of times, I never met Mr. McMullen, a widely respected and talented man.
Hemmings photo. Tom McMullen?s historic Roadster recently changed hands ? reportedly in the near-million-dollar range. Word in the magazine offices was that Tom appreciated women in his office wanting to ?improve? themselves; and that Tom would pay a plastic surgeon for any ?enhancement? the women wanted.
Photo - Easy-going Carl Morrow at Bonneville; Early-morning hair with improbable letterman?s jacket. Nitro Harley Ironhead. Iconic number plate. Bonneville only tires at both ends. Carl was never quite able to join the Bonneville 200 Club. Many years later, I put his son Doug Morrow on my Nitrous Hayabusa at Maxton so that Doug could be a 200 Club member. Note Carl?s seating position almost directly over the rear wheel. Extra traction for 150-200 horsepower applied through the very skinny back tire. Carl?s bikes were always nicely turned out and attractive. #67A on it?s first class, while Triumph in the background is on it?s second class. In those long-forgotten days, it was not required to post the class on the bike ? just the race number. Another Classic Harley SPORTSTER gas tank.
Carl Morrow photo - Light-hearted Carl Morrow and stylish Warner Riley share secrets at Bonneville. Combined best speeds were near 400 mph. Warner joined ?The 200 Club? in 1971 ? reportedly touching 212mph one way on Nitro
Photo Harley Davidson. A remarkably shy and trim Denis Manning poses with his first world-record holding bike: An single iron-head Harley Sportster engine powered Denis?s home-made streamliner that took Don Vesco?s top record, and went over 266 mph in 1970. Sometimes self-salesmanship makes it all possible. Denis will forever ?The First Man to 350 mph.?
Dick O?Brian, head of the Harley factory race team supported Manning, and future 200 Club member Warner Riley built the Harley engine. S&S owner George smith (Sr.) tipped the can.
Bonneville racers at the sharp end are a close-knit group. They may have their personal differences, but CAN work together effectively!
Harley?s O?Brian also supported Warner Riley?s racing and my racing at Bonneville. Riley built me crankshafts to break his own records with. Manning would regain the outright motorcycle record years later with yet another bike at 376mph with the Famous Harley rider ? and many times flat track national champion - Chris Carr at the bars.
I would go on to support John Levie setting world?s fastest speed for a motorcycle with sidecar in 2018 at 320mph.
Thoughts of brakes in vans, and downhill adventures completely out of mind, we set to work. After carefully warming up the 1957 engine in the 1972 Harley XRTT chassis, we started racing on Sunday ?the first day - at 10:30am with a reasonable off-the-trailer run of 148.76 mph at 5200 rpm in the ? mile, still accelerating. We needed at least 167mph to qualify against Gerald Wysong?s record. We were about 20mph slow?.
I was using the same carburetor settings as last year, and I suspected I was a little lean. I checked the plugs, and ?Cement boil? on the Champion N63Y plugs also suggested the lack of fuel. (?cement boil? is the excess heating of the glue holding the electrode into the tip of the spark plug.) Excess combustion heat can cause the glue to expand, and to look like it had ?boiled.? (This is often a sign that the engine will soon experience pre-ignition, and expire?)
The ?lean? idea was pleasing, since I believed the theory that if I had to add more fuel for best combustion, that would mean more power.
Unfortunately, what I was NOT using was my brain for figuring out which record to run for first!
(Last year, I had felt comfortable running fastest to slowest, since I felt my winter-time speed predictions would work well in real life ? which is seldom a true happening at Bonneville. So THIS YEAR, I started with the fastest record first. What I SHOULD have done was run slowest to fastest. I would quickly regret this tactical mistake!)
Photo by Freud. Race number drops again, down to #8. Wider seat, and fairing modified from Reiman?s Daytona winning style to a longer Bonneville style. 165mph best one way. Maybe 175mph at sea level, and as fast as a production 1974 Yamaha TZ750. The extended fairing would control the air flow better for less drag. Enclosing things like exhaust pipes would also reduce drag. Note nice shape UNDER the bike, and compare with the other Harley riders. Bike is accelerating in a lower gear, so I was not tucked in yet. Acceleration has made the bike ?squat? a little in the rear, and ?lift? a little in the front. Otherwise, good ?attitude.?
I finally had enough Bonneville runs under my less-slim belt to give some thought to suspension. Bonneville rewards compliant suspension in motorcycles. The rougher the track, the more important the suspension becomes.
My first Bonneville chassis ? which I gave up on before ever racing it ? was converted to ?hard tail? rigid rear suspension. I eventually decided that rigid rear was better ? if ever ? only on perfect salt ? which was becoming more and more uncommon.
Just build the bike with good suspension in the rear, and make minor adjustments as you go.
My Factory-race Harley XRTT chassis came with British Girling shocks, which I immediately swapped for Koni units. NEVER a problem.
Much the same thinking for the front of the bike. If it works well on a flat track, or on the road race track, it should have good handling on the salt. Do it right the first time, and use your thought-power for something else.
Warner Riley photo ? Warner in 1972. 206mph record; 212mph on the return run. If you compare my bike to those of Riley, Payne and Morrow, you will find all four with very similar appearance. We all used about the same frame geometry, same engines, similar seating positions and the same basic fairing. I was the slowest of the four by at LEAST 20 mph??but I was on Gas and they ran a LOT of Nitro. Notice that Warner taped his front fork legs to an ?aerodynamic shape.? This would later be outlawed. Warner was using then ? popular rigid rear suspension. Warner loved the emblematic SPORTSTER gas tank ? good advertising for Harley. Did it keep his head to high? Would he have been faster with the fuel in the seat ?
In my second run, less than an hour later, in the 90 degree heat, I saw 5400rpm at 156.52 mph by moving bigger two jet sizes in both carburetors. I had changed to N60 plugs, and there was no cement boil. I was pleased that with the NEW heads, we had to add more fuel.
I assumed that more fuel meant more power.
The bike handled perfectly with full fairing and 60 pounds of air pressure in both tyres. We were moving quickly in the right direction.
The third Sunday run, at 12 noon, gave more promise with a speed of 161.29mph at an increased 5,625rpm. With these two runs at successively better speeds and higher rpm, we getting close to the needed 167 mph.
I just assumed that my well-thought-out
and methodical approach would serve
me the rest of the week.
Would I be completely fooled by Bonneville?
I would not be the first !
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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Saw you there Scott: http://www.landracing.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=215&pid=10044#top_display_media
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What a GREAT photo, my "clicky" friend ! ..................
I didn't know we went that far back. ..........
Can I but that picture from you ? .....
.Very sharp, colors just "pop!"
(Wish I had been that good !) ...........................
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 Years at Bonneville
Chapter #23
?Do I feel a breath of wind??
We put the bike back into the waiting line for an opportunity to run again. Bologna and cheese with mustard on white bread was a cool lunch, lounging in our sunbaked humble van.
I wanted to keep hammering the bike down the track until I found the right combination and then start taking MORE records.
The fourth run of Sunday, starting at 2:00 pm, was a real eye opener for me ! Speed was 160.14 mph, so down slightly. I figured that the tach reading of 5,800 rpm was correct, but the tire was NOT slipping. If the tach was correct, the clutch and tire were not slipping, the speed should have been around 165-170 mph.
The problem was that I was NOT straight up !
This was my first run at Bonneville involving wind of any consequence, and it found me tucked in tight on the tank and behind the big fairing at about 160mph when I discovered ?the Gap in the Mountains.? The firm and steady wind from the north was a direct crosswind blowing through the gap between the hills north of me at a high but steady speed.
Later, I felt a kinship for the guys fighting Rommel in North Africa, fighting the hot, dry Ghibli and Harmattan winds.
I was too much of a novice to ask the starter for wind speeds and directions.
Of course, I was NOT going let the wind make me lose a run, and I would NOT close the throttle. So I just leaned hard to the left; into the wind. The wind tried to push me to the right, and I fought the wind by leaning to the left. The result was the bike going straight ahead.
About 7/8 of the way through the measured mile, I passed the north end of the gap in the mountains, and the wind abruptly quit. Since the bike was leaned hard left to fight the wind, I went hard left when the wind quit.
Photo - Compare the diameter of the tire when straight up (black line) with the smaller diameter hinted by the BLUE line
Formerly in the left side of the track, I was now headed for the timing light off the left side of the track. I had two simple choices: close the throttle and tip the bike up straight, and maybe miss qualifying speed. OR, I could hold the throttle wide open, and hope for the best.
This particular situation had me petrified ! I still did not consider myself much of a rider, and every little thing that took me ?out of the envelope? ? the things I was comfortable with ? was fear-inducing.
This would follow me every step of my career. NO advancement in speed or riding / driving skill was without mental pain??????
I took the ?racer?s choice.?
While keeping the throttle WFO, I barely missed the timing light, but I also missed the qualifying speed at least partly because of the longer curved path was scrubbing off speed in a turn. The tach read higher because when I leaned so far over, the bike was running on a part of the tire tread that was smaller in diameter than the straight-up part. I would remember this trick later and use it in the 2010?s at Maxton.
As I worked out what had happened, I reminded myself of seeing Dave Campos on the insane Bob George double-Harley the year before.
Photo by Freud. A classic event: Dave Campos on the Bob George Double Harley searching for 240mph. The fairing looks like a prototype for the 1999 Suzuki Hayabusa ? Did Bob know something special ? Dave?s elbows and hips hanging in the breeze, with Dave fighting the Cat 9 hurricane winds. If he lost his grip, was there a seat to keep his fanny off the rear tire spinning 3,500 rpm ? Perhaps more to the point: Look at all that side profile and think about side wind. Can you see the bike leaning ? Is his center of pressure ahead of his center of mass ? Is he totally nuts ?
After the 4th unsuccessful attempt to qualify against Wysong?s record, I decided to change to a ?less demanding? class. Why waste the whole Speed Week chasing an unobtainable record when for $50, I could change classes and reward my sponsors and myself with a record at lower speeds ?
A record is a record.
As the famous Bonneville philosopher John Levie said:
?All the lines in the record book are the same size.?
That new class record for my next attempt would be the helpful Carl Morrow?s 160.705mph gas record of 1972.
THIS is the record I should have run first !
After my first run in the ?new? class, my reading of the plugs said I was again too lean ? not enough gas going into the engine at full throttle. I was also out of large-enough jets to go more rich by using larger jets. I would up drilling out stock jets by hand with my set of machinist?s number drills; the drill bit mounted in a ?pin vise.?
Pin Vise. Strong grip on small drill bits beats doing the job with pliers. Selection of different size bits stored in the back provides convenient storage. Only time I ever used this at Bonneville, but it was perfect and I am glad I had it. It the background the same orange I painted the van and bike?
Going through by box of main jets, I picked a couple of the smallest size, which I would never use on this bike. Not having a small bench vise in my tool box, I held the tiny Mikuni main jets in a pair of vise grip pliers. Yes, the pliers left marks, but I didn?t care.
After drilling out the little jets to something more suitable, I filed off the size numbers, so I would not late confuse myself by thinking they were something they now were not.
Finally, I was able to show a 164.83 mph time slip to officials, and confirm that I had qualified to run records on the next morning, the Monday.
I had no clue on RPM, since the PRECISION British Smith?s chronometric tachometer had suddenly gone missing in action. NO cylinder-head temperatures, since the ?Harley vibration? had killed both gauges. The gauge needles were just bouncing around under the glass.
But, at almost 165mph, I was eight miles an hour faster than last year, AND more than 5 mph faster than the current record !
Think about this: I had made FIVE(5) runs in TWO(2) classes on the first day of speed week; four (4) of the runs in the first 3.5 hours??all on one course! NO short course, and no beginner course available in those early years.
Remarkable number of runs when most competitors were lucky to get in a single run. My ?speed secret? was to IMMEDIATELY return to the waiting line, and THEN make repairs or changes while pushing forward every two minutes or so.
It took five runs and a class change, but I had qualified!
In my first two years at Bonneville, I had
set records every other time I had qualified.
Would my success continue?
What could go wrong ?
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 Years at Bonneville
Chapter #24?
?That?s just Scott. He?s always confident.
Frequently mistaken; but always confident!?
Waiting for the record runs to start at about 8:00 on a cool, clear morning, I felt quite confident.
First thing Monday morning, after others ran for their records, I had a disastrously slow north-bound record run into a strong headwind. With my tach still MIA, I had no clue on RPM. The speed was a horrible 145.690, off by 20 mph, which was more than the headwind speed.
I suspected that the headwind had slowed me enough that the engine had fallen back below the power band, but I was unaware of the speed loss due to not being able to measure the engine RPM. IF I had known the RPM was down, I could have shifted down into 3rd gear, and accelerated back up to a competitive speed.
No tach = no information.
I had planned for this sort of wind situation when I was building the gearbox. Harley offered a number of different ratios for EACH of the three lower speeds in my racing transmission. Not particularly needing a quick start, I went with a very close set of gear ratios. First gear was an astounding 1.98 to 1, meaning the bike should go at least 50% of top speed in 1st gear; say almost 90mph. It would just take a while to get to 2nd gear.
I just needed a working tach, and I had no spare. Running the rest of the week without a tachometer might be an effort of supreme futility!
My third gear was a VERY unusual 1.08 to 1 ratio; with top gear being direct drive at 1 to 1. In that way, shifting from 3rd up to 4th at about 6,000rpm would only drop the engine back to maybe 5,500rpm - That would allow me to gear for a headwind, and run easily, while still in the power band, in 3rd gear.
With no tachometer, I had to base my shift points on ?feel? and ?sound,? just like the old timers? I wasn?t sure how well I could do something so new to me while actually racing.
With a tail wind on the way home, I could click it into high, and the tailwind would not push the engine past the red line. With no working tach, I was clueless. On the return run an hour later, with NO tailwind, I posted a 156.666mph.
MUCH better, but NO RECORD.
I started wondering if my engine was ?going away? (starting to fail)??again.
Tuesday qualifying at 7:30 am was in humid 76 degree air. If this was the weather page, it would say ?pleasant? over the salt flats.
A 10mph tail wind pushed me hard from the start, but I was unable to break 160mph; the slip showed 159.29mph at tire-spinning 5,825 rpm. Suddenly the tach was working again ? British technology?.
A serious young racing couple from Denver, Bill and Sharon Vickery, both set records riding Yamaha production road race bikes. Sharon nailed a 250cc record up to 141mph. A very significant number in 1974. That record still stands with the AMA ? almost 50 years later.
Sport Rider photo. Yamaha TZ250 of 1973 ? the only year of
Water cooling and drum front brake. Typical of what Sharon Vickery might have ridden; she and husband Bill were Yamaha dealers in Colorado.
Sharon?s husband Bill Vickery rode a very modified Yamaha TZ750 to a record 191mph. Bill went deep into the mid 190?s on qualifying runs, but just missed a time over 200mph. Maybe because he closed off the front of the fairing to save air drag, the engine was overheating. This Vickery record would stand for years, and was substantially faster than his friend Don Vesco of el Cajon CA, who could only muster a 178 mph record?.
I had seen the future of Bonneville, and was too busy to pay attention at that time. I would suffer for that !
Chatting with Vasco years later ? shortly before his death ? Don revealed that he had never earned a 200mph time slip riding a sit-on bike. Remarkable for a man who had held both the motorcycle AND the wheel-driven car outright records. I offered rides on one of my bikes, but somehow we never could make it happen.
Scott Guthrie photo. Bike from Scott Guthrie Collection. Stock Yamaha TZ750 1974 ? Typical of what dealer Bill Vickery could have purchased for $3,495 new from the Factory.
Sharon?s husband Bill Vickery rode a very modified Yamaha TZ750 to a record 191mph. Bill went deep into the mid 190?s on qualifying runs, but just missed a time over 200mph. Maybe because he closed off the front of the fairing to save air drag, the engine was overheating. This Vickery record would stand for years, and was substantially faster than his friend Don Vesco of el Cajon CA, who could only muster a 178 mph record?.
If I had not been partially deafened by my loud pipes,
I would surely have heard banjo music again.
We made three more attempts to qualify on the Harley, but with no success; our speeds quickly dropped down to 150mph, 140mph and finally 124mph, so I knew there was no hope, And yes, I knew that in 1975, this sounds JUST like the problems I had in 1974. BUT, this year we were not chasing multiple records, and the energy to work day AND night had gone out of me. Especially so since I knew that, number one, we were NOT going to go fast enough to set more than one record, and that number two, we would NOT find a satisfactory fix at Bonneville.
All ten(10) of my time slips had been signed by Pat Walkey.
On the bright side, not only was I faster than ANY bicycle of the time, I was almost as fast as Mike Corbin?s ?Run Silent Run Fast? 165 mph on a battery operated motorcycle.
Mike Corbin?s astounding 165.367 mph record of 1974 stood for decades as the SCTA/AMA best record speed for an electric motorcycle.
After visiting with friends, we were off for home in North Florida.
SO: WHAT ABOUT THE CYLINDERS AND RINGS?
A later autopsy of the after-market aluminum engine cylinders ? which were cast of then-unobtainium KO1 silver , copper and other metal alloys - showed that the cylinder had probably not been properly ?seasoned? after casting. When I raced the bike HARD for the first few days, the iron bores gradually went ?square? at the four head-bolt locations, but only when up to operating temperature. Thermal loads were distorted the casting.
After running the engine to failure several times, there had been enough heat to permanently season the bores in the SQUARE position. The SAME THING happened again in 1975, also with new cylinders.
Photo - Wonderful idea, but there may have been a design problem also involved, since after running the bore(s) were NOT round. Thereafter, every overbore resulted in a VERY round hole - IF I torqued these plates down with proper torque before boring.,
Photo - I made ?torque plates? by machining some one-inch thick 6061-T6 aluminum alloy. IF I torqued these plates down with proper torque before boring, cylinders worked OK
I just had to run EACH cylinder hard enough distort the bore in the first place.
The cylinder manufacturer was unfamiliar with the problems - and was very helpful - but had no solution. We speculated that even though they held up well on the street ? and at the drags with big loads of nitro - they never got as hot as at Bonneville.
Once again, the ?great white dyno? may have had more questions than answers.
OK - what was the deal with the rings ?
When the hot cylinder bores went square, the round rings were distorted trying to fit against the square bore. The hard chrome friction surface, which is hard and low friction but NOT ductile or very malleable, started breaking off. The continued running with the square bore broke off more and more chrome as the rings rotated around the pistons.
Gradually some of the hard chrome became embedded in the iron liner, and acted like diamond sandpaper ? killing every new ring set. The honing smoothed the scratched bores, but did not go deep enough into the liner to remove all the chrome So: the rings continued to die.
On the bright side, I had learned a lot more about racing at Bonneville, and the 164.83mph was my lifetime best ! AND, the three of the four records we set in 1974 still stood in the record book.
But next year, I would be kicked to
the curb.....
A NEW star would be born !
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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Aaahhhhhh. At last the answer to the rings going away problem..... cromag muutt :cheers:
Torque plate honing and hot honing.
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Bill & Sharon's bikes are right after yours Scott: http://www.landracing.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=215&page=2
I remember Bill taping off the seams and saying he thought it was worth about 2~3 mph to get him over 190.
Thanks for the memories Scott! :cheers:
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Aaahhhhhh. At last the answer to the rings going away problem..... cromag muutt :cheers:
Torque plate honing and hot honing.
Yes Jack, that was hard for a self-trained guy
like me to understand almost 45 years ago !
I tried to figure out what was happening,
and put my "burnz-O-matic" on a
cylinder and then measured it.
Surprise !
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Bill & Sharon's bikes are right after yours Scott: http://www.landracing.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=215&page=2
I remember Bill taping off the seams and saying he thought it was worth about 2~3 mph to get him over 190.
Thanks for the memories Scott! :cheers:
And THANK YOU for preserving our memories Woody !
One can see a lot by looking at those three bikes:
Sharon's bike has ordinary fairing, only with a
Big Butt seat (Vesco's, not her's) so was
pretty powerful and quite well ridden.
I remember her as having one of the best "tucks" I
have seen at Bonneville. Good number with
the bulky stock 6 gallon tank !
Bill's bike had excellent aero for the time,
and WAY better than Vesco's,
but Bill also kept the HUGE 6+ gallon tank ! ...................
I suspect he would have gone faster by using
a 1.5-gallon tank placed where he kept his tummy,
and then lowering the fairing bubble to fit the new riding position.
He may have missed his opportunity to
run for the Bonneville 200 MPH Club ...............
Much the same criticism of my fairing front: I
should have lowered the windshield to reduce frontal area
and filled in the area behind my legs !
We were young then, and often with more energy than knowledge ...........
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Hi, Old-n-Slow I've never seen a Sporster head that looked like this.
(http://images.motorcycle-usa.com/PhotoGallerys/SW-1974.jpg)
I've seen the single carb Iron Head Class C
(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5I46KRk8g2Y/TUzvKt6DGSI/AAAAAAAAEwE/NFbD4OukSFk/s1600/MERTLAWILLNO169.JPG)
And the later XR750 aluminum heards with 2 carbs on the right 2 exhaust pipes on the left.
(https://motorcycles-for-sale.biz/img/motorcyclephotos/full/motorbike41208.jpg)
Do you have any info, or more photos, of the your heads? Or do you know of any H-D book that has info on these heads? They must have been originally made for the AMA TT bikes?right?
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BS:
The customer-issue 1970 Harley XR750 engines were very much like the iron-head Sportsters of the day, but were MORE like the XLR, which was the (VERY rare) competition model of the sportster, with different crankcases.
It looks like Mert Lawwill, in the photo, has one of the very first XR750 bikes with the "standard" single Tillotson carbs. Mert's #1 plate dates the photo.
Very quickly, for the Factory Race Team members, the side-by-side dual carburetor heads were developed. The dual carb heads provided more power, and the ability to set each cylinder's carburetion separately.
That's what I did.
The all-aluminum engine, introduced in 1972 (NOT in time for the March Daytona 200 race) immediately made anything "Iron" useless, which is no doubt how I was able to induce the Race Team to issue stuff to me ..............
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 Years at Bonneville
Chapter #25
ELLEN GUTHRIEs Big Adventure
I was not the member of the family to be sought after as a rider.
My wife Ellen, a lithe and beautiful 29 years old in 1976, was recruited to ride for Gordon ?Gordy? Seim of Salinas CA. Gordy had seen Ellen assisting me, and was impressed with her motorcycle racing potential. He was also impressed by her four foot, twelve inch stature and 90 pound trim physique.
Photo - Ellen Guthrie Collection. Ellen reduced her weight from 105 pounds down to only 90 (dressed in leathers) for Bonneville. I was covering the racing for CYCLE NEWS, and trying to look like a photographer. As long as I was nowhere near GLEN FREUDENBERGER, I might have pulled it off. In those days, wearing TWO Nikon cameras around my neck was HIGH status!
Humans come in a limited range of specific gravity. Lighter is usually smaller. Lighter means less rolling friction. Smaller also means less aerodynamic drag.
Ellen was perfect !
Gordy offered Ellen a sweetheart deal: IF she would ride his Suzuki TS50 in the P/P-50cc production class, Gordy would provide the race bike, a practice bike, the spare parts, and a mechanic in support.
Photo - Gordon Seim with one of his three Brigham-sponsored (3) record-setting Can-Am Motorcycles at Bonneville in 1975. Gordie would set records on all three bikes in a single met ? something of a high water mark. Owner Brigham flanks Gordie, Son Henry would eventually take over the riding.
Seim was an experienced bike rider and builder who already held three Bonneville records on small two-strokes. He seemed quite knowledgeable and very willing to help put Ellen into the record book.
Photo - Production Suzuki TS50 as ridden by Ellen Guthrie to 49.93mph against a minimum of 50 mph
Ellen happily accepted the offer in late 1974, and immediately began strength and endurance training. We had custom racing leathers made. SHOEI, impressed with her promise, supplied special-for-her smaller helmets.
MINIMUMS?
At that time, Bonneville had minimums in many classes. The reasons for the minimums were obscure, and I never quite understood why they existed, but they did. Twenty bikes could run against a minimum, but if nobody broke the minimum, NOBODY ?got? the record. (What year did the minimums go away ? was it also for cars ?)
Ellen?s minimum for what should have been the slowest class in the books was set at a whopping 50 mph.
Digest that.
At the time, NOBODY in 25 years had ever exceeded 50 mph in Production 50cc, so the minimum was stout ! My memory is that the Suzuki TS50 ?Gaucho? was listed by the factory at an impressive 4.9 horsepower, and so would be hard pressed to hit 50mph, even at sea level, let alone at Bonneville on a hot afternoon with 7,500 feet of Density-altitude.
In fact, the MPS/C-50 record, which included full-on factory 12 horsepower road racers with fairings, 12-speed gearboxes, expansion chambers and conversion to water cooling had a minimum of only 55 mph, only 5 mph faster??...The INJUSTICE !
Ellen would have to race VERY well to overcome what I thought was an unkind and unnecessary handicap.
Photo - Suzuki TS50 engine in factory trim
The iron cylinder did not shed heat well
Rotary valve fed carbureted air to the crank cases
Glory moment for the family! Just before leaving for Ellen?s chance for her own Bonneville glory. Van painted in Harley white, orange and black to match the #8 bike. #8 proudly also on the back of the van. 1967 Sportster and 1917 Harley on left. Ellen?s bike not yet delivered. Photo by Ellie Dean Slade.
As of this writing in 2020, there are seven (7) records in just the 50cc class that are now UNDER 50 mph. The slowest 50cc record is 34 mph????.The slowest overall motorcycle record in the SCTA Bonneville record book is 17.972 mph, set by a 72-year old man who could barely see the track ahead of him.
Ellen had her work cut out !
I put my own program on hold to support Ellen?s racing. This was OK for me, since in the fall, after Speed Week 1975, some guys had rented the Bonneville track privately, and had broken all my standing records. I was ?out of the book? again, just like I had never been there?????..I was beginning to see that the days of the Harley Sportster as competitive (in my hands at least) were over without DRASTIC changes.
I just kept going back, ?cause I loved Bonneville !
One advantage of a top speed in the 50mph range with a street legal and tagged bike was that Ellen could practice anywhere anytime. When not busy, she could ride on the long paved road leading out to the ?boat ramp? onto the salt. We could drive a car beside her yelling riding tips and encouragement.
Hardly traditional Bonneville Speed Trials stuff?????.
After Ellen made a number of familiarization runs, we gradually discovered that if she hammered the bike from the start, it overheated the iron cylinder and the engine lost some power by the time it got to the timing traps, miles from the start. Ellen eventually decided to try easing out to the one mile mark, and then give it more throttle.
The TS50 was a simple motorcycle: A single-cylinder 2-stroke engine with no poppet valves. Exhaust was controlled by holes in the engine cylinder wall. Intake was by rotary valve in the crankcase.
Two-stroke tuning is often thought to be faith-based.
There was a tune-up kit available from Suzuki that increased the power to a mind-bending eight (8.0!)horsepower, but that was not legal for a production class.
Ellen made a number of familiarizations runs at reduced speeds; finding the power band ? if you can apply that concept to something with less horsepower than many lawn mowers.
SCOTT GUTHRIE RACING TEAM PHOTO. Ellen was waved off on a preliminary run by Bob Higbee ? the beloved Bonneville starter of many years. Is that the Ermie Immerso turbine streamliner to her right ? It that a cloud of 2-stroke smoke behind her ?
Gradually working into ?Bonneville mode? as the week advanced, Ellen found the best ways to tuck in, the best time to shift gears, and the best carburetor tuning parts.
Finally, she was ready to go all out.
As Ellen set out for her first full power run, she and the bike both were as prepared as well as we could.
Off she went with Starter Bob Higbee?s blessing, with a small crowd of well-wishers at the start line. She eased out to the one mile, singing along in 3rd gear. We could hear when she put ?her foot to the wood,? and leaped forward.
The bike was CRISP, and she soon shifted into 4th gear. 5th gear went on and on??..but we could hear she was still accelerating !
Best run ever at a whopping 49.93mph, only 0.07mph from qualifying.
BUT, she seized the piston exiting the lights.
Ellen had been relentlessly schooled by the 2-stroke guys to ALWAYS keep her hand over the clutch lever, and to disengage if there was even a hint of ?engine slowing down? at speed. She did that, and never even skidded the tire.
Scott Guthrie photo. Brian Eriksen, with beautiful Diane Eriksen clasped by that rogue, Burt Munro ! Burt spend some time with us, and retold many stories, all of which were true. Burt still fancied himself the ladies man ! This would be the last time we saw Burt at Bonneville. Brian would go on to incredible success in 1977 and 1978. In 1976, he notched a record of 151.901 and took the crown for fastest sit-on 350cc rider in the world; faster than Don Vesco.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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How do I see the photos that accompany the story? Neat history!
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PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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Thanks, Scott.
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Thanks, Scott.
Let me know if that works,
and if you have any problems ................
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BS:
The customer-issue 1970 Harley XR750 engines were very much like the iron-head Sportsters of the day, but were MORE like the XLR, which was the (VERY rare) competition model of the sportster, with different crankcases.
It looks like Mert Lawwill, in the photo, has one of the very first XR750 bikes with the "standard" single Tillotson carbs. Mert's #1 plate dates the photo.
Very quickly, for the Factory Race Team members, the side-by-side dual carburetor heads were developed. The dual carb heads provided more power, and the ability to set each cylinder's carburetion separately.
That's what I did.
The all-aluminum engine, introduced in 1972 (NOT in time for the March Daytona 200 race) immediately made anything "Iron" useless, which is no doubt how I was able to induce the Race Team to issue stuff to me ..............
Thanks! In the early 70s I didn't pay much attention to AMA racing.
(https://i.pinimg.com/736x/51/17/af/5117af8e1a0a53f07d9d2650c29c7396--flat-track-racing-jay.jpg)
Later on I met Bill Bartels, who ran a XR750 for Jay Springsteen.
I took a quick look and found 3 sets of heads. Some good, some not so good, lots of cracks. Every thing "Iron" may be useless, but the collectors sure have made the prices climb.
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BS:
The customer-issue 1970 Harley XR750 engines were very much like the iron-head Sportsters of the day, but were MORE like the XLR, which was the (VERY rare) competition model of the sportster, with different crankcases.
It looks like Mert Lawwill, in the photo, has one of the very first XR750 bikes with the "standard" single Tillotson carbs. Mert's #1 plate dates the photo.
Very quickly, for the Factory Race Team members, the side-by-side dual carburetor heads were developed. The dual carb heads provided more power, and the ability to set each cylinder's carburetion separately.
That's what I did.
The all-aluminum engine, introduced in 1972 (NOT in time for the March Daytona 200 race) immediately made anything "Iron" useless, which is no doubt how I was able to induce the Race Team to issue stuff to me ..............
Thanks! In the early 70s I didn't pay much attention to AMA racing.
(https://i.pinimg.com/736x/51/17/af/5117af8e1a0a53f07d9d2650c29c7396--flat-track-racing-jay.jpg)
Later on I met Bill Bartels, who ran a XR750 for Jay Springsteen.
I took a quick look and found 3 sets of heads. Some good, some not so good, lots of cracks. Every thing "Iron" may be useless, but the collectors sure have made the prices climb.
All true, BS.
The iron xr750 bikes are collectable, but not as much as the alloy versions, as you show in this picture.
I just sold a 1972 Harley XRTT - which is the rare road racing version of the bike - for an astounding $76,950 ....................
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 Years at Bonneville
ELLEN GUTHRIE?s Big Adventure, Part 2
Disappointed by the Suzuki?s apparent seizure, we removed the head, and confirmed the problem: overheated piston aluminum had been transferred to the iron cylinder wall. The top end of the engine would have to come apart ! Being good motorbike guys, we snuck the bike into our ground-floor room at the State Line Hotel, and tore down the engine. Plastic tarp protected the hotel carpet.
Ellen had made numerous friends, and people wanted to see her set a good record. The friends gradually found our little room, and wandered in, anxious to help out.
The cast-iron cylinder looked unharmed except for the deposit of aluminum piston alloy of the air-cooled iron cylinder walls.
A quick visit to the Hotel pool-maintenance folks gave us a small glass bottle of muriatic acid. That would, with careful applications of the acid by Q-tip, dissolve the aluminum from the cylinder wall. Hopefully, not too much iron from the cylinder wall had disappeared out the exhaust pipe.
Meanwhile, 2-stroke expert Brian Eriksen washed and sanded down the piston in the bathroom sink, so he could examine it more closely. Brian thought maybe it was reusable, and was not too badly damaged. Suddenly, he stopped, looked at the piston top, and handed it to me. I looked and stopped too. My heart cold, I passed the piston around the room. As others looked at the piston, all conversation in the room stopped.
The piston was marked ?oversize.?
Photo - SERIOUS seizure shown here ! With no suitable replacement piston in the spares kit ? and no better cylinder, we had to reuse the damaged piston and one of the two damaged rings. Shades of 1974 !
The marking meant the piston was some oversize, but we didn?t know how much. NOBODY in the room had micrometers or calipers, NOBODY in the group knew the proper bore and stroke for this bike. Gordy, who built the bike, had not yet made it to Speed Week. We had no owner?s manual or shop manual.
Gordy had not made it to the salt yet, and we had NO idea where things were.
We picked through the boxes of spares and found NO smaller bore cylinders ? or at least cylinders smaller than what we had. Likewise, there was NO other piston, new or used, to fit this bore.
We HAD to use this actual cylinder, and use the damaged piston !
The top piston ring had been destroyed by the seizure, but the 2nd ring looked usable. Brian was a Bonneville record holding Yamaha 2-stroke race guy, and he said: ?Just stick the 2nd ring in the top groove. They are the same size, and the engine won?t care?Maybe less friction anyway.?
The Harley experience of 1974 and 1975 was coming in handy !
Debbie Dross photo left????..Ellen, at least, has kept her figure. Still racing out of the back of an old used van. We bought Van#3 (Ford E-350) used in 2002. Still in service in 2020! Three vans in 50 years ???????
We buttoned up the dilapidated Suzuki engine, but with the head loose but all other parts in place, and drove to the track in the morning.
After record runs started for others, the inspectors were in place in impound, but not yet busy. I asked if they would check our displacement while the engine was apart. They had no factory paperwork on this engine, but they could measure bore and stroke, and give us a total displacement.
WE were still clueless about displacement!
The un-official thinking was: ?Well, your stroke is what it is?..The bore, combined with that stroke makes the bike just a little over 50cc, so you might have to run in the 100cc class?.?
We all knew Ellen was dead in the water in a displacement class twice as large as what we had, if we couldn?t break the 50cc minimum, there was NO WAY we could break the faster 100cc record.
We were screwed !
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 Years at Bonneville
ELLEN GUTHRIE?s Big Adventure, Part 3
We had to put on our thinking caps.
I asked the inspector: ?Can you seal the crank cases to preserve your measurement of the stroke? We will leave the bike here in impound under your supervision. Meanwhile we will see if we can find a cylinder with a smaller bore.?
They were good with that.
We made a quick trip into the ONLY store in town, and returned to impound a couple of hours later, with the same cylinder having somehow sunk itself all the way into a freezing 50 pound block of salted down ice.
The scrutineer looked down with a smile, and reached for his micrometer. Dipping into the frosty cylinder without touching it, he made a quick measurement. With a twinkle in his eye, he looked at Ellen and said: ? I must have been mistaken. You seem to be good to go for 50cc?..?
The next year saw the introduction of Guthrie rule #2: ?All displacement measurements will be made with the parts at ambient temperature.?
We were off to the starting line. After all the fooling around, we just made it into line a few minutes before the late-afternoon start-line cutoff.
In those days, we quit running when ?the setting sun went behind the mountain? and not a specific time of day.
Photo by Todd Dross - 2008 Ellen Guthrie on left coaches Team rider Debbie Dross. Debbie would eventually hold the title of World?s Fastest Woman Solo Motorcycle Rider on one of the team?s Turbo Hayabusa bikes ? the mark set on her first full-power run at over 213 mph! Ellen was one of the first women to ride motorcycles at Bonneville, and has a distinguished place in history.
This late afternoon was a busy time period. Many of the really fast cars had been in line for several hours. They would wait until they were at the front of the line, and then sit to one side and wait for a chance at the track when the air was cooler and denser.
This was the last chance to qualify for that day, and nerves were bare.
We passed time chatting with other racers also waiting in line. Al Teague sat quietly waiting, possibly hoping for the long-elusive 400 mph run?
Photo- Al Teague?s team, with the car that would eventually carry Teague to an astounding 432 mph. When Al was on the start line, EVERYBODY snapped to full alert, and a hush fell over the flats. People held their breath to hear the magnificent sound of the single full-on Blown Nitro Hemi running for five full miles. Al covered ground in a HURRY ! Photo by Land Speed Louise.
Starter Bob Higbee would send a long-course car, and then, even before the long-course car had completed the first timed mile, would send a short course competitor. We were so close to closing time that he had even started to launch long course guys before the short course folks were clear of the track.
On Ellen?s last qualifying run of the week, off she trustingly raced.
Ellen Guthrie Photo ? Legs of leathers taped to reduce drag from flapping, Ellen eases away toward potential glory. Custom leathers and special SHOEI small helmet to fit. Previous best was 49.93mph against a difficult minimum of 50.00mph. Just needing an increase of 0.07 mph, this would be her last chance to set a record.
We could hear every engine revolution and every shift in the cool of the early evening air. With our binoculars, we could see her tucked in tight, almost under the paint. She had decided to slowly turn out at the 2 ? mile, since that was all the distance she needed to qualify.
Photo - That ?Wascally Wabbit? Burt Munro (world?s Fastest Indian) stands beside Bud Hare and Bud?s rider. Bud was the first person to set an SCTA Bonneville record using the same power plant in both a motorcycle and a car. Due in part to her 1976 success, my wife Ellen Guthrie would be offered a ride on this historic bike. Notice the interesting front suspension. Bud?s series of twin-engine Triumph based motorcycles would be called ?Dubble Trubble? long before Stevie Ray Vaughn picked up a guitar.
This was to be the last day for us, and we were still unsure about the pitifully repaired engine, but it was time to put up or shut up. We could only hope that the damaged piston would not seize again, and that the lack of one piston ring would not reduce compression pressure too much. We also had to have faith in the damaged iron cylinder?..
Photo - Ellen?s sticker for 1976. The 1976 rulebook,
including rules, records, el Mirage and bikes
was only 60 stapled pages, and weighed two ounces.
The previous year, 1975, the Bonneville 200 Club received only three (3) new members. One was future Club president Larry Volk; no new members on motorcycles
In 1976, the Club again welcomed only three car winners, and no bike members.
In typical Bonneville fashion, Ellen had been using long, slow turn outs to keep the bike steady, and to keep air moving around the engine, with part throttle worth of fuel flowing to help with cooling the engine.
Photo - Ellen Guthrie collection: Ellen waits at the ?far end? with a dyke in the background, in the forlorn hope somebody has arrived to tell her she has qualified.
But THIS time, at the 2 ?, she turned off the track so quickly, I thought she had crashed and fallen over. As we quickly and apprehensively drove down to recover her, the CB radio squawked the disappointing news. Ellen missed qualifying be less than 1 mph !
When we got to Ellen, safely upright beside her undamaged bike on the return road, we had to reveal the bad news. I then asked what had happened with the turn-out.
Ellen; while giving me her
?what a dumb husband? look, said:
?Did you see who was running right behind me ?
It was Al Teague !?
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 Years at Bonneville
Chapter #27
All our pomp of Yesterday,
is Not Worth One Tomorrow
(could have been Rudyard Kipling).
40 runs in three years and no records.
Even in 1977, not all coast-to-coast driving was boring??.In a discussion while motoring to Bonneville, Ellen and I projected what long-distance driving in the future might be like. We supposed that cars could be put on a train, just like the Amtrak Auto Train, and the cars could sit on 2-decker flat cars while the occupants settled into Club Cars and Sleeping cars. Batteries in electric cars could be charged while on the rails. Drivers could save money be staying in their own cars for short trips.
Why sit in a gas /charging station if you can travel while the battery is charging ?
Cars would be increasingly moved by electric motors, powered by rechargeable batteries that could be changed at gas stations as quickly as filling the fuel tank. Batteries could be topped off underway with an extra-cost generator that was dealer installed. Maybe something like a 500cc turbo-diesel constant-speed engine spinning a rare-earth alternator, which would allow continuous operation.
We joked at the time how ludicrous this was; Americans would never give up small-blocks???
Through all of this Bonneville racing ? and these were the days before the internet, a 20 minute long distance calls could cost more than I made in an hour of working ? I was woefully ignorant (as I still am) of some of the most basic parts of true Bonneville history.
I knew Don Vesco ? but I barely knew Rick Vesco, and I certainly didn?t know who John Vesco was. None of that ?since 1933? stuff.
Photo: Seth Dorfler??Recently passed Marty Dickerson styling on his lightning-ized Rapide model Vincent 1,000cc twin. My old Bonneville number 41A ! Still active with Vincents, Marty was one of the few remaining connections to Bonneville Vincent motorcycles in the 1950?s. Is that a special LOW gas tank ?
I didn?t know who the fabulous Marty Dickerson was ? the guy who was faster on a Vincent that Rollie Free. 163mph unfaired in 1963 ! Here was a guy faster than I was, and I didn?t know who he was. Poor way to plan a long term program??????.
Some part of this was having a job, a family, a home to maintain, other interests. The most part of it was plain ignorance about the sport.
I got most of my information from Magazines ? most of the books were about Crag Breedlove and Jess Thomas and others from the 1960?s. I was STARVED for up-to-date information !
Photo?..Jess Thomas as a teenager in 1956, looking for 150mph at Bonneville, with no discernable number plate. Another rider unconcerned with what happens to the fanny when the bike hits a bump on the salt. Jess would later set the absolute motorcycle world speed record with a similar engine in a streamliner at 214.47mph. After many years of deprivation, Jess recently returned to LSR ? on a similar motorcycle- and set an El Mirage record in 2017, more than 60 years after his novice Bonneville experiences
In 1977, I was reduced to putting magazine pictures on my drawing board, and measuring wheelbase, swingarm length and rake angle with drafting instruments . Designing and building a bike for Bonneville was a struggle, and EVERYTHING required thought.
Part of the problem with lack of information was that in the 1970?s, by the time I started racing at the salt desert, Bonneville interest by the ?mainline? media had almost disappeared. Current and historical information was VERY difficult to find before the internet.
In a ?one man? attempt to reverse that media trend, I started writing articles for magazines and newspapers ? with my ?home made? photographs attached.
My theory was that many media outlets would be happy to publish articles on Land Speed Racing, but they didn?t want to pay their own staff to write or photograph the coverage ? and they CERTAINLY didn?t want to pay travel and hotel bills.
My solution was simple. Write a reasonably interesting article, and take pictures to illustrate the coverage. Send the whole package to media outlets, and let them publish the articles FOR FREE !
That cost me very little, and Bonneville got coverage in amounts that the SCTA could not have afforded to buy on the advertising market.
With the fabulous cylinder heads I had received from the Harley Factory racing team for 1975, I revisited my choice of cams and carburation. Tom Sifton and I had several phone conversations about what do about cams with what I hoped would be the better-flowing heads. Chatting the porting-guru Jerry Branch made me conclude to run 44mm MIKUNI carbs. Those carbs were the BIGGEST carbs I had ever seen ? and there were TWO of them. Would I be ?over carbureted? and lose power?
Bonneville would tell me.
As famous movie star and CYCLE MAGAZINE editor Cook Nielson may have said: ?If you got go to Bonneville, and you can?t go fast in a week, it is painfully obvious you don?t know what you are doing.?
After 1974 and 75, I knew all about that ?painfully obvious? stuff !
After more than a dozen qualifying runs, I was faster than last year, with an onboard-data speed of 175 mph ? maybe 185mph at sea level, so I was feeling confident. I assumed that the increased speed came from the new heads ? which had NOT shown their full potential in 1975 due to the funky cylinder and ring problems. I hoped that with good cylinder sealing, and the straight-port heads, I could make at least one record in the 175mph range ? which would be almost 40 miles per hour faster than 1973, the beginning of this quixotic adventure.
A 40 mph increase in speed in three years is pretty good in a sport where records can change hands with less than a one mph speed difference!
The bike was running beautifully, with no mechanical or aerodynamic problems. I felt like the true potential of the ?special? cylinder heads was appearing, now that I may have solved the cylinder and piston problems.
My last Bonneville runs racing in 1975 with this bike had ended with overpowering top-end problems. THIS year, I was hoping those problems had been solved, and that I could unleash the awesome power of the 1957 Harley.
Once again, dark spirits heard my pleas,
but gave me only half what I wanted.
Photo ? big kit ready to go. I had fabricated two different lengths of inlet tubes to mount the carburetors. Rocker boxes held slightly different ratio rockers. Different length carb ?bells? allowed changes in inlet tract length. I even had a spare motor (less special heads) in the truck. Oddly, that would lead to more misery !
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 Years at Bonneville
Chapter #28
Helping Harley
Photo - Leading edge Promotions. HOW could ANY Harley Davidson owner and rider NOT recognize the intrinsic connection between a thundering V-twin motorcycle and a Bowling ball ?................nope, me neither.
In 1969, Harley Davidson Racing was in a bind.
The overall motorcycle sales business was not doing well, and Harley had been sold to AMF; ?the Bowling Pin Company.? Detractors said that the new owners brought all the forward-looking technology of bowling pin manufacture to one of ? what had been - America?s most iconic brands.
The Harley factory racing motorcycles were still winning races and national championships, but the handwriting was on the wall. The little bikes, like the 250cc sprint, a pushrod operated single cylinder, had to compete increasingly with Japanese multi-cylinder 2-strokes, but with diminishing success. The Iconic KR750 racer was a flathead, which would soon have to compete with equal-displacement overhead cam and 2-strokes.
It was NOT a path to continued glory.
In the late 1960?s, I had started converting a 900cc Harley Sportster from iron to aluminum heads and cylinders, using European parts. This conversion offered a better bore-to-stroke ratio, and the cooling ability of the aluminum alloy. Also, if used, replacing iron cylinders and iron heads should have resulted in a 35 pound weight savings.
My design, by varying bore and stroke, would allow any displacement from 750cc to 1,300 cc. Any length stroke from around three inches to five inches could be installed, and any bore from as little as two and one half inches to almost four inches ? Chevy small block numbers.
That would allow the design to be used from 750cc racing up to full road-going touring bikes. The result looked a little like a combination of a Vincent Black Lighting and a Sportster.
In 1969, I showed the work to the Harley racing department, and they liked the basic concept. By 1972, - three years later - the new Harley XR750 embodied many of those concepts, and it was immediately a race winner, and it remained so for 40 years.
I had considered using my ?special engine? for my Bonneville efforts, but it would put me in a ?tougher? engine class; something I was unwilling to do at the time. However, the overriding reason for not using my ?special? engine was that Harley was unwilling to sponsor me if I used ?too many visible? non-Harley parts.
Photo -Brian Eriksen would power his modified Yamaha RD350 street bike to a 350cc record on gasoline of 159.895 mph ? which still stands, and is faster than any record set be a factory 350cc RACE bike ! Racing pal Ron Acers helped out for many years. My Harley ? borrowing Ellen?s low bike number five (5)- with 1250cc never set a faster record than Eriksen on the 350cc Yamaha.
Is there a lesson in that ?
Through the years, I had grown closer to Brian Eriksen, who had a sharp wit, insightful mind, and a true gift for running 2-stroke bikes at Bonneville He had helped us with all the engine problems that Ellen had experienced last year?... His success with racing pal Ron Acers with not without it?s low moments, however???
2-stroke tuning at Bonneville in the 1970?s was never easy, what with changing air density, temperature and humidity. After good success in prior years, Brian was a little befuddled with his tuning questions in 1977, and was NOT setting records.
For the first time in my memory, SPEED WEEK was NOT being run in August, but in October. Tuning notes from prior speed weeks were almost useless.
Brian was also without the help of his school-teacher wife, Diane. Since Bonneville fell during the school year, Diane stayed home, and sent Brian off with Ron to fend for themselves.
After my crankshaft failure, I devoted my time and meager tuning skills to helping Brian with the Yamaha RD350 street bike.
Photo ? Brian and Diane Eriksen in 1976. Primary sponsorship from Puerto Rican Anti-Defamation league with assistance from Bikers For Buddha. Thoughtful streamlining of humble Yamaha RD350 street bike helped show almost 160mph from 350cc. and pump gas. Chiavaroli supplied fairing and handle bars. I loved the bars, and used them on a lot of bikes. Trick rear fender under seat MAY have also been forbidden streamlining. Does the familiar #66 number plate partially conceal the rear wheel and tyre? Despite ordinary beginnings, under Brian?s hands, this became a VERY sophisticated Bonneville tool; even Don Vesco came over to compliment Brian. Rearward seating position no doubt helped avoid tire-spin on soft or loose salt - always a problem at Bonneville
In those days, making long distance calls from the hotel room was outrageously cumbersome and expensive, and cell-phones were not yet invented. The most economical solution was to use the pay-phone booth near the Stateline hotel.
After a frustrating day at the track, Brian gathered a king?s ransom in quarters to call Diane at home in the evening after school. Brian had cleverly gathered with him both carburetors, both spark plugs, and the spark timing numbers. To Brian, the speeds and the plug readings did not make sense.
In the cooling evening air, Brian explained to Diane the findings. Diane had a good mechanical head, and actually had already patented several inventions.
She ?got? motorcycles.
Brian discussed how he had changed the running, and how the plug readings made no sense. The plugs looked like he had made no changes, when he actually had made changes. Actually, BOTH plugs looked ?off? by the same amount.
As Brian and I ?shared? the receiver, Diane thought through the problem. We could actually hear her mind clicking??..
After about a minute she said: ?THERMOSTAT !,? and hung up.
We stared at the dead receiver for a moment, and went to bed???..
The next morning, Brian heated a pan of water over a camp stove in impound, while waiting to be called to the start line to run for record.
As the water heated to boiling, the offending thermostat in the water NEVER opened ! The thermostat failure blocked 95% of the water circulation through the radiator, and the bike overheated on EVERY run. No WONDER the plugs looked the same, the engine was NEVER running properly !
With the thermostat removed, Brian promptly ran almost 160mph with a little 350cc street bike, and set a record that STILL stands after 40+ years.
Afterwards, we referred to Diane as ?Dial-A-Tuner? ???????
Ellen Guthrie Collection ? the Harley in inspection. Grass in the foreground and cement surface tell this as one of the years inspection was at the Wendover airport. This allowed teams to unload their trucks, pass inspection, load back up, drive to the track, and unload AGAIN !, all in 8 hours??Wire spoke rear wheel mounts the Firestone automotive rear tire. Increased ?coverage? of fairing probably helped raise speeds. My lowest entry number of the Harley years. Later years would bring a number one to my bike.
Photo - Ellen Guthrie photo: The mysterious Firestone car tire on the back of the Harley XRTT. I had taken a stock street hub and put a sprocket in place of the stock drum. That required a disc brake on the other side. Machine work was involved. I found a narrow (3.5?) VW car wheel, and cut out the center section. Banged it as straight as I could with a hammer and my primitive equipment. Sent the rim and hub to Buchannan?s shop, who dimpled, drilled and chromed the rim, laced with special spokes, and returned the wheel with everything trued up. Traction may have improved. We know this photo is before passing inspection because there is no A, B etc. I had visited Parnelli Jones in LA, and bought (from him PERSONALLY) the LAST two ?roadster fronts? in existence, to use for this project. Later, I would sell those tires to Gordon Hoyt for his successful campaign to` join the Bonneville 200 mph Club.
Photo - Ellen Guthrie collection: Last year of the ?Door Handle Dangle? for me !. Later model Dodge B250 replaced beloved but ?cancered? Dodge A100 van. I liked the 318V8 and automatic ! Poor handling car tire on back of the Harley was later replaced with proper motorcycle racing tire, I am off to another (unsuccessful) run. I had planned on going to turbocharging in the future, and had formed a company for the purpose. Named it ?Inductive Energy.?
PHOTO ? Years later, my beloved old van ? painted in the Harley racing black and orange over white was reported in some desolate junk yard, rusting quietly from it?s incurable exposure to the salt of Bonneville. From then on, no more time ?wasted? on fancy paint for either bike or vans ! Time and money better spent on going fast was dear !
I was finally able to accept that, for me at least, this bike was days of future past. The bike, in that displacement, was as good as I would get on gas ? normally aspired.
I continued to think more about turbocharging.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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SCOTT GUTHRIE REMEMBERS:
50 Years at Bonneville
Chapter #29
?If Trouble Was Money,
I?d Be a Rich Man? Albert Collins
My biggest concern was actually with tires ? as it always is at Bonneville. Planning for double the power, I assumed I would do better with a wider and faster-rated rear tire. The existing motorcycle LSR Goodyear tire was pretty narrow, and I had questions about traction.
As I would find over the next year, I was right about having questions, but I found I was asking the wrong questions !
As Rudyard Kipling might have said: ?All our pomp of yesterday, is not worth one tomorrow.? Maybe it was Janice Joplin.
Scott Guthrie 1975 photo. Over the winter I pursued better aerodynamics in my own primitive ways. Posing on my 1975 bike in front of a piece of square-pattern bathroom Masonite, I could get an estimate of my height and width. I could see (and count) the ?squares? and get a count for ?frontal area.? I took calculus in college, but just ?counted the squares? to get a first-order approximation for Cd and A. Probably didn?t work, but it made me feel like I was doing something productive. Tuck is good, and air flow over my back is good. Remember Banlon shirts?
Jack Dolan, of San Diego, set a 109mph record on a 250cc Yamaha.
Harry Fair, of Lakewood CO became the first SCTA Bonneville week competitor (car OR bike) to set six records in one week with one vehicle. Fair?s Yamaha 250cc Factory racer offered speed, reliability and versatility to Fair?s huge ability to read and understand the rulebook.
It was a tough year for EVERYBODY that year ! NO new Bonneville 200 mph Club members for motorcycles, and only four for cars; including future SCTA president Jim Lattin.
Late in the week, while on a very fast run, maybe my best at 175mph, I felt the engine vibrating excessively.
I was using the very special, chrome-moly 4130 super-heavy flywheels that Rick Bray had made for me. My theory was that ? even at 6000rpm, I was losing a little speed between engine pulses. I also assumed that is was far easier to LOSE the speed than it was at gain it back?..
Another factor was the valve train. Using the high lift cams with the quick valve opening ramps, I was worried about setting up harmonics that could make the valves float, or make the pushrods bend. With the heavy flywheels, the harmonics would be greatly dampened because the change in speed of the flywheels would be much slower.
Shutting down before the lights, I coasted over to the return road, where Ellen picked me up in the van. In the pits, I diagnosed the problem as crankshaft failure! I was lucky to catch the failure so quickly, and prevent a catastrophic engine failure. Lucky to not oil down me, the bike, and the track.
My spares kit was limited, but included another crank ? in the spare engine - but that crank was built with the same failure mode, so a risky bet. Rather than risk another failure, I concentrated on finishing my magazine article.
A whole year of planning, a 5,000mile round trip with a spare engine, and the only part I needed was one I didn?t have !
Tired beyond belief after the flailing of another unsuccessful Speed Week, we were somewhat relieved to start the start the trip of 2,500 miles back to Tallahassee Florida.
I felt like a 12-volt car with a 6-volt battery!
Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and Kansas disappeared slowly in the rear view mirrors. Oklahoma became Texas, and we turned left in Houston, heading east for home. Somewhere in the dark, we passed through Lake Charles, Louisiana. We were hoping to make New Orleans in time for a good dinner.
Somewhere around Lafayette, I knew we must be in ?oil country? because I could smell the sulfur of the cracking plants. Surprisingly, the smell became stronger the closer we got to The Big Easy.
Stopping to fill up a little west of New Orleans, we eased into an independent gas station, drawn by lower gas prices. By this time, the sulfur smell was overpowering, and we wondered if we wanted to eat outside if that was what we were going to smell while we had crawfish pie and fille gumbo.
As soon as I opened the driver?s door, the smell started to dissipate. The smell was non-existent near the gas pumps beside the truck. The sulfur smell was coming from INSIDE the van.
Detective work with our noses located the source of the smell: The battery box INSIDE the cab, behind the driver?s seat !
The voltage regulator was failing, and the battery was over-charging. The excess charge was boiling the water in the battery, and stinking us out with sulfuric acid.
The battery was so hot, we couldn?t add water without it spitting out and boiling over. We had to let the van and battery cool for an hour before we could top off the water.
As he was closing the station and turning off the lights, the friendly gas station master suggested, since we would be too late to eat in ?The French Quarter,? we could dine at the vending machines and sit on the curb to eat.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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50 Years at Bonneville
Scott Guthrie Remembers
Chapter #30
WHEN YOU FIND YOURSELF IN A HOLE;
QUIT DIGGING ? WILL ROGERS
Up on a tightrope ? Leon Russell
For some years, I had been walking a tightrope with Harley Davidson as a sponsor?????. and with the AMA supervising my racing.
My main Harley sponsorship came through Dick O?Brien and the Harley Davidson racing department. Beginning in 1976, I was also receiving additional help from the HD Skunkworks that planned for future models and did Harley?s R&D. Two totally separate operations, and not always on good terms with each other.
Mr. O?Brian ran the racing department very tightly. My recollection is that he did NOT play favorites with who won races or championships, but he expected all the factory racers, supported racers, and anybody expecting any kind of help from the factory to tell him all the speed secrets that allowed the racer to win. That might have including ?reporting? to the factory in Milwaukee to have their engine torn down and examined by the factory team !
The R&D department made me promise to keep their help secret from the racing department, so the racing department would not steal the ideas and get credit for them.
IF I had to report to the factory with some secret R&D stuff on the bike, then the R&D secret would be out, and BOTH R&D and the race team would make my name mud !.
Such is corporate gamesmanship !
I was indeed walking a tightrope ? Cue ?up on a tightrope? by Leon Russell !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2Z9qN8R9Bg
Among many other things, my stinging 1973 Bonneville defeat by Dale Alexander, Pop Yoshimura, the Flanders family and the Kawasaki team three years before had helped open eyes in the marketing department at ?the factory.? The R&D department questioned how ANY then-current Harley product could ?beat? the Japanese in the high-speed performance arena. With the ?horsepower deficit? looming, the Harley R&D department became a ?early adopter? of turbocharging !
A radical concept in the mid 1970?s, turbocharging V-twin cylinder bikes became mainstream only a few years later in the early 1980?s when Honda produced their ground-breaking CX500T and CX650T twin cylinder, water cooled, 4-valve head, pushrod powered bikes with electronic fuel injection produced in vast numbers.
Harley had been on to something !
Honda 1982 CX500 turbo motorcycle compact power unit. A larger 674cc version was available in 1983. Electronic fuel injection, turbocharged, 4-valve pushrod heads, water cooling twin cylinder. VERY complicated compared to Harley.. It would take me more than 30 years to get my slow brain around the value of these odd bikes ? in 495cc and 674cc displacements ? to race them at Bonneville !
After the Arab oil embargo of 1974 California began experimenting with Gasahol ? which in today?s interpretation- would be Gasoline with ethanol. Although introduced at 10% alcohol, plans were made to use as much alcohol as today?s E85 - a WONDERFUL blend for extreme supercharging. Sure, it would have to run in the fuel classes, but it would be widely available in public gas stations, and so a possibility for street bike use.
I had already been considering the same thinking, and had begun in 1975 to explore the possibility of adding a turbocharger to my bike; calculating that I could make at least 100% more power on alcohol and turbo. With about 100 hp on gas only (NO blower), this could mean maybe 170-200hp on turbo with gas; possibly 200-240hp on methanol; and 190-220hp on E85. The Harley R&D department was already working through that same questions, and we came together to try to make that happen.
I had been thinking seriously enough about the Harley Turbo thing that I formed a company in 1976 called INDUCTIVE ENERGY to take advantage of the sales possibilities of what I was learning from the Harley R&D development folks. Might have been selfish, but if Harley made turbocharging V-twins viable, than maybe there was a place for me in the aftermarket ??????Could Bonneville racing be done profitably ?....Would Harley sponsor me to one of their all-out factory engines ? Would I be the first Bonneville 200 Club member aboard a turbo Harley ? Did I have the ability to build it and ride it ?
Bonneville tells the truth.
If power could be made by forcing air into the engine, than that would be energy obtained by inducing air (thus energy) into the engine.
Coulda? bin a Contenda????..
So, in the fall 1977, after returning home from Speed Week, I started to convert my Harley to turbocharging. If I could have had the Harley-based streamlining I was to have in 1990, I might have seen 220mph.
IF my engine lived, which was a BIG assumption????.
I had enough doubts about my future success that I stopped asking my sponsors for any money or help. I felt like I had nothing left to offer them. If I couldn?t even get down the track successfully; let alone qualify or set a record, what possible value was I to them??.
The 1977 crankshaft failure made me address the short comings of the Harley crankshaft as designed by the factory.
The biggest problems with the Harley design of lower ends is that the crank is made of numerous parts, which have to be assembled with great care, and have a tendency in racing to unexpectedly come apart at inopportune times.
Photo - As any Bonneville racer knows, things that bolt together are a problem. It it?s inside the engine, it is protected from corrosion, but can be loosened up by vibration. If it?s outside the engine, repeated exposure to salt will prevent loosening up ? which makes service an ordeal. Harley used a roller-bearing design, which functions acceptable well with a street-specification of maybe eight pounds (!) oil pressure, and an ?accidental? distribution system. This Harley crank for just two cylinders has more than sixty separate parts, most just bolted together.
Photo - Other manufacturers used more modern designs. Ducati utilized a one-piece forged crank with just a dozen basic parts, with conventional sleeve bearings and bolt-together rods. Could that be my ?Bonneville Answer?? Was I willing to risk ?ruining? a set of exotic racing crankcases ? Was I willing to do the work ? As A J Foyt is quoted: ?If you can?t afford to blow it up, you can?t afford to race it !?
Photo - Ellen Guthrie collection: Planning on turbocharging in the future, I formed a company for the purpose. Named it ?Inductive Energy.)
S&S Cycle, under the management of George and Marge Smith, ran one of the most respected and most successful motorcycle programs on the Salt. George Senior had been a Bonneville competitor, and their open-bike rider Warner Riley had been chosen to build the engines for the successful Harley / Cal Rayborn Harley Factory Bonneville speed attempt. That team, took the overall motorcycle record from Don Vesco. George Smith himself ?tipped the can? for the record runs.
Photo - Insouciant Streamliner builder Denis Manning is flanked by rider Cal Rayborn and engine-man Warner Riley in sunglasses. Nitro man George Smith stands next to Harley Racing honcho Richard ?OB? O?Brien on right in clear glasses. 266 mph one way in the 1960?s, with two air-cooled cylinders. Liner looks impossibly small by today?s standards. After initial ?teething problems? for both bike and rider, Rayborn took Don Vesco?s 251mph record in his first attempt week.
Photo - Compare Manning?s 1960?s bike with the newest Manning liner and record holder. 100 mph faster with four cylinders, 3000cc and turbo, but look how much bigger! World record holder Chris Carr seems dwarfed by the BUB 7. Ridden by Valerie Thompson, the #7 crashed heavily at nearly 350mph last year, and all of the bodywork is being replaced for 2020 attempts.
Earlier, S&S team Harley rider Warner Riley had announced his retirement from riding 200 mph at Bonneville, and that left the ?seat? with George Smith and the S&S Cycle team open??..
George had been watching my riding, thinking and building for several years. So, with Warner retiring, George offered me the ride. 200mph guaranteed, and with possibly the best LSR team in the world at that time!
Foolishly, I declined the offer; thinking I wanted to do it ?my way,? meaning design and build my own bike??.and run gas.
Was this to be the opportunity of a lifetime,
just squandered by bad decision making ?
Sure looked like it !
After blowing the S&S dream away,
then of course then my turbo dreams
turned into a nightmare?.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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50 Years at Bonneville
Scott Guthrie Remembers
Chapter #30A
The Nightmare continues
As I finally better understood the increasing complexity and cost of building a turbocharged and fuel injected Harley, I realized that the development of the 1957 Sportster engine was about as far along as I was willing take it. The costs in time and treasure looked to be pretty formidable!
Turbocharging the Harley would involve a special ignition, which my sponsor Bomar Magneto and I had partially developed. Mechanical fuel injection with port injection would be required. I felt I had designed an even-stronger crankshaft to handle the additional power. In order to ?save? the crankshaft, it would be carefully assembled, balanced and aligned. It would then be WELDED together. That would make it a single use item. Expensive to build and even more expensive to replace.
Could I even afford a spare ?
Cams would also require attention.
Photo - The Harley Sportster uses a traditional Harley design from the 1920?s for the cam timing and cam drive: EACH valve is operated by a SEPARATE cam shaft. (Imagine a small-block Chevy with 16 separate cam shafts !) Individual Harley cam lobes are available for EACH cam. (Bottom of Photo) These individual lobes must be installed on the bare shaft, put in time, and welded in place.
Can you IMAGINE using a degree wheel to install 16 separate lobes for that small-block Chevy ? IF a cam twists lengthwise at red-line, do you have to compensate for each lobe at idle, and advance it to compensate, and THEN weld it in place?
Photo ? complicated to ?tune,? triple valve springs were very effective in controlling the movement of the huge valves in the Harley. To prevent the pistons hitting the valves if there was ?valve float,? I had to shim EACH of the twelve (total for 4 valves) separately. Selection of different strengths for each of the 3 springs complicated matters. Stunningly short valve stems made valve guide sizing critical, and resulting greater wear a problem for maintenance. EACH spring was shimmed differently from all the others. HUGE seat pressures meant more valve and valve seat wear items to watch. This was before ?beehive? or ?progressive? valve springs were available to me. I hoped that one of the benefits of three springs was that they never had the same harmonic ? leading to ?surge.? The springs rubbing each other might have helped with surge too. It just never ends !
Photo - In the primitive 1970?s, simple privateers like me had essentially no way to ?visualize? what was happening in the valve train at high RPM?s. There was a machine called a SPINTRON which was like a reverse dyno. A powerful electric motor spun the engine, and a high-speed camera could record events. With a timed stroboscopic light, one could actually see the valves open and closing and determine if negative things like coil-bind or spring-surge were happening. Without access to such a machine ? and there were few outside the manufacturers shops ? one had to either trust one?s own judgement, or that of someone who had already done the testing.
My Harley application was pretty special: HIGH lift, LONG duration, FAST opening and HUGE spring pressure for up to five miles at a shot. Considering a return run at Bonneville, that would be minimum ten miles between opportunities to service the engine.
Harleys ran places like Daytona, but the high-speed?blasts were measured in seconds, rather than minutes. If one were to run the Daytona track only on the 2.5 mile speedway (and they used to do this for qualifying), than imagine doing four laps at full throttle, three of them at absolute top speed.
Photo ? With a Spintron, one could put a number on things like ?loft? and ?bounce. Push rod flex and lifter deflection could be evaluated. Probably better than just looking at the pushrod for signs of wear in the wrong places. If I cut open a pair of rocker boxes, I might be able ? with the Spintron ? to evaluate rocker flex. The rocker being the only valve train component in bending stress. Laser tracking can cut through the hot fog of vaporized oil. NASCAR folks have things finely tuned enough to accommodate SIX valve-closing bounces as the metal of the valve flexes and relaxes.
Not every supplier felt comfortable guaranteeing their products for Bonneville - that king of ?serial abuse,? and many had no idea of how their products measured up, since they had no access to a SPINTRON.
More faith-based stuff !
Turbo cams, waste gate, fuel injection, ignition controls, timing pull-backs, manifolds volumes, blow off valves, timing exhaust pulses, boost referenced fuel pumps and injection curves would be quite a challenge in this ?pre-digital? era. I had no idea what a boost-referenced fuel pressure regulator even was ! Intercooling ? NOT a clue !
WHAT was I going to do ?
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50 Years at Bonneville
Scott Guthrie Remembers
Chapter #30B
With the feet of an Elephant.
Photo - Cyril Huze Blog. Hiro Koiso Proves a point. Hiro running without fairing shows all the stuff hanging out. Bike is low, long and heavy, so good traction with minimum wind resistance. Air-to-air intercooler provides intake plenum volume. Koiso wonders if his 230.538mph may be the fastest ?naked? Harley speed at Bonneville. I think overall it?s Jason McVicar @ 235.596 on a SCOTT GUTHRIE RACING Hayabusa. Hiro has been running Harleys at Bonneville for 10 years, largely under the radar. Naked speeds on pavement are now over 265mph with Shane Stubbs riding turbo Hayabusa power.
Photo - Hiro Koiso Proves another point. Same bike, but with serious ?partial? streamlining. Fastest sit-on Harley in the world slammed down a top speed over 260mph using a centrifugal blower, not a turbo. A 30mph increase in speed with just a fairing change is BIG; 10-15 mph is more typical. In the 1970?s, this would have been forced to run in the full-streamliner class, if allowed to run at all. In a full streamliner body, Koiso?s power plant is probably capable of over 360mph. In 1964, this bike and rider could have been the ultimate world record holders.
Watching Hiro Koiso run down the salt at over 260mph, with the big Harley heart thumping it?s slow, long stroke beat, I was reminded of watching my hero, Warner Riley do the same thing in the 1970?s. Many of the big-inch Nitro Harleys had strokes between 4.5 and 5.0 inches. The piston speed ? and piston accelerations ? of those 1970?s pistons called for LOW RPM ? something in the 5,000 to 6,000 rpm range.
I started wondering just how many times did a cylinder fire in the rotation of the rear wheel ? including tire slippage. Every time I raced down the salt, I was struck that the firing of my big slow engine was like an elephant stamping it?s feet inches below me. I could almost feel EVERY power pulse.
Photo - NOOT photo??Skinny Warner Riley with skinny tires on skinny V-twin bike for Bonneville................the contact patch in the back MAY have been 1.5 inches wide and smaller than the palm of your hand to transmit Warner?s 200+ hp, and Bob George?s 300HP??High ground clearance and short wheelbase were fashionable in the 1960?s and 70?s??200mph nitro racer has CHROME kickstand. VERY useful at Bonneville with nothing to lean the bike against after a run. Another build with a ?fanny? problem. Note fancy number plate. Also note the shape of Riley?s unpadded leathers behind his helmet- it?s almost like the wind WANTS a ?back protector? there??..The longer Warner raced at Bonneville, the lighter in color his leathers became. Was the heat of the desert sun a factor?
One afternoon, when the course was momentarily shut down for folks to hunt for ?lost parts,? I attached myself to one of the track service crews. Maybe by luck, Warner Riley had just made a BIG run ? way over 200 mph on his slow-turning Harley nitro engine. I thought I could predict where on the track Warner would run, and I found his tire track on the slightly-soft racing surface.
There was the sign of a power pulse ! Then many inches of smooth track, and then ANOTHER power pulse ? enough to leave a little ?pile? of salt behind the pulse. With each engine power pulse, the tire slipped. Warner too, could feel every time the engine fired !
Does that happen with V-8 cars?
Once again, when I thought about Bonneville,
I discovered that I knew less than I thought??.
?Funny??..It?s like the back of the bike wants to steer itself ????????
For me, tires would turn out to be the final, and total, obstacle. Even if I could make the additional power, finding a choice of motorcycle tyres to handle the increased speed was limited.
In early 1977, I had Buchannan?s Frame shop in the LA area build me that special wheel to fit the classic 5.00 x 15 Firestone ?Roadster Front? Bonneville tyre. That setup was absolutely able to handle the prospective speed, and certainly the horsepower. The front tyre choice was limited to only the narrow Goodyear LSR tyres, which did not inspire confidence.
Photo - I had tried the ?roadster? tire at Bonneville in 1977, but the handling was not good with my chassis. I would have to run the skinny 3.00-19 Goodyear front and rear tires??
Phot - Designed for about 300 to 400 mph, the Firestone Bonneville tires had a ?depressed? area in the center of the tread when not aired up. Firestone instructed that by only 200 mph, this low area would become flat. The area would ?peak? near top speed. I was never able to GET to 200 mph, so I had this ?hollow? in the center of the tire, and the back of the bike wanted to ?walk? from one side to the other over 150mph. Unnerving !
One of the problems was that I was afraid to run the recommended high air pressures in the tire because I was apprehensive about ?pushing? the inner tube out through the spoke holes. Consequently, I could never run enough tire pressure to get the ?dent? in the center of the tread to bulge out like a normal bike tire. Bad handling resulted from the tire making the bike want to ?swap directions? randomly. If I had that little control of the back end of the bike, how would I maintain control at REAL speed? Distracting??
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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50 Years at Bonneville
Scott Guthrie Remembers
Chapter #31
Brian Eriksen?s fabulous year ? five
(5) records in ONE speed week !
?Don?t look Back? Bob Dylan[/b]
Photo - Don?t look Back ! You might see 50 wasted years at Bonneville! Scott inspects his turbo Hayabusa ?The Hammer? before Shane Stubbs 265mph run at the Loring airfield in 2010-E Don Smith photo
Photo - Kenny McGuire Photo. DON?T LOOK BACK ! Brian Eriksen, about to be started into the misty dawn by Bob Higbie, came all the way from New Jersey, more than well prepared. In five days of racing, Brian set five records ? one every day ? on his humble Yamaha RD350 street bike! Brian became the first competitor on bikes 350cc or bigger to claim that crown. In less than 2 years, Brian broke records held by Ralph Hudson, Don Vesco, Tony Nicosia and Ron Grant ? all the other racers on factory full 500cc race bikes. Special helmet modified by BELL allowed low head position. I would steal this trick in the 1980?s. 160 mph on a modified Yamaha RD350 is a HUGE accomplishment, and the record still stands 40+ years later!
Brian Eriksen had been attending Bonneville for years. As with some racers, he had a ?break through? moment. The previous year he ran 160mph on a VERY humble Yamaha RD350 with good aero and a few race parts. All powered by Brian?s BIG brain. Eriksen?s efforts were quite sly. Brian already dominated the 350cc class, and was even faster than Yamaha dealer and factory-rider Don Vesco. To avoid breaking his own records, Brian installed a 0.020 inch stroker crank in his 350cc engine, and moved to the 500cc class ? which was surprisingly easier for records. This bike set eventually 15 Bonneville records.
Photo ? Insouciant Brian Eriksen behind the 1978 version of his Yamaha RD350. Bike currently in a museum, in as-raced condition, 50 years later. Forks turned down with a lathe, impossibly skinny front tire, panel blocking excess air from entering the labyrinth of the fairing. The small model airplane prop on the nose raised eyebrows in inspection and on the start line, where Bib Higbie gave it a smile. There was discussion that the free-wheeling prop - spun by the passing air ? ?smoothed? the air over the fairing. It might have distracted inspectors from something else. Brian?s authoritative irreverence was inspiring to a whole generation of Bonneville competitors. Eriksen had almost as many tricks as Don Vesco. With today?s permissive rules about aerodynamics, this bike might have run 170mph on gas station hi-test! Brian Eriksen Photo.
Brian set his five (except for an administrative problem on the last morning? could have been six) records in the 500cc class with a 352cc bike, beating past and future star RALPH HUDSON, Suzuki factory rider Ron Grant, Yamaha star Don Vesco and Kawasaki factory rider Tony Nicosia. The defeated Grant and Nicosia rode full-on full 500cc factory racers.
Photo - Ralph Hudson 500cc Suzuki TR500 factory road racer, 2-stroke twin Ralph has always been fast ? Pavement, Bonneville, Bolivia, Australia wherever.
Photo - DragBike.com Tony Nicosia at Bonneville in 1970 aboard Kawasaki H1R serial number 1. In those days, Bonneville was still important to manufacturers to ?prove? new designs to the buying public. Tony worked for the importer of Kawasaki motorcycles, and was a ?factory racer? who mostly specialized in drag racing. Bonneville was not a far reach for his skills, and he set SCTA/AMA records with this Kawasaki H1R 3 cylinder 2-stroke Grand Prix race-only bike. This bike was carefully set up for Bonneville; lacking a front brake and fit with a tiny gas tank. The Bonneville exposure was important enough to the factory that Nicosia was assigned a bike with serial number 0001. Tony is facing southwest, so might be a record return run, you can see salt from the front tire on the exhaust pipes, but almost none on the tires. Was the salt THAT hard? Notice sneakers.
Some of Eriksen?s secret to success was finding the absolute least possible rolling resistance, perfect engine and drive-chain alignment and the maximum wind-cheating ?slippery? profile. This included wiping down his racing leathers with Armor-All, waxing his bike?s exterior with aviation wax and a custom-built Bell helmet that raised the forward-viewing capability to allow a lower at-speed head position.
Eriksen?s best records still stand, 40 years later.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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50 Years at Bonneville
Scott Guthrie Remembers
Chapter #32
Time to retire.
Warner Riley, 212 mph (In 1970!) Harley rider from the Chicago area, was advertising in the SCTA bulletin to SELL a pair of NEW Goodyear LSR Motorcycle tires.
Always short of cash, I felt I had to sell my pair of Firestone car LSR tires in order to buy the Goodyear LSR tires. I worried about that.
Riley, a long time Bonneville 200mph Club member, sent me his only remaining set of the elusive LSR motorcycle tires; one front, one rear. NEW ! Possibly among the last LSR motorcycle tires to leave Akron ! These tires were manufactured in 1974, so for the summer of 1978, they would be officially 4 years old???..
I immediately invested in special custom-cast aluminum wheels ? at great cost ? to fit the Goodyears.
Photo - Scott Guthrie 1978 Drawing. New fairing for single engine turbo Harley. Centers of gravity were estimated. Lower profile, with tank in the seat, better aero behind the rider, more teardrop shape. Seat design much like what Eric Buell and I would use in the 1980?s, and would be adapted by Charlie Toy in the 1980?s and 1990?s. Ellen Guthrie used entry number 5 in 1976, and I wanted to keep that number. Harley national champion and factory racer ROGER REIMAN claimed AMA #5 for his post-championship ?permanent? number (Only former champions of the AMA could choose a single-digit number other than #1). Roger had helped me a LOT in the early 1970?s and I wanted to honor his help with #5 at Bonneville. Roger designed his own ?typeface? for his #5, so I did the same. Repeats of #5 (top left) allowed several class changes, so I was prepared to have the ?double nickel,? the ?triple nickel? and the ?Quadruple Nickle? racing number. Notice how much this 1978 design looks like Hiro Kioso?s 2018 bike. The AIR hasn?t changed.
Tires ! It?s always the damm tires !
Although Goodyear had no such policy, the AMA demanded that tires ?declined? in safe speed capability by 25 mph per year after manufacture. Storage, use and visual condition was not a factor, so I would not be able to use that rumored Burt Munro trick of hiding the sidewall cracks with black shoe polish.
Originally, these skinny new Goodyear LSR tires were rated for 300 mph. FAR in excess of my needs. The SCTA ? bowing to the AMA (American Motorcycle Association) - who administered the SCTA?s motorcycle program - quickly informed me these BRAND NEW tires were unacceptable.
The 25 mph annual ?depreciation? made things difficult for every fast motorcycle racer. The Rule Book wording said that ONLY LSR tires could be used in excess of 200mph. Since there were exactly ZERO other motorcycle tires fitting this description, that meant that NOBODY would be allowed to exceed 200 mph on bike tires ? streamliners included ! That is an odd sort of ?bracket racing? situation for a contest that is supposed to reward ultimate high speed.
This lead to an interesting telephone conversation.
Regardless of my future speeds, my consuming goal was to join the Bonneville 200 Miles Per Hour Club, specifically on gas. In the 1970?s on a single-engine gas normally-aspired motorcycle, this was quite hard to do. I appealed the tire rule to the top of the AMA, and the conversation went something like this:
Scott Guthrie: ?I want to run 200 mph and join the Bonneville 200mph Club. I?m using a NEW Goodyear LSR tires.?
AMA: ?Sorry, that tire was made in 1974, in 1978, we only can rate that tire to 199mph, and then 175mph in 1979.?
SG: ?So, if I qualify at 202mph, what happens ??
AMA: ?Then we do not allow you to run for record the next morning. Further, your week is over until you change tires.?
SG: ? Well, If I can hold my qualification run to 198 mph, and then I go down the track at 202, and return at 205, what happens ??
AMA: ? If you go down at 202, you are done, and you don?t return.?
SG: ?What am I supposed to do ??
AMA: ?The only way this can work for you is to qualify under 200, make your down run under 200, and go for it on your return run. Then your week is over.?
Like so many others of us, I had been brought to my knees by the tires????.and the rules.
So, I quit digging !
Don Vesco somehow heard about my situation, and called to buy my ?useless? tires. I sold him the beautiful unused tires; no further good to me. Thankfully, Don was willing to also buy my expensive but now-useless wheels in the bargain.
Don immediately fit these very same tires to his 300mph motorcycle streamliner, and ran on ?private time? with the FIM, which was NOT subject to AMA safety rules. Vesco, with a vehicle weighing TWICE as much as my ?lightweight? Harley, set a new world record at 303 mph ????..On tires that the AMA would only allow me to run 199 mph.
It seemed, after Selling my Firestone tires to Gordon Hoyt and the Goodyears to Don Vesco, that I had turned from being a racer to being a tire dealer?..I also had the sneaking suspicion that I should NOT have sold the LSR tires-which were impossible to replace?..
I felt like a character in a Shakespeare play: Selling one set of tires to buy another pair, and then maybe having to sell the second pair to buy back the 1st pair for the NEXT bike?..
Trying for the Bonneville 200 mph Club would have to wait !
I just didn?t think it would be 10-15 years !
I can go faster than the Factory can???..Right ?
There was NO WAY beat the factory guys on talent or money.
I was pretty short of brains too, so this would be a tough fight.
I campaigned my 1972 XRTT ( with #41A) - with a 1957 sportster motor successfully (That was all I had at the time) well enough that I was eventually ranked 3rd nationally in the AMA in some obscure amateur class.
But I showed at least that I could do something.
Photo ? My old #41 in current form as it looks today. I believe this is the ONLY (one of 2) 1972 Factory racer Harley XRTT?s that has been owned and raced by only one person in the last almost-50 years........ I bought the chassis NEW through a Harley dealer in 1972, and kept the original receipt............ ( So rare that less than 30 complete bikes were built) Recently, I shipped the bike to John Steel in Ohio. John restored the chassis correctly, and installed an old engine I owned, that had been raced by AMA #1 MARK BRELSFORD back in the day - with the factory paperwork to prove it !.....CORRECT 1972 engine and correct 250mm Fontana 4LS front brake.
One way to get the attention of the Factory ? and perhaps convince them you are worth supporting ? is to do something technologically AHEAD of them. For me, that was to have BETTER BRAKES??
Part of the hope was to gain some ?creditability? with Milwaukee, and maybe get secret information, and maybe ?unobtanium? racing parts.
Photo - When Harley designed and sold these rare XRTT bikes, (only about 30 complete bikes were built) they came equipped with the icon of all front wheel drum brakes, the 250mm Fontana four-leading-shoe. These were usually laced with wire spokes to an 18 inch narrow rim, and supplied good stopping power. They were troubling to maintain ? with warping from excess heat of high-speed stopping ? and they were VERY expensive. Today, a replica wheel might be $3,500, and would be VERY heavy. Notice the size of the brake compared to the rim. Huge rotating mass made the bike hard to turn. As my friend Kevin Cameron put it: ?You need that big a brake to stop a brake that big!?
Photo - I NEVER raced my 1972 XRTT with the huge drum, having beaten the factory to the use of easily-available and inexpensive HONDA CB750 disc brakes. Cheap, little maintenance, and much more effective. 1973 Photo by Virginia Miller.
Instead ? YEARS ahead of the factory, in 1970, I was using DUAL Honda CB750 front brake discs. The Honda disc brakes were the first production disk brakes on motorcycles, and the design was quite conservative ! The individual disc weighed in at a WHOPPING 6.5 pounds. Hardly racy, but good for long life without warping with thick metal.
I tried the stock dual discs in racing, and the steering effort was way too high. My initial answer was to machine the discs down to about ? original thickness ? about the same as today?s units.
Photo ? Two stock discs on left, three ?skinny ? discs on right.
Original disc weighs in at a stunning 6.5 pounds !
Photo - ?Shaved? disc is svelte at less that five(5) pounds ? more than 1.5 pounds of heavy stainless steel removed ! Times two for two discs, that?s THREE pounds us useless metal and unsprung weight GONE !
Photo - Well, I wasn?t done !.....STILL too heavy for short tracks where heavy braking was not often needed, and lighter weight was better that ?thermal reservoir.?
Photo - I drilled six rounds of 36 holes ? which is 216 holes PER DISC ? more than 400 holes total. However, the disc lost ANOTHER 18 ounces ! ? that?s a total loss for both discs of almost six(6) pounds ? almost the weight of a single original disc. AND with WAY more braking force.
SOMETIMES, a privateer can get ahead of the factory?.
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Scott, we need more chapters.
Thanks, Don
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50 Years of Bonneville.
Scott Guthrie remembers
Thanks Don
Chapter #33
The sun,
burning however brightly,
always fades
In 1979, the rules had changed (again), and the American Motorcycle Association (AMA) was gone. SCTA / BNI took the bikes in house, and ran the whole program themselves. One of the first things the SCTA accomplished was to make rule changes so motorcycle could use Non-LSR tires over 200 mph This was particularly helpful since there WERE NO new motorcycle LSR tires available anymore.
It?s always the Damm tires !
One of the first to take advantage of the changes was Tom Elrod, then of Austin TX. Using the same basic plan as his double Harley Sportster-engine bike, Tom went with two Kawasaki Z1 engines.
Elrod?s 200.022mph average earned him entry into the famous Bonneville 200 MPH Club, and he became the first rider of open bikes at Bonneville to break the 200mph barrier on two different brands of bikes, Harley and Kawasaki.
Photo - Tom Elrod prepares to leave the line at Bonneville while drawing a lot of attention from the crowd. They watch what may have been the first turbo double-engine 4-stroke Kawasaki in LSR. SCTA Motorcycle head honcho Jack Dolan gives Tom and the bike a quick last once-over. Bike, with head and tail lights, inexplicably appears street legal. Neck area of leathers fitting the helmet was an innovation most overlooked. I would use this trick in 2006 ? and I almost died.
Elrod was also the only rider to join the 200 Club that year !
In fact, he was the first ?Bike? member to join ?The Club? since 1974 ? five YEARS with no new bike members. It was HARD to join the Club on a bike in those days !
Not everybody was disappointed by this turn of events.
All my running without qualifying ? let alone not setting records ? was becoming VERY unsatisfying to me!
I felt like a shoe that didn?t leave a footprint.
Somehow, I was not quite the dominant figure I had dreamed about those long winter nights, when I was laboring in an unheated garage, under the pale glow of fluorescent lights.
In junior high school, I had a SIGNIFICANT career in little-league baseball. I became the first child in the city league to NEVER get a hit in two full seasons of play. NOT ONE ! I somehow matched that record at right field, where my glove never felt a fly ball for those same two years. Later, my doctor would find significant nearsightedness that I had been compensating for my whole life ? so successfully my parents and school teachers didn?t notice the problem until my junior year in high school.
Photo - In one hapless ?at bat? a pitch loomed suddenly out of the misty blur, and I swung. The opposing catcher whispered ?You know Scott, you would be better to start your swing BEFORE the ball is in my glove.?
Trying to find a sport that might reward somebody who couldn?t see worth a darn, I took up swimming. I was barely able to see the wall of the pool in time to make a turn. Competition swimming continued into college, where I made the varsity every year, probably more as a gesture to my reliability coming to practice, than for talent.
Somehow, it never occurred to me that Motorcycle riding MIGHT require good vision AND eye / hand coordination??
After college, I did NOTHING athletic for 12 years, just NOTHING. The fire ? and the faith in my own athletic ability ? had just evaporated. My initial success at Bonneville had re-kindled my desire to win, and some of my faith in myself.
With years of failing to set a record at Bonneville, that faith was quickly eroding !
No time, no money, fat and out of shape, not in the record book anymore.
No place to go but up??
I would have to greatly improve just to be an underdog !
?Beneath the underdogs.?
Leo P, saxophone player
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptyi4Cqxp-o
I had given up ? at least for the moment ? on the idea of turbocharging my own Harley. In my mind I thought that my intake design was especially good, but I was unable ? or unwilling - to do the work to prove that.
But - after all ? one of the reasons we run at Bonneville is to prove we all have better ideas, right ?
?Sometimes, you just have to do something different !?
So, having given up the idea of putting a good turbo system on my own bike, AND wanting to prove my ability to produce a fast turbo Harley, I turned to Bob Tomrose, of Cotati, California ? who had been doing some real thinking about the same questions, and who had not been able to break the 200mph barrier with his own turbo 1958 Harley Duo-Glide. Bob was one of the few ? perhaps the ONLY other - Harley riders at Bonneville that had a good head for turbo, AND was willing to think out of the box. I designed an intake system for Tomrose, and sent him some money to build the system. He promptly hit 200 mph.
Photo - Bob Tomrose?s 1958 Harley Duo-Glide was substantially modified to run 200mph at Bonneville. Full fiberglas fairing covers 81 cu in motor, and turbo. ?Gentle? salt stripe on front of fairing and almost none on front tire suggest hard salt. Italian forks and spoke wheels mount racing rubber. Four speed transmission puts power to skinny back tire. The secret was in the intake manifold ! Over 200mph on this bike in 1979 might have needed over 200 horsepower. Without the new SCTA rule on tires, Bob had no hope for a ?red hat.? DORDE WOODRUFF photo[/b]
Photo - Bob Tomrose?s bike ran straight methanol, Hilborn injection, very special magneto ignition and LOTS of hoses. Bike was fastest sit-on single-engine bike of 1979 at over 200mph. Engine problems prevented a record over 200. Could this have been the most powerful non-nitro single-engine Harley to run at Bonneville up to that time ? With ?draw-through? fuel injection, would the methanol have condensed out in the intake plumbing? Would the liquid alcohol form ?rivers? in the intake plumbing? Would there be a chance of ?hydraulicing? a cylinder ? Stock lower end MIGHT make 10 pounds of oil pressure ? would that be enough for a plain-bearing turbo ? DORDE WOODRUFF photo
It was unfortunate for Tomrose that the significant ?red hat? of the 200 MPH Club was not awarded, and I always thought that that loss took a lot of life out of Bob?s racing program.
Again, I was reminded that whenever I felt proud of my own accomplishments, I needed to periodically take a long moment to remember those who were probably MORE deserving, but not as lucky.
All this was again brought home to me in 2018. Jesse Brown of JBTech, Las Vegas, had joined the Guthrie Levie Racing Team as an electronics guru ? but also wanted to campaign a turbo Buell twin cylinder bike at Bonneville in his ?off time.?
Jesse?s first 2018 effort proved pretty fruitless. Basically he went slower than a comparable normally aspired bike. Between 2018 World of Speed and World Finals, I designed a better induction system for him. Jesse ? a gifted builder - fabricated the whole system in record time, took the otherwise-unchanged bike back to the salt, and went more than 16 mph faster !
Once again, the secret was the design of the intake manifold??
Photo - Jesse Brown, left, helped John Levie, right, drive the Guthrie Levie team bike past 320 mph to become the world?s fastest motorcycle with sidecar. MS3PRO was a huge help. Helping someone go fast is not always as satisfying as going fast yourself. Jesse is shooting for 200mph on his own Buell motorcycle. Youth-styling Jesse?s hair is the same shade of blue as John?s new 300 Club hat ! Young folks ARE getting into Bonneville??.Will Jesse be the first BUELL rider in the 200 Club on gasoline? Michelle Levie photo
Having ?shelved? the turbo ideas for the moment, I thought what was most likely doable for me would probably turn out to be a double-engine bike based on two (2) Harley Sportsters. I had the engines, and they had set records at Bonneville, so the power-plant stuff was well on the way. With 100hp from each 1,000cc engine, I felt sure that I could achieve over 200 mph, and maybe join the Bonneville 200 MPH Club with the reliability of normal aspired smaller engines on gasoline! I looked to the APS/AG-2000cc class, since the record was ?only? 159 mph. IF I built it, and made the engine coupling reliable, I would have a decent chance for a record and a ?red hat.?
My thinking was that if I could race to 175mph with one engine, than I would probably go faster with TWO engines. Some years later I talked with VINCENT hero Dave Matson about two engines.
Photo - Dave had gone one-way at 230mph ? and a 225mph 2-way record, way back in 1988 with only ONE 1955 engine. I asked: ?Dave, if you could go 230mph with one engine, how fast could you go with TWO engines.? Dave, in his laconic mid-western drawl observed: ? Maybe 231 mph, if I could actually make it work AND stay together? Hardly an endorsement for my twin-engine ideas ??..
Photo - Scott Guthrie 1978 drawing. Original drawing of the proposed 2000cc Double engine Harley bike. Rider is quite low with gas tank in the seat. Double top-tube(s) for rigidity and low profile ? reducing frontal area. Firestone ?roadster tire in rear, Goodyear LSR tire in front. Better aero seat than the Bob George double,. Today I would use rear suspension rather than tire flex for ride quality. Air over rider?s back would be good. Seat helped move center of pressure rearward. No ?fanny? problems here !
I should NOT have sold those Bonneville tires !
My only small innovation for big bikes would be to use some little bit of streamlining BEHIND the rider. In that period, Warner Riley, Bob George, Jim Angerer, Leo Payne, Dave Campos, Tom Elrod and most other fast riders were using essentially no aero behind the rider. The 125cc CanAm was of course the big exception, and we all just ignored it, intending no doubt to rely on brute horsepower, rather than sensible. low-cost, no maintenance, smart aerodynamics.
One of the heartbreaks of being an engine guy !
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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50 Years of Bonneville.
Scott Guthrie remembers
Chapter #33 cont
Double my fun, or double my trouble?
SPEED, hiding in plain sight.
My double-engine plans advanced as far as doing scale drawings, buying mild-steel tubing (NOT stainless), designing the fairing, and calculating center of gravity and estimating center of pressure ? which was an advanced concept for motorcycles at that time; almost 40 years ago.
From 1969 to 1971, I was a Graduate Assistant in the Department of Physical Oceanography at Florida State University, while I was working on my master?s degree. Part of my assignment was to fabricate equipment for long ocean service ? which made resistance to corrosion a value.
Stainless steel was much admired, although at that time, 50 years ago, it was considered problematic to machine and weld in odd alloys. This was a real concern for us since we bought a lot of government surplus metal stock, and had NO idea as to alloy or heat treat !
Somehow, I acquired the machining and welding ability to produce ocean-going items successfully. I recall a group of faculty coming to my lab to ?have a look? at what I was doing. The unannounced visit found me stick-welding a two inch stainless tube to a stainless plate.
One of the more craft-educated faculty wondered if I would be able to remove enough of the stick-welding rod flux to ?visual? a ?good weld? of more than six inches of length. I picked up my welder?s chipping hammer, and gave the plate a good whack ? NOT directly on the weld. The ENTIRE six inches of flux jumped off in one piece, leaving NO flux behind. End of discussion.
Because of the salt environment at Bonneville, I had considered using stainless steel tubing for my ?double,? but decided it would be easier to use a lower alloy of conventional steel in case I had to do additions or repairs at the track, probably with just a torch.
All this experience with welding deep-ocean stuff was not without it?s drawbacks. Before easy availability of stainless steel, many parts were hot-dip galvanized with zinc. I welded PLENTY of galvanized parts, and probably inhaled a life-time tolerance of zinc in those two years. For 20 years after, if I walked past a construction site, and they were welding, and I smelled that zinc, I would get sick??
Photo ? Properly done stick welding of Stainless steel can be attractive and very satisfying. Knowledge of metallurgy helps. Another machinist at FSU in the late 1960?s was also a good welder. He advised my to use a little paint brush, and PAINT the fresh, clean, hot weld with a little olive oil. It was his thinking that the hot metal would accept extra carbon into the surface of the weld, and help prevent corrosion.
Photo - Scott Guthrie 1978 Drawing. Small opening for air-cooled engine and carburation. 4.0 to 4.5 square feet of frontal area. Long, low, skinny, heavy, powerful, narrow??.just right !
TRACTION ?
Among others, Carole Shelby is quoted as saying:
?there is no such thing as too much horsepower;
just too little traction?
Traction at Bonneville is always a question, and Bonneville- like drag racing ? has a long and glorious history of double engine racers, both cars and bikes.
Need more weight?
Need more power?
Just add an engine!
Unlike drag racing, Bonneville often rewards bikes (and cars) that are heavier. It?s an easy theory: Need more weight for traction? Add hundreds of pounds of ballast. While you are at it, make the ballast another engine, and have double the power! BUT: can you make it handle ?
Didn?t Jim Lindsley join the Bonneville 200 MPH Club in a gas roadster with TWO engines ? When did they stop allowing multi-engines in the roadster classes?
?Miler Mike? Mike Stewart remembers??
Scott,
I just sent you another pic of the car. It clearly shows an air inlet in the nose of the car and the tonneau area behind the driver, indicating to me the car had front and rear engines.
In reading about the car in Google there are varying versions of the story I remember reading in Hot Rod Magazine as a kid.
What I remember from Hot Rod was AJ Michelle of Louisiana had loaned Lindsley his stocker engine which Lindsley put his cam, injection and magneto on and ran the record and then returned the engine. That?s the story I remember. However, that story does not quite fit as the front of the car was lettered ?Cal-Louie? for each of the home states. I think it was already lettered. So how did that happen?
Another version I read on google was that AJ Michelle had loaned Lindsley the engine out of his stocker to run in Lindsley?s 34 Ford coupe after he broke the engine and they became a partnership after that and teamed up on the modified.
And, another version of the story is Lindsley had run the car in 53 as a single engine and got the record at 154 mph (the car was built to accommodate 2 engines with body work built and painted by George Barris Kustoms)(my wording) and in 1954 AJ Michelle showed up at Bonneville with his own engine and that Lindsley decided to go ahead and run it. This version doesn?t seem to fit too well, since the body work and paint had already been done. So, I?m going fall back on the 1954 Hot Rod Magazine version that I read in the barbershop in 1954. Hot Rod was there on the Salt, and I believe was a first hand version of what occurred. The others are stories repeated and re repeated.
If you want me to I can try and contact Gary Lindsley, Larry?s brother and another of Jim?s sons and see if he knows any better details. And you can go to Google and see what you think. Actually my version doesn?t work either, because the nose of the car was lettered, unless they did it onsite when the engine was installed. So, I don?t know? What I?ve always believed doesn?t seem to fit either.
Have fun with this.
Best Regards,
Mike Stewart
Sent from my iPhone
Scott,
Yes, the double engined car was the one that got Jim Lindsley into the Bonneville 200 MPH Club.
That was in 1953. A year later SCTA/BNI rewrote the rules to say only Streamliners could run multiple engines, and that took care of that.
Another oddity was in 1952 Joe Mabee, driving the Mabee Drilling Spl set a record over 200 in a home built Sports Car running a Ray Brown injected Chrysler on alcohol. There was no differentiation between Gas and Fuel at that time. A year later there was a big change. Sports Cars became gas class cars. Another SCTA/BNI tweak of the rules to take care of an earlier oversight. It?s all just history. No one, outside of a few, even knows about it.
Best Regards,
Mike Stewart
Photo- December 1953 indicates The Lindsley ?double roadster? had run at Bonneville. (Sponsorship from BARRIS Customs and HERBERT Cams ? there?s history there) Text from the (brief) article indicates one engine failed, and the car ran with only one power plant ? and still set a 154mph record. CAL-LOUI is on the nose. I only met Larry ? the first of THREE Lindsley?s to race at Bonneville - a few times in the 1970?s. In this picture, he looks impossibly young. 20 years in the salt desert can age a man !
One take away from Mike?s discussion is that even with substantial magazine coverage, and plenty of motivated hot rodders watching, there is still a ?memory problem?
Meanwhile ? in motorcycle land !
Photo - In 1970, Don Sliger may be preparing to back onto the starting rollers after adjusting his friction steering damper. Sliger?s down run posted over 203 MPH to become the first ?naked? bike over 200 at Bonneville. That was faster than any record then-set by fully faired Harleys on Nitro ! Meticulously prepared double engine Royal Enfield had special connecting gear drive on both sides of the engines. Nitro in backbone frame helped Sliger become the first unstreamlined (naked in today?s terms) bike over 200 MPH. Gearing ? REAR sprocket for the low-reving bike, at three inches in diameter, is MAYBE as big as an oatmeal cookie ! Clutch gave up on the return run ? NO red hat?..Builder Jimmy Enz was critical to the effort, and they both shared space in the pits with??That Rascal Burt Munro ! Britbike forum
Photo ?Enz / Sliger engine coupling drive on BOTH sides of the engine. I wonder if that was by chain or by gear ? Royal Enfield is a long-time manufacturer ? originally based in England ( They also made ?made like a gun? araments). I wonder if this British bike used DUNLAP LSR tyres ? they were occasionally available?..
Photo - Enz and Sliger were not the only builders to run Royal Enfield at Bonneville, but they were the most successful. As a rider, Enz was only able to post a record of 141mph on his single-engine bike. On this double Enfield, notice exhaust-heated carburetor float bowl. Is that a 1963 Bonneville inspection sticker ? Do the pieces-of- spaghetti frame inspire confidence? Unpainted frame and fresh welding hint at a recent completion. NO tension adjustment for front chain! Will the loose chain jump the sprockets with 200 Nitro horsepower? Will the long fender mounting bolts irritate his fanny? Today?s Hayabusa & such riders might want to reflect on this 1963 concept of 1,400cc and 4 cylinders. With an excellent modern fairing, a big load of nitro, and the longevity to run both ways (with PUSHRODS & 2-VALVES), something like this might have seen 235mph??ALMOST 60 YEARS AGO.
Photo - Jim Mosher?s modern twin-Indian 2 x 99dcc flatheads. Most sanitary sit-up Bonneville double I have seen ! For some, the lure of double the power and better traction and stability is a siren song.
Somehow, my four cylinder Harley never advanced past the design and procurement stage. I was entering another line of self-employed work, and funds did not allow racing my own bike.
Facing the end of my state job, I was concerned about cash flow, and how best to spend my time. I had almost all the things needed to finish the ?double? project, and I did have the time. The costs of travel to and from Bonneville, and the wear-and-tear on my van and equipment were concerns. The biggest thing was the possibility that those three weeks in August could be spend doing something for which I would be PAID attracted me.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 75 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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About Sliger's runs - the primary chains failed so they switched to gear drive and promptly twisted off the clutch! :? :?
That was my first trip and I was so impressed that this guy would tell an FNG everything and anything you wanted to know!
This link has a link to my 1970 photos: http://www.landracing.com/forum/index.php?topic=11133.msg196815#msg196815
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I can't remember any of the details, but Sliger was knocking them dead in the early 70s at El Mirage.
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50 Years at Bonneville
Scott Guthrie Remembers
Chapter #34
"What a long strange trip it has been." Grateful Dead
Pliocene Epoch - The End of the Harley Era
?I don?t know what it means,
But I know it means something.?
John D. MacDonald?s words,
spoken by Travis McGee:
I had carefully studied many of the successful Bonneville racers and my attention often returned to Don Vesco. My opinion was then ? and still is ? that Don was the most clever guy about Bonneville that I knew, and I always got the feeling that he was doing secret stuff in plain sight. Secret stuff that helped him be very successful, and that people overlooked because they didn?t know what to look for.
In 1978, I had entered a completely new line of work. I had been college-trained as a High-school shop teacher, and that was largely what I had been doing for the last 10 years, but at the university level. I had a master?s degree, and almost all of my PhD when I took a sideways leap into a field that I knew nothing about; that I poorly understood; and that had the potential to leave me broke and bleeding.
I started giving expert testimony about motorcycle accidents.
With the work of learning a new trade, and hunting for paying clients, I had little time or energy for building stuff for Bonneville, and little cash to go racing.
Photo - Many of ?us? old timers remember the Western Caf?. Bob Higbee enjoyed his oatmeal there almost every morning, and others ate there in the evening. This was the only place I found in all of Wendover that sold large salt crystals from near the track. Each booth had an enlargement of a famous Bonneville picture. One afternoon, Brien Eriksen and I were enjoying a cold milkshake while sitting in our booth and admiring the most famous motorcycle picture in the world: Rollie Free flat out on the Vincent Black Lightning. Rollie almost naked.
?All The Blunders at Bonneville have been made ? all you have to do is to repeat them!? Musician Ry Cooder
Photo - I had spotted a balding older man in the booth next to us, and I signaled Brian to work with me for a moment. I announced loudly:? You know, this picture of Rollie Free is a fake, he never did that !? The older man turned around immediately and retorted ?That is a correct photograph, and I really DID do that !? And so, we greeted Rollie Free?..Rider of ?The Bathing suit Bike.?
Photo - Rollie Free?s breathtaking 1949 ?bathing suit? ride ? which resulted in a famous Bonneville record - would become a lure for others to later emulate. Some would duplicate the act, but without the helmet - or even the bathing suit. With the sexual overtones of the total nudity, would someone named ?Freud? be involved?
Photo - This famous Bonneville racer ? lightly dressed but always beautiful - used a scooter, but displayed great style, including dual headlights.
Photo - The SCTA?s own Tommy Smith of Turlock, CA, on the way to MORE than a fanny problem! Riding Blackie Bernal?s 650cc Triumph in 1952, Tommy discovered that covering his body with graphite grease MIGHT help airflow, but it did NOT protect the body when losing control at 150 mph. Tommy spent YEARS convalescing, and may have never have completely recovered.
Smith?s body position, use of a support frame, and the tiny gas tank may have been the best-ever expression of the ?prone? riding position on a conventional style motorcycle. Note reversed intake and exhaust, maybe a little ?free? supercharging ?
Tommy?s skin-eroding crash contributed to a fad of wearing a complete leather outfits for racing on the salt. Could the popular high ground clearance, short wheelbase and a center of gravity moved to the rear all have contributed to the loss of control ? NO visible steering damper. Otherwise beautiful form ! Note HUGE salt buildup on the front of the engine. Would that hurt cooling ? Is he using a 19 inch rear tire and 21 inch front tire for reduced wheel RPM?
Smith later said: ? In any case, I got into a high speed wobble/headshake/shimmy and/or weave at about 150mph, so I got some practice bouncing on the salt. Recently I have been reading some reports on stability and found that light weight (I weighed 124 pounds) tends to increase the tendency to get a wobble. Also. rearward rider weight tends to induce it too (like my riding position).?
New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings?.Lao Tsu
If I was going back to race at Bonneville again ? which was VERY doubtful - it was to set records. Lots of them. And they would last. I had endured ( I mean ?enjoyed?) almost 10 years of Bonneville, spending time, money and energy to achieve something in land speed racing, but had little to show for it. I was very disappointed in NOT having a record remaining in the record book - to me convincing evidence of a lack of ?quality? in my effort.
I wanted to go with a professional mechanic on the team, and with solid mechanical support, with lots of parts. With not only spare engines, but maybe also spare bikes.
No more wasting a whole year because of a bad crank!
This would no doubt involve money and planning.
Could I ?cut the mustard??
?I was doin? pretty good
for the shape I was in?.?
Robbie Robertson, The Band
In the fall of 1977, I gotten some bad news from my doctor??
As part of maintaining my AMA competition license, I had to take an annual physical.
I flunked, I was 50 pounds overweight.
My doctor ? not much older than I was ? laid it on the line:
He started off: ?Scott, I don?t want to talk about your risk of adult diabetes, your poor appearance or your family history of heart trouble. Nor do I want to discuss your utter lack of physical conditioning and total lack of sex appeal.
What we need to talk about is that 50 extra pounds of flab bouncing down the salt at 200 mph when you fall off.
Not only is that 50 fat pounds worth of kinetic energy your body will have to dissipate flopping to a stop, but it?s also 50 pounds of unnecessary fat we will have to hunt through to find your vital organs and patch you up to maybe save your life.?
Well !
I returned to competition swimming, which I had pursued with limited success in college in the early 1960?s. After months of manic training efforts, I achieved national and world rankings, in front of local crowds that MUST have numbered in the dozens ? kind of like Bonneville. At World-level meets, thousands of spectators cheered someone . I could only dream it would someday be me????
I also lost the 50 pounds in about six months, and kept it off through the 1990?s.
?A need for Speed? Tom Cruise, Top Gun
Later, after some years of adult competition swimming ? including a few national and world records along the way, I realized that the swim competition, satisfying and healthy as it was, did NOT really satisfy my ?Need for Speed.? Also, I felt that it was time to ?make my mark? on the SCTA record book.
How would I do that ?
Oddly, the swim racing wound up to be VERY useful for Bonneville. Not only would I be in better physical condition, and able to handle the heat and stress on the salt. In every swim workout, I used my motion through the water to reflect on hydrodynamics and aerodynamics. I was also regaining my ?athletic? self confidence??..
Swimming helped Bonneville.
Bonneville helped swimming.
As I swam endless yards in practice, I thought about the aerodynamic lessons I had learned on the salt and applied it to my body shape and position in the water. Some of the swim training concepts I developed were eventually recognized widely in the competitive swimming world. The weight lifting and swimming improved my physical fitness. The weight loss reduced my aerodynamic drag.
Certainly my continuing disappointment was that I had never joined the Bonneville 200 mph Club. It was also that, in just a few months in the early 1970?s, all my records at Bonneville had been broken, and I was not ?in the book? anymore.
Photo - Proudly wearing my WOOL team jacket in my early 1960?s team photo at FSU. My college swimming had suddenly improved with my last year of eligibility, and I held the School Record for the 100 yards Breaststroke on the 400 yard medley relay. The record stood for almost 10 years. I was a lithe 5?10?, and ? according to the team ?stat sheet,? a BURLY 145 pounds. With SERIOUS weight lifting as an adult, I would add almost 40 pounds of lean muscle.
My time teaching at Florida State University was becoming less and less satisfying both professionally and financially. I had started that little business of my own, and by 1982, it was making a (very) small profit.
Being my own boss, and setting my own schedule was for me a pleasant change from working for the University. However, there were downsides: I had two HUGE clients in 1981 ? and I billed both accordingly. They, however, didn?t pay ?promptly,? and I didn?t see any income from those matters until 1982. After the clockwork precision of a state paycheck every two weeks, getting NO checks for six months was a painful lesson in cash flow.
I had started racing with the Harley Sportster because I had one. It was like picking up a tool, and looking for something to do with it.
THIS TIME, I wanted too pick the bike that would be fastest in my classes, be reasonable to maintain, (relatively) plentiful, and could run in MANY classes.
?You can learn more from failure than from success.? S. Honda
Well, If Soichiro Honda was correct, than I was becoming quite knowledgeable! If I was closer to setting records again, I couldn?t tell it??
I couldn?t make time off for Bonneville in 1982, so I was left with an additional year to consider what I was doing, and how to do it. My 1972 Harley XRTT Bonneville record setting bike was still on hand, but with no foreseeable future. I had replaced the broken crank, and then parked the bike. It would remain untouched for the next few years.
At that time, there was no separate class for pushrod engines, and I had learned the hard way I could not compete against the 2-strokes or the overhead-cam bikes.
Early Bonneville had taught me about meticulous preparation, strong perseverance in the face of overwhelming adversity, and to have a very strong drive to succeed at record setting.
That wasn?t working anymore ????
I doubted that I would ever race Bonneville again??.
B B King, "The Thrill is gone"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oica5jG7FpU
Photo - A meditation of the futility of Bonneville??Do everything right, and either the weather, the BLM, a Virus or somebody else?s stupidity ruins it for everybody! ??Water Ski fun on the salt flats in the rainy season. Would this hurt the coming summer?s racing by destroying the track ? Would the BLM become interested in Bonneville winter sports? Did these fruitcakes have a clue? Did they tell the motorhome rental company ? Hemmings photo.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 76 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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50 Years at Bonneville
Scott Guthrie Remembers
BRN #212
Chapter #35
The virus re-infects.
The three great Bonneville truths:
I am from the government,
and I am here to help you.
The check is in the mail.
I have quit Bonneville racing.
Of course, I could not stay away.
I did however, want to do it better.
For some years, I had figured out that my next Bonneville effort was going to be racing 2-stroke bikes, and probably Yamahas. No more converted street bikes now: real racers ? built by the factory to race! The new basic bike was almost certainly going to be a Yamaha TZ750, IF I could find one at an affordable price; and IF I was allowed to own one.
The Bonneville class(s) were still in question.
I had made these early decisions, but had NOT found a suitable race bike to buy. If I HAD gone to Bonneville in 1982, I would have taken only the Harley, and abused it again for no net effect. BIG waste of time and money?.
In 1972, my first year signing up for Bonneville, the SCTA and the AMA offered records in the 200cc class, as well as 600cc, 700cc, 883cc and 1200cc. There were NO classes between 1200cc and 3,000cc at that time. No records OVER 3,000cc. Motorcycle engines only!
Ten years later in 1982, the 200cc , 600cc, 700cc and 883c classes were eliminated. Over time, the 1200cc class expanded to 1250, 1300 and to the current 1,350cc class. A 1650cc class was added, as was a 2,000cc class. Later, even a 3001+cc class was made available. In the streamliner classes, we could even use CAR engines !
The take-home was that the rules were always in flux,
as new folks in the administration put their stamp on proceedings.
In February 1983, I found the perfect used bike in a classified ad in a newspaper (remember those?). Within days, I was the owner of a tired but professionally turned-out Yamaha TZ750D of 1977 vintage ? now only six years old. Which was pretty new for me?..
A couple of phone calls, a fine dinner out to convince my wife of the doubtful intelligence of the commitment, a few hurried bank loans, 500 miles in the van, and the TZ750 was mine.
The responsibility scared me to death !
I had seen the Yamaha TZ750 at its introduction in 1974 at Daytona, and had imprinted on it. I felt sure at the time that this was the race bike of my future, if only I could get on a waiting list and afford the financial damages.
Photo ? Originally issued without a Fairing, the 1974 Yamaha TZ750A was only 700cc, which was increased to a full-class-limit of 750cc within a year or two. Four pipes without mufflers were 2-stroke loud. The bike immediately earned a reputation for speed, evil handling and scary wobbles. I was truly not sure my primitive riding was up to the task of such an ?aggressive? missile. It turned out that I was right to be apprehensive!
PHOTO - From the beginning, a RESUME was required for TZ750 purchase! These bikes were so powerful, so fearsome (still are!) and so rare, the importer did not want them to fall into ?unprepared? ownership. The only person I knew who was able to acquire one without a racing background was my friend Zach Reynolds of Winston Salem, NC. I had met Zach in Daytona, on Main Street, years before where he was showing his customized 1969 Honda CB750. When I saw Zach after his TZ750 purchase, I asked how he got the purchase past Yamaha. He said he had somebody in the advertising department get Yamaha approval. I was reminded that his family owned a little southern company called R J Reynolds Tobacco ????
TZ750?s were LOUD. In those days, silencers (mufflers) were not required, and these four-cylinder bikes roared off the start at 10,000 rpm with four open 175cc pipes.
I spectated the 200 mile Daytona race from inside the first turn, maybe 50 feet from the screaming hoard, as they went by after the green flag. There were maybe 75 TZ750?s in the pack, and they were all wide open.
At four pipes per four cylinder TZ750 engine, the noise was equivalent to 300 screaming dirt bikes. My ears hurt for a week, but I had seen the future of road racing in the USA, and perhaps the world.
Without realizing it back in 1974, I had also seen the future of my Bonneville racing! And now in 1983, I had finally embarked on the 2-stroke path for Bonneville.
As a youth of the 1950?s and early 1960?s, I had direct experience with 2-stroke engines ? which was mostly lawn mowers, Vespa motor scooters, mini bikes, go carts and a friend?s Zundapp motorcycle.
Working with the family 2- stroke lawn mower, I had quickly learned that I could annoy the neighbors mightily by removing the muffler. I knew I was having an effect because I could hear windows slamming closed in summer. Hot-rodding the mower ended unsuccessfully when I forgot to mix the oil in the gas, and the blade stopped in mid-swing. My father never made a point of it, but he did buy an electric lawnmower and 100 feet of extension cord.
I turned my questionable tuning skills elsewhere.
A friend had somehow come to own an early 1950?s Zundapp Super Sabre 250cc 2-stroke German motorcycle. Since the bike was stock, it obviously could be hugely improved by teenagers imitating what others were doing, educated only by the odd article in obscure magazines.
Photo - Of course, we knew that the most power increase could be found by removing the MASSIVE muffler, and installing a megaphone. (This was before ?expansion chambers? were part of our tuning vocabulary) The first casualty of our tuning efforts was the practical but heavy chain guard. Notice kick starter was on the LEFT.
Photo ? ZUNDAPP Super sabre 250cc piston ? 3 rings ! I still fail to grasp the reason for three compression rings in a 2-stroke. AND look at the WIDTH of those rings ! I now assume this was an attempt to keep compression for 250,000 miles ? even though the piston would be toast after 50,000 miles. We KNEW that there was horsepower to be gained in modifying that piston! The fact that the piston ? for no perceivable purpose ? had these gaping holes everywhere did not for an instant cause us intellectual trouble.
Zundapp ? at the time a HUGE German motorcycle manufacturer ? had been in business from 1917 until dissolution in 1984. Originally a producer of large 4-stroke bikes in the 1950?s and 60?s, they concentrated on 2-strokes, with huge off-road success. Largely forgotten now, at one time the company was one of the world?s largest motorcycle companies.
2-strokes had no valve train, so removing the top end was pretty simple. Loosen a few nuts and bolts and off comes the head and cylinder. Without possessing ten times more knowledge, that was as far as we could go. So, as was the nature of we dummies, that?s where we decided we could have the most effect.
Photo - So simple! We just got out our files, and cut down the top of the piston crown area, thus changing the timing of the opening and closing of the ports. Kind of like changing the timing and duration of a camshaft in a 4-stroke. It might have been more effective if we had known WHAT to change, and by HOW MUCH.
Photo - Eventually, like many hot rodders, we found the pistons were begging to be more heavily modified. We were of course, untroubled by not having a clue about the theory. More holes just HAS to be better, right ?
We kids were also a little interested in NSU German motorcycles, but they were harder to understand, being mostly 4-strokes, and certainly out of our price range. I had been introduced to NSU by Hot Rod magazine in the late 1950?s
NSU ("Mechanische Werkst?tte zur Herstellung von Strickmaschinen"), like Zundapp, was another venerable German vehicle manufacturer, having started making motorcycles in 1901, before both Harley and Indian, and making cars in 1905. Although essentially forgotten today, at one time, they were the largest maker of motorcycles in the world.
NSU was using blown 4-strokes in the 1950?s,
which was also WAY beyond our skill level.
Photo - Classic photo of the two NSU factory riders and their bikes at Bonneville. The memorialized ?Craig Breedlove Telephone Line? is in the background. Right bike set a record with W. Hertz over 211 mph in 1956 ! The record still stands in 2020?..The bike was actually a sit-on bike with a streamlined body. HUGE frontal area!. Left hand bike is a real reclining streamliner with small engines. Rider H. Mueller set a 125cc record at 150mph in the same fall 1956 meet. Americans noted the lightweight and very practical canvas reclining rider?s seat, and immediately named the bike ?The Flying Lawn Chair.?
Photo - Hertz 211 mph air cooled 500cc bike looks a little odd without it?s concealing fairing. Thin tubing, primitive forks with a pillar rear suspension promise a punishing ride. Wheelie bars in 1956 ? This true supercharger was mechanically driven. When asked what the fuel was, one German mechanic with a thick accent answered: ?A fluid.?
No strangers to double-overhead-cams, racing or superchargers, they built the first ? back in 1956 ? motorcycle to run over 200 mph. They even posted a 125cc record 150mph in ?56. In the late 1950?s, NSU was a very respected maker and racer!
In the early 1950?s, the idea that a motorcycle could be ridden over 200 mph was so intriguing, that the candidate rider was written about in such detail that his breakfast on a normal morning was photographed with little post-it notes showing the number of calories.
It was this sort of dream that tortured us as kids in the 1950?s. but we weren?t ready for blown double overhead cams yet. But then, neither was Chevrolet. So we had to play with lawn mowers.
Photo ? Six years before NSU, Vincent rider Rollie Free (He of the bathing-suit bike) tried a similar idea, and found the tail wagging the dog when he drove past the gap in the mountains and encountered too much wind. Bonneville can reward experimentation, but experience is bought dearly. Wendover gas station, in the background, is still there 70 years later. (But, ice cream no longer available) No doubt the center of pressure (CP) is behind the center of gravity (CG) but did the leverage make the bike a rear-steer device? Short wheelbase and HIGH CG and CP probably didn?t help.
I spent a lot of otherwise-usable high-school time hanging out at the VESPA motor scooter dealership downtown on MAIN Street ! ? (when was the last time you saw a motorcycle dealer DOWNTOWN ? let alone on a Main street), wanting to buy and own a Vespa scooter. I could have used some of that time next door, at the Model and Hobby shop, where they were always ?testing? 2-stroke model airplane engines ? many running nitro. Model airplanes were the first home of modern 2-stroke porting.
Likewise, as I pedaled my bicycle home from school, I could stop in and see new go-carts for sale at a lawn mower shop. It never occurred to me to ask the owner of the shop what made one engine ?better? than another.
Of more use were the three full-on machine shops on my bicycle?s homeward path. Those guys let me see what they were doing, and explained it ! Lathes, mills, welding, cutting and other manly stuff. I would return to them when I was building my own go-carts.
I had the confidence of my ignorance.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 76 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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50 Years at Bonneville
Scott Guthrie Remembers
New technology, what?s that?
Chapter #36
My new race bike for Bonneville in the 1980's was to be the fearsome Yamaha TZ750.
Most post WWII 2-strokes were relatively simple engines ? one cylinder with maybe two ports (intake and exhaust) ? and were easy to work on, but harder to understand. The first motorcycle I rode, in 1958, was a 2-stroke. By the early 1960?s, I had given those up for 4-strokes. I just completely moved away from owning and racing 2-strokes ? until 1983.
Photo - In the early days, most 2-strokes had something like these ?deflector pistons.? The factory porting was so primitive that the PISTON CROWN was used to control the flows of intake and exhaust. Not surprisingly, this resulted in poor power, poor flame-front travel, poor chamber shape, poor combustion, poor gas mileage and very hot pistons. BUT ? they were cheap to build in post WWII Europe. Can you see the tiny pins in the ring grooves that PREVENT the rings from turning? A ring-end slipping into an open port can lead to GREAT damage. Lots of oil, rich mixtures and low compression can provide miracles of longevity ? which uneducated teen agers can defeat almost immediately.
Photo ? A tiny pin located the ring ends. How many of us have broken a ring by trying to ?persuade? the piston into the cylinder with the rings in the wrong position ?
Photo - Notice in this style of deflector piston design that the exhaust port and intake port are within fractions of an inch of each other. Would this have created a crowded work area ? Would it have put a LOT of heat into the intake charge?
Photo - More rational design and widely used today, minus the deflector in high-output examples.
A LOT of technology improved in those 20 plus years since I forgot 2-strokes, especially since those years including the flowering of 2-stroke Grand Prix motorcycle racing, with full Japanese factory participation.
Things had changed.
My first eye-opener was a public-library paper (in German) that discussed Schnuerle porting.
I am sure I would not have understood the paper even if I COULD have read German.
The basic thought was that the air flow WITHIN the 2-stroke cylinder was even more important than for a 4-stroke engine ! AND that the old deflector piston was almost useless !
Photo - Surprisingly, the first use of this fanciful design in production was in a model airplane engine. Developed in Germany in 1926, this system is still used today. I had this type of porting in my FACTORY race bikes as late as 1980. Yup, I should have spent more time in that hobby shop, instead of the scooter shop !
Starting from only the two ports in my mid-teen years, these little holes in the cylinder wall proliferated beyond imagining !
Suddenly, by the time of my return to Bonneville in 1983, 2-stroke cylinders had as many ports as I had fingers! Here, the spark plug hole is in the center of the picture, surrounded by intake and exhaust ?holes.? There were so many holes in the cylinder wall that it looked like perforations on a postage stamp! I could not grasp how there could be any compression at all, let alone enough to make power.
There were so many different kinds of ports, I was pressed to understand what they actually did, and if they actually did what they were supposed to do. With so many holes, lack of cylinder-wall strength in aluminum can lead to cracking.
My education was on an express elevator up !
I reviewed my 1983 knowledge of 2-stroke motorcycles. This was quite easy since I essentially knew nothing modern; 10 minutes was more than enough.
My new race bike for Bonneville was to be the Yamaha TZ750.
So, here I was in possession of one of the most fearsome International Grand Prix motorcycles ever available to the public, and I was unaware of quite how to correctly fill up the gas tank, and how to start the bike.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 76 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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Scott, speaking of 2-stroke engines have you ever seen the 4 cylinder air-cooled 2-strokes that McCulloch built for the military drones built by Radioplane in the late '50s?
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Scott, speaking of 2-stroke engines have you ever seen the 4 cylinder air-cooled 2-strokes that McCulloch built for the military drones built by Radioplane in the late '50s?
Interesting points !
Those were built for lowest cost (there were after all, single use), and not power.
But that architecture had so much more to offer !
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50 Years at Bonneville
Scott Guthrie Remembers
Chapter #37a
The TZ750 dream begins
?When you come to a fork in the Road ? take it.? Yogi Berra
The magnificent TZ750A was made by Yamaha primarily to race in the Daytona 200 mile race, and to represent the company as capable of racing at the highest level in the USA, and win the world?s most important race. In order to do that, they were required to build 200 examples, and make them available to the public; which they did.
Now that I actually owned a Yamaha TZ750, I was confronted with not only how to ride and race it, but how to do so in a way that reflected well on others who had done so ? and had done it well.
I was living with ghosts; many famous men had won famous races with these TZ750?s. Only a few hundred TZ750?s had been made ? strictly for racing ? and I was somehow allowed to own and race one myself.
Late at night, I almost imagined riding along with Kenny Roberts, Steve Baker, John Long - all heroes ? who had great success on the TZ750. Fortunately for them, I was never allowed to do that.
However, I felt that I was justified in being terrified that I would crash and burn the first time I rode a bike so powerful ? and so feared.
At Bonneville in the mid to late 1970?s, I had carefully watched Don Vesco and Bill Vickery of Colorado running Yamaha TZ750?s and saw the huge LSR potential of the TZ750. Unfortunately for me, in the mid 1970?s, the road racing world had also seen the potential of the bike, and price and availability in the 1970?s were nowhere near affordable for me. Don and Bill were BOTH Yamaha dealers, and so had ?access? to TZ750 bikes ? and factory racing parts.
In 1974, the bike was so ferocious that Yamaha Racing USA required a current resume from a prospective buyer, to prove they were capable of using the outrageous horsepower that had never before been offered for sale.
All for $3,495 dealer cost in 1974?????..
The TZ750 gained immediate attention, winning the Daytona 200 on the first try in 1974. (Yamaha would win the 200 mile race the 13 straight years, and help cause the TZ750 class of bikes to be shelved so that ?spectator interest? could be improved. Hard to interest folks when the only question is ?which TZ750 will win.?)
They were too good for their own good !
The low initial cost, ease of maintenance and high quality of the race-ready bike made them so desirable to professional racers that they were almost unobtainable to ?ordinary riders? for almost 10 years.
And as far as Yamaha was concerned, I was QUITE ordinary !
There were 1974 reports from England ? where the bikes were particularly hard to obtain ? that if a rider crashed and died, there would be people making the widow offers for the wreaked bike before it had clattered to a stop.
I waited long enough -1983- that they became cast-off old race bikes, and then I began buying them up????..Eventually owning almost more than 30 of the things.
As with the Harley XRTT, I wanted to race the bike before setting out for Bonneville, but THIS time, I would hire a professional rider with a chance of winning and hope to also learn something about modern 2-stroke engines.
The immediate answer was John Long of Miami.
Responding to an out-of-town newspaper classified ad, I hurried downstate to see the bike. I returned home, and went hopefully to my credit union to plead for financing. Within days, I had bought my first TZ750 in February of 1983.
A month later, my team had taken 8th place ? John Long riding and running the team - in that same famous Daytona 200 mile race. John and the bike had earned more in race winnings than the purchase price of the bike.
Now, THAT is the way to start a race program !
Photo ? 1983: The beginning of the Bonneville Dynasty. John Long rides Scott Guthrie?s Yamaha 1977 TZ750D to 8th place in the 1983 Daytona 200 mile race and on to 10th in 1984? against strong fields of ?factory bikes?. Winnings (Even with primitive standard fairing) produced enough to pay the cost of the bike and Bonneville. This Guthrie TZ750 bike - and others like it - would go on to set almost fourty world speed records on the Bonneville Salt Flats under Guthrie and Long. The Daytona 200 motorcycle race is very much like the Daytona 500 NASCAR race. Both start the season, and both are the most important of the year ? it?s like starting the baseball season with the World Series! LUKE photo
In February of 1983, I had approached John Long ? a world famous motorcycle road racer living in Miami Florida ? to campaign my new bike in the 1983 Daytona 200 mile race. After some preliminary telephone discussion, we agreed to meet over dinner in Miami. It turned out that John was the original owner of my new bike, and he had finished ? as a private rider ? an astounding 6th place against full factory riders ? on this same bike a few years earlier.
For Daytona, I sensibly turned the riding, crewing and race strategy over to John Long, since my road racing had ended around 10 years before. That was a smart thing to do, since what I knew about racing motorcycles in road racing at that time would have filled a single page, while John?s international knowledge would have filled several books.
At Daytona, - with GREAT effort - I tried to keep quiet,
stay out of the way, and maybe listen to my betters.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 76 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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50 Years at Bonneville
Scott Guthrie Remembers
Chapter #37b
March of 1983
I wandered around the Daytona 200 pits, learning what I could. I had been attending Daytona Speed Week since the early 1960?s, and spent a LOT of time in the pits ? dreaming and remembering. The Daytona 200 mile road race ? once the biggest and most important motorcycle race in the world, entertained tens of thousands of spectators, and perhaps tracked over one thousand riders in all classes for the week. Through the years, I found that I could trace success and (more usually) failure by identifying an interesting entry, and following his doings throughout the week, and noting what had had done.
It was always interesting to peek ? when allowed ? into the factory areas, and see what unlimited funds could produce ? and it wasn?t always success.
We garaged NEXT DOOR to the Yamaha factory race team! Kel Caruthers, Kenny Roberts, Eddie Lawson, swarms of Asian mechanics. The team that year was riding Yamaha V-4 grand prix bikes of mysterious specification. Actual displacement was originally 500cc, but the AMA allowed up to 750cc, so discussion ranged between these numbers.
The team wasn?t talking!
After a few days, I wandered over to the AMA track office and asked to see the entry form for Kenny Roberts bike. The form disclosed the bore, stroke and displacement truth. I kept quiet and enjoyed hearing the speculation. The Yamaha 0W69 displaced 680cc
One evening near the end of the working day, the Yamaha garage was in a flurry of finishing up Kenny?s bike for practice the next morning. A younger oriental mechanic pushed the hurriedly-completed #2 bike out to the driveway for a push start, without the fairing, ? probably to check for leaks and drips.
Photo - Kel Caruthers ? Kenny Roberts?s tuner and himself a 250cc MotoGP Champ, paddles Kenny Roberts 0W69 around the pits. When asked about the bore, stroke and displacement, Kel just smiled. My rider John Long was not as fast but he had respect; neither Lawson or Roberts passed Long in the turns; only on the straightaway.
I noticed the other mechanics ? and Kel Caruthers ? smiling and winking to each other and drifting out to watch the test. The bike fired immediately ? and revealed that the junior mechanic had forgotten one of the exhaust pipes, and the future race winning bike was making awful blatting noises!
After much laughter, the pipe was properly installed, and the test was completed.
On the Sunday, Kenny would win the 200 mile race at record speed on this same bike.
1983 saw the introduction of what some thought was the first real superbike ? the Honda V45. With a V-4 architecture, alloy frame and modern alloy chassis, the bike was complicated, heavy and muscular. It was also going to put in a victory by over 60 seconds in the Superbike race on Saturday.
Photo - Daytona winner John Ashmead lines up at the start. Does his bike look like the pictures in the catalog? His Day-Glo helmet stripes were emblematic. Did 16 inch front tires actually work better for Ashmead than 18 inch hoops on World Champion Fred Merkle?s factory bike? Race results do not always answer the ?better? questions.
Photo-The Interceptor architecture was 4-stroke up-to-the-second design! Double overhead cams, block with four cylinders cast as a unit with the top crankcase half. As a privateer used to working alone, I trembled when I watched Roberto Pietri?s factory mechanics struggling to get that big lump out of the bike and onto the floor, then onto the bench.
The happy result on that sunny March Sunday afternoon was Long?s strong 8th place against an international field of more than 100 Factory riders, pre-entered riders and many factory supported riders.
John Long had done well for us. An eighth place was relatively high for him, and was far higher than any effort I had been associated with - and far better than I had expected. John did the mechanical work himself ? being VERY frugal with both his time and my borrowed money. He was doing things I could not have ? and probably never could have done ? and he did it in a very gracious way.
In appreciation for my 1983 sponsorship, John prepared an older 350cc Bultaco TSS factory (water cooled !) road racer for me to campaign in the Vintage classes that same Daytona race week. I had never before road-raced a 2-stroke bike, and had never ridden Daytona?s steep banking, which was pretty intimidating.
Not having road-raced in 10 years was no help either.
It did not go well.
In 2020, John Long and I have had a friendship for almost 40 years. In that time, especially in the beginning, we have occasionally had a relationship that threw sparks, but for many years has been pretty cordial. I think I was a pretty abrasive nerd, and John showed remarkable tolerance for somebody like me with no talent and reduced social skills with people at the sharp end of world-level road racing. He often shared knowledge with me as if I could understand.
Photo - Bultaco TSS Aqua water-cooled factory bike. Note big front brake compared to customer version.
Photo ? Air cooled version was a factory racer intended for customers, while the factory riders were issued the water-cooled version.
Photo - John Long@ Bonneville in 1990. Yamaha TZ250 running special Guthrie bodywork. Rain threatens! John is a world class rider and has also ridden widely in the USA, England, Europe and Asia, and in 1990, was also riding this same 1983 Daytona race with me. In 1983, Long was well qualified to critique my road-race riding from the field. I still remember his dead pan delivery after our mutual running in the vintage race, which he won the race, I was 14th: ?I thought there was a whole team in the same leathers and the same kind of bike, and then I realized it was only you, and I had passed you maybe three times!? Jon Nalon Photo
Paybacks are tough.
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 76 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........
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50 Years at Bonneville
Scott Guthrie Remembers
Chapter #38
1983 ?: MY 2nd BONNEVILLE RAINOUT!
Expectably enough for me, the 1983 Bonneville racing was rained out, just like my canceled first appearance in 1972 - also for rain. My earth-shattering re-debut would have to wait at least another year.
Rain ? outs, before the year 2000, seemed to happen two years in a row, about every 11 years. Like 1960-61, 1971-72 and 1982-83, sort of like the cycle of sun spots ? which is every 11 years also. The rain-outs have been irregular since then ? maybe because of global warming?
My major Sponsor at Daytona ? other than my unsuspecting credit union ? was Honda dealer Woody Leone of Beaumont Texas. He appears as DynOmni on my bikes.
Woody was a Bonneville racer too, and eventually either rode on, or helped tune for, 68 Bonneville records ? often teaming up with nearby Jack Wilson of Triumph of Dallas. Woody was a former member of the powerful AMA Competition Committee, and had invented a type of water-brake dyno especially for motorcycles. Woody was later inducted into the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) Hall of fame ? one of the highest honors in American Motorcycling.
Woody invited me to his R&D department in Beaumont to improve my TZ750 and I jumped at the chance. Woody, trained on the ancient British singles and twins of the 30?s to the 50?s, actually had A LOT of Yamaha TZ750 dyno experience!
The AMA ? leader of all things motorcycle in the USA - and most of the professional racing staff had discovered that by the late 1970?s, the TZ750 was WAY faster than all the competition, and maybe faster than most of the riders were capable of riding safely. Following the lead of NASCAR, the AMA decided that carburetor restrictors were called for, and my friend Woody ? because of his dyno inventions, and his position on the AMA competition committee ? was chosen to do the TZ750 research as to the restrictors.
Woody was a seemingly laid-back kind of guy, who died still vigorous at the age of 78 of cancer, but he was intensely intelligent. Without graduating from high school, Woody had done the research and development to allow him to be issued US patents in such disparate fields as oil drilling equipment, motorcycle testing devices and airplane propeller straightening machines. I never found an area of mechanical study that he was ignorant of.
Other than my father, an architect, I had never heard anyone else discuss parabolic hyperboloids.
Immediately after Daytona, I set off for Beaumont. One of the things I have used ever since the Texas dyno sessions is a visceral understanding of how much carburetor settings affected power output. I could look at the plugs and tell how much more power I could find by changing the jets. As I became more experienced with racing, I could figure out how much more power ? and more speed - I could get with certain tuning changes.
If my changes would result in increased risk of engine failure, I could make that decision: Power or Reliability.
Woody pulled some books from the shelf in the R&D offices. He handed me a three-inch thick binder and said: ?In my experience, this is the stuff that doesn?t work in racing. This little 1/8 inch thick pamphlet are tricks that actually work.?
Photo ? Woody Leone as I remember him ? with a big smile and a full-on race bike! Woody was a Honda motorcycle dealer who got in EARLY, and had a two-digit dealer ID number. He had tuned for famous names and national numbers. I was proud he would take his time with me. Not a shy man, he was somehow unable to resonate with the post 1985 crowd, but I has more than happy to have his attention. Long after he passed away, I was proud to have his decals on my bikes.
Woody also demonstrated the success available with the same fuel flow from DIFFERENT carburetors! We had been testing with the 34mm Mikuni VM34mm carbs the TZ750 came with. We saw maybe 110hp at the rear wheel with marginal-but-ok-on-the-dyno tuning. We fit a set of 34mm Lectron carbs with the same jetting, and the power went up by 10hp! How much porting and pipe making (time and money spent) would I have to have done for the same result?
Photo ? What have we here? SMOTHERED in new parts, this looks like an ordinary Yamaha TZ750 engine, but there is NO serial number, and the castings don?t look quite like the factory die-cast units. The cylinders have strange cast markings too. The intakes are a little odd, and Yamaha certainly never issued those LECRON carburetors! The TZ750 is so desirable almost 50 years after production began that it is possible to built a ?replica? engine from almost exclusively new parts. It is NOT cheap, ONE new engine today would cost more than FIVE COMPLETE NEW BIKES in 1974 !
One outcome is that I have been using much the same tuning answers for almost 40 years at Bonneville. In August of 2020 at Speed Week, we ran a bike that ? supposedly down 20 horsepower on our competitor?s bike ? took his record by almost five mph. In the next meet, he then took the record back!
We thought we found more speed, and that new-found potential induced us to go back in September and try again, with ONLY drive-line changes. Result was an unexpected 20 mph increase in speed.
ALL at almost no cost in money or time.
While waiting for the bike to cool between dyno runs, Woody talked about water injection and ?trombone exhaust.?
One of Woody?s racing friends was a champion hydroplane racer in the smaller classes ? about 250cc 2-stroke, if I remember correctly ? and he had his secrets too!
The first was something he called ?The Trombone exhaust.?
At the time, this was the only trombone exhaust I was familiar with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwaXjtRybhI
The modern 2-stroke exhaust ?expansion? chamber offers MUCH more power than the typical ?straight? exhaust, and also much more than the ?megaphone? style.
Photo: Early 2-stroke outboard racing engine. Megaphone exhaust was annoying, loud and abrasive, and not that good for power. Kind of 1950?s thinking. ?Bang and blat was loud, but NT fast ? a common confusion?
Although a decent tuned pipe can be made of just a few components, it is the relationships between the lengths, angles and sizes that makes the critical differences in power.
Photo: simple modern 2-stroke exhaust, but without silencer fitted. Note straight, parallel-wall center section
Photo: expansion chambers simply described.
Of all the components, the straight center section with the parallel sides was what concerns us for the ?trombone effect.?
PHOTOS: In the original articles, lovingly published by Wendy at the BONNEVILLE RACING NEWS, there were PICTURES !...It is a little too cumbersome for me with my 76 year old pre digital brain to post those here since it involves photobucket and things like that. IF you go to my facebook account, the pictures are attached to THAT version of these articles..........https://www.facebook.com/scott.guthrie.3154.........