Noonan
Racing Report
Bonneville Race Report World Finals October 15th-18th
Well, Michelle and I did it yet one more time, we went to
the big White dyno and attempted to capture more land speed
records in the blown classes. We had added Ceramic, cam, water
pump, wheel and transmission bearings from WORLDWIDEBEARINGS.COM
and a sharp new paint job from COLORZONEDESIGNS.COM,
now that the bike looked great how would it run?
The World finals is a 4 day meet that starts October 15th
and ends on the 18th, after three shakedown runs on the first
day we determined that the bike needed more weight added to
the chassis as the rear tire was spinning at a speed greater
than 275mph. We then found that the newly added weight had
also changed out "tune-up" from the previous meet
a month before.
On day two we found ourselves adjusting the suspension and
playing the weight game, add a little here; move a little
there...
After adding the
weight and making our first pass we netted a time greater
than 240 mph, the record we were shooting for was ours from
last year which stood at 232.603 mph.
After our run we
found that the course was in the worst condition than I have
ever seen in my short 2 seasons of land speed racing, however
we did put the American Suzuki/ Airtech Hayabusa into the
impound area of Bonneville to see what the next day (and new
course) would bring us.
For those of you
that have not raced at Bonneville, the course and conditions
can change in a very short time and this year at the end of
the paved road where it meet's the salt there was a lake approximately
4"- 6" deep and about 1/3-1/2 mile long, very slow
going as the salt is very harsh on anything it comes in contact
with, (aluminum, steel, iron etc) The actual and corrected
altitude can change from 3,800' in the morning to over 8,000'
in the warmer afternoon, it makes it harder to tune for the
aspirated vehicles, the forced induction powerplants are not
as affected as we can just add more boost.
The next morning the course was very wet and we elected to
be one of the last vehicles to make a return record attempt,
we were rewarded with an average speed of over 241 mph and
were on our way to getting a handle on the slippery ever-changing
salt course.
That afternoon after certifying our engine, fuel and chassis
to be legal we went on to stay in the same class to make more
record attempts, you may remember last year when were entered
4 different classes and came home with four new records all
over 215 mph, (and also got into the Bonneville 200 mph club)
this time around we decided to stay focused on taking the
current class record as fast as we could take it over the
short four days we had.
Later on the third day, we made yet another run and we were
rewarded with an impound entering average speed over 245 mph;
this speed was not a top speed yet was the average speed held
for an entire mile. At the conclusion of this run we blew
the custom (made in Sweden) hose from the NLR innercooler
to the plenum, we were now in impound and without the hose
we would not be able to make the return run the next morning,
after looking and finding nothing after about 30 minutes along
comes a 5-6 year old child on his bicycle with a piece of
exhaust pipe zip tied to his small bicycle, after some convincing
($ 3.00, a can of DR Pepper, and half a roll of duct tape)
we were allowed a small section of pipe and made a hasty repair
on the damaged section of hose.
This worked well enough to get us down the course, however,
we were running out of time after the repair and could not
shim the spring in the wastegate to make any more horsepower
so we left it the same and anticipated a slight power loss
for the return run the next morning. After making the return
pass we found that we had bumped our 24 hour old record to
a new average speed of 243.9 mph.
On the fourth and last day we put a few more Horsepower to
the engine and re-qualified the bike with an even faster average
and a new top speed for any bike with an OEM frame to a mind
blowing 247+ average in the fifth mile and an exit speed of
249.585 mph. This makes us faster than last year when we averaged
246.392 mph. and this is the fastest exit speed reached on
any OEM configuration at Bonneville. On that run we did hit
the magic 250 mph mark on our Garmin GPS. (Global Positioning
Satellite) That in itself is a personal milestone that I will
cherish until we can get that record over 250!!
For the return record attempt we knew that the throttle body
blades were a little bent, as we had to straighten them from
when the hose blew apart on day two. Well, the salt gremlins
reared their head on the return run and again blew apart the
repaired hose and we were only able to reach a top speed of
237 mph. Leaving us to come back next season for the 250 mph
record attempts.
That record of 243.9 mph is now the fastest record at Bonneville
in any of the 1,650cc motorcycle classes including streamliners.
We hope to better that next season and become the first open
wheel motorcycle to set a record at a speed greater than 250
mph at the real proving ground Bonneville!
There are many suppliers of great products that made this
happen, American Suzuki, AIRTECH, Performance Machine Wheels,
JE Pistons, Carrillo Rods, APE, Web Cams, Carpenter Racing
Heads, Worldwide Bearings, Sparkplugs.com, COLORZONEDESIGNS.COM,
PPG, Cyclemall.net, NLRSYSTEMS.COM, Tiger Racing, K&N,
AFAM Chains, and Sato Racing
Again, I could not have done this without the love and support
of Michelle, she is a trooper and
makes it all worthwhile.
Sincerely In Speed,
John Noonan
