Racing started at 8.30am Monday on two tracks. The main
track is marked for nine miles, while the second shuts down after
two-and-a-half.
Dressed head-to-toe in white, the startlines are run by Brisbane’s
Leikvold brothers, who form part of a crucial communication
network that also comprises race director Steve ‘Animal’
Charlton; Peter Hulbert and Paul Lynch in the timing van; Carol
Hadfield and Greg Wapling in the registration van; and finally
two safety crews. This is the nerve centre of the event. After all,
the track disappears over the horizon, and when vehicles are
travelling over 200mph you need to know where they are and
that everything is okay.
Each year there’s a buzz around entries that have been some time
in the build. It might have taken 10 years or only 12 months, but
Speed Week is when the makers of these rides come to meet their
maker, so to speak. This year, stand-out debuts included Richard
Assen’s insane Hayabusa-powered altered bike with centre-hub
steering, Tony Cooke’s new lakester, and Gus Cooper’s 1936
Hudson Terraplane from Perth. Assen went home with a record
just under 209mph, giving him the coveted red hat that signifies
admission to the 200mph Club. To join you need to break a record
that’s over 200mph; if you exceed 200 but don’t set a record
you’re in the Achievers Club, and receive a red hat with black visor.
Some records and lots of parts got broken at Speed Week 2017,
and that, friends, is what it’s all about. Yes, the salt can a be a
harsh mistress, but it is forgiving on drivetrains, as the traction
at best is only 60 per cent of concrete or tarmac, so you don’t
see many smashed gears or twisted axles. But motors? That’s an
entirely different story. If you want to find a weakness in your oiling,
cooling, fuel supply or simply attention to detail in assembly, take it
to the salt! If you don’t break records or parts then you just aren’t
trying hard enough – that’s what they say.
Just ask David Ogilvie, who took the Clevo out of his lakester
and stuck it in a Magna with a big turbo and a dump pipe in the
driver’s-side guard. It had started to miss, then shoot ducks. When
we caught up with him he was staring intently at a piece of forged
aluminium with an oil glaze on it that he’d found in the valley of the
motor after pulling off the manifold. How it got there and exactly
what it was, no one knows, but it wasn’t supposed to be there,
and it signalled the end of the week for this 200mph-capable car.
Two-Bob Racing consists of two Roberts (Lambert and Wilson)
from Broken Hill with a blown Honda CBR250RR running on
methanol. One day the bike will go really fast, faster than any 250
in the world, but for the past seven years they’ve managed only to
blow it up. Not this year. No, this year they had fuel contamination
issues; it didn’t run well enough to hurt itself. Are they giving up?
No, that’d be weak, this is what they live for.
DLRA president Norm Bradshaw is a long-time favourite, who
despite the app age and the advent of Uber steadfastly sticks to
his 410-cube Ford dressed as a Melbourne taxi, with a turbo that
could ingest a large child. This year he was in the mid-200s when
a puff of smoke attracted the interest of the emergency crews
and the scrutineers. At first it was thought to be an oil line to the
turbo, but shortly after the word was: “It had metal in it.” But Norm
has been to Bonneville, and he’s broken lots of things – will he
be back? Of course.
Sacrifices to the Gods of Speed aren’t always just engine parts
though; support cars, trailers, wallets, even marriages have all
been found wanting on the big white dyno. But salt heads, like
gambling addicts, just keep coming back no matter how badly
they get burnt. On the way home they’re finished: “That’s it, I’m
done, never going back, I’ve had enough.” Three weeks later
they’ve got a drawing, they’re searching for parts, and best of all,
they’ve diagnosed what went wrong. Next year they’ll be back with
a close-ratio ’box, a ratio change for the diff, more compression or
a better valvetrain. Yep, they’re hooked. sAt the four-mile mark, Mark Love’s Firebird stepped out at
240mph, causing him to release the laundry, which hit so
hard it picked the car up, slamming it on its side. Skewing
off the track, it took out the timing clocks and left a half-mile
debris trail before coming to rest. Fortunately Mark was
unscathed, but there’ll be a few long and itchy nights to
rebuild the car’s fibreglass nose, which was destroyed