Disclaimer It is the responsibility of each Racer to fully understand and comply with the class rules and safety equipment requirements described in the SCTA rulebook. Safety Equipment rules change slightly from year to year, new rulebooks are available (usually) in March. Order yours from www.saltflats.com to be sure you comply with the current class rules. It’s a long drive to Bonneville from wherever you are, if you don’t meet safety requirements and aren’t allowed to run, it will seem a verrrrry long drive home. Get a current rulebook and do your homework!! “Hemi heads like blowers”. A few years back, two guys came to Bonneville with a Harley Davidson.
They had fitted this bike with a turbo charger. Now this wasn’t
some gold plated factory backed deal. No orange and black semi trailers
in their pit. Just two guys with an Ironhead 883cc Sportster (yeah,
that’s a Hemi) and a used turbocharger/homemade turbo-manifold
combo they had bought at a yard sale. Yep, a yard sale. No information
about who built it or why, no warranty, no instructions, just a Carb
and a Turbo on a homemade Sportster exhaust manifold. These guys weren’t
engineers, brain surgeons or rocket scientists. They were simply gearheads
with excess enthusiasm. When they saw that rusty turbo setup laying
in the front yard, they looked at each other and said, “Bonneville!!!!”
Now you can call them crazy or dreamers, but the afternoon I visited
them in their pit, you could best call them Giggly. Both of them sporting
a monster adrenalin buzz. They were grinning like kids locked in the
candy store. Why? Because they had a “problem”. The “problem”
had them both grinning ear to ear. It seems that when their scooter
hadn’t spooled up the turbo, it didn’t have enough power
to pull the tall Bonneville gearing. And when it did come on to the
turbo boost, it just blew away the back tire. Lather – Rinse – Repeat! So---just like you or I would, they cranked that throttle, started
wishing again and---- SHAZAM!!!! Now this story should have a happy ending---Like how them boys sorted things out, found a voodoo traction spell, put the Genie on the payroll, bottled the SHAZAM!!!! Wrote their names into the Bonneville Records Book and all that jazz. The Headlines should read: Poor Boys with a Yard Sale Blower Beat All Odds! Seabiscuit Wins the Derby! Lassie Saves Timmy from the Well! Yada, yada, yada. But it ain’t so. Sorry Harley fans---This is going to sting a little,
zip up your leather jacket and hang on to your do-rag. Why isn’t that Harley Territory? Do you know why that isn’t a proper Harley Davidson Record??? Because YOU haven’t made the effort to contest it. Yep, You. The guy in the mirror when you’re shaving. You know what I say is true. I know that you already have most of the Harley parts gathering dust in your garage. How do I know that?? I have been to your shop. I have been to a hundred others like it, too. In Illinois, in Indiana, in Florida, Utah, Michigan and California. I can testify to the fact that there are grimy little tiny unheated garages and big shiny showplace shops in every town in America, all with a collection of Harley Davidson parts waiting for a purpose, a dream, and a fresh dose of ambition. Yep, I sat in your shop and enjoyed a cold beer with you just last year, or has it been ten years now? You had a nice batch of Harley performance parts. They probably haven’t been touched since I visited. Screw them together and bring them to Bonneville. Rust never sleeps.
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