Left to right: David "Packmule" Wade, Gene "Bub" Arrington, Jerry (Hi-Speed) Hawkins,
Kenneth Walthall, Ed Mabry, Pat Mains, and Steve "Rockett" Starrett.
The Bonneville Send Off Fish-Fry was Sunday, August 7, right after the trailer was loaded.
Some quick background:
Jerry Hawkins is riding No. 601 this year since Jon Minonno is riding his own new racer, "Boarzilla". No. 601 is Mabry's dual engine Triumph, fuel burning, turbocharged partial streamliner that holds a 3,000CC record at 238+ with a fastest one way run over 260MPH. It has the "small" engines this year, running in the 2000CC Class. These engines are unproven and Ed is a little nervous about them.
Jerry is also taking his own racer, "The Cowtown Shaker", a single engine Suzuki (at least the engine cases were made by Suzuki!, fueler, turbo partial streamliner. The engine is 1650CC.
Steve "Rockett" Starrett is the pilot for 604, a modern Triumph 900CC triple bored to 1000CC racing in the 1000 APS-BF category.
Keith Martin, owner of RPM Cycle in Dallas fabricated a 650CC classic Triumph single engine racer in the 750CC APS-PF category. Craig Murray is the pilot.
Wednesday, 8/10/05:
Ed departed for Bonneville from his shop in Ft. Worth at 2:15AM, Wednesday, 10 August, 2005. They picked up David "Packer" Wade in Childress at 6:45AM.
Thursday, 8/11/05, 11:00AM, got a message from Bub that they were in Green River, Utah headed for Wendover! Ed had a flat and they lost trailer lights but all is fixed & well.
Friday, 8/12/05. They had another flat on the way and had to buy a new set of tires for the trailer. They made it to Wendover OK this morning. Now they are in line for Tech Inspection.
The Southern California Timing Association makes the following worrisome announcement at the beginning of the event.Course preparations are nearly complete but Mother Nature has not been kind to us. We have spent 8 days attempting to smooth the rough salt using nearly every possible means, even including a road grader. It is not as smooth as past years, but we think it will be adequate for an event. We encourage each entrant to drive the course and make their own assessment for each vehicle.
Friday, 8/12/05
Good day Friday, pits all set up and both bikes went through tech with no problems. Ed usually has a very easy time at Tech...they know the quality of his bikes which always gets you a little slack on anything "grey area".
Saturday 8/13/05:
The salt is VERY ROUGH! The 5 bikes in line ahead of Steve on 604 all aborted as they were being bounced & shaken off the course. Steve rode it out to the 3 mile and had to pull off due to rough salt. Jerry Hawkins made one run on the Cow Town Shaker with no time and a turn-out.
604 (1000cc APS-BF) and RPM Cycle's 750cc Nitro Racer (750cc APS-PF) piloted by Craig Murray each ran once on the short track. 604 was clocked at 98.613 at the quarter mile point and 106.665 mph at the 1 mile marker. The Nitro Racer aborted its run and turned-out prior to the quarter mile point. Jon Minonno on BoarZilla (1650cc APS-PBF) made one run on the long track. His fastest speed was 191.680 recorded at the 1 mile marker. Jon slowed to 120.969 by the 2 mile point and turned-off the track prior to the 3 mile marker.
Sunday 8/14/05:
They drug the short course Saturday night and it was in very good condition Sunday...for a while. 604 ran twice with top speeds of 139.637 and 140.065 mph. The bike is capable of much more but Steve needs to advance through the licensing requirements with runs of between 125 and 150 mph (accomplished today) and then between 150 and 175 and then between 175 and 200 and then the ultimate, the 200 + mph license. Once they run 175 mph they get a sticker that allows them to run the long or short course.
On Steve's next run the track had badly deteriorated as the loose salt was knocked out of the low, rough spots and became rough again. He had to abort the run with a bad speed wobble.
Craig Murray who also needs to go through the licensing process ran twice with a top speed of 128.548 during his first run. That's fast enough to advance him to the next license of between 150 and 175 mph. I'm sure he can taste a new land speed record. His run today was only 5 mph away from the existing record for his class.
They are in line for Monday runs. Word from Bub is "we're having fun."
Jerry "Hi-Speed" Hawkins had one run on the long track. He ran 170.579 at the one mile mark and 166.239 at the second. He then turned off the track.
Jon Minonno did not race today.
Monday 8/15/05:
Monday was bad & good. The salt was still very rough. After reliably starting before leaving Fort Worth and on the salt, No. 604 would not start at the line for Steve's C License run at ~150 MPH on the short course.
They took it back to the pits and slightly re-configured the ignition. It now starts smoothly with no kick-back. They returned to the course and Steve did a great job, completing his C licensing requirement at 157 MPH. His next run is the B license and the prized 175 MPH sticker.
They have not attempted to run the dual-engine No. 601 due to the extremely poor salt conditions on the long course. Many of the car guys are also not running.
Jerry Hawkins has made two good passes on his big Suzuki. The first, a long course run, "beat him up" so badly he went back to the short course where he hit a large hole and parked the bike, waiting for better conditions.
Jon Minonno broke a wrist pin in the blown-Harley BoarZilla and installed a completely new motor.
The RPM Cycle entry has made a best run of 128 MPH but had piston & ring problems requiring a new top end.
Everyone is ready to run but it is raining this morning (Tuesday) with a very high wind. This could be a good thing if too much rain does not accumulate. This would allow them to re-drag and smooth the courses) and clear weather with a hot sun could dry the surface in a smooth, solid condition.
Tuesday 8/16/05:
There were light rains & wind Tuesday morning that kept the course closed until 11:00 AM, then record qualified bikes & cars in impound made their record attempt runs.
At noon the course was opened for qualifying runs and the boys got in line with No. 604. They were in line until late afternoon when an extremely heavy rain and wind storm hit. The bike was covered and left in line to keep their run slot for Wednesday.
RPM Cycle's Nitro Racer made a run of 115.915 mph. Probably just a short run to seat the new piston rings.
The storm continued into the night and the course is now under water with talk of canceling the meet. They will know more later today.
A comment was made that with the terrible course conditions there have been more spins than records this year. A number of vehicles have been broken or damaged by the rough salt.
Top car time of the meet so far is only 298 MPH, top bike time 221 MPH.
Unfortunately on Sunday one of the car racers was killed when he wrecked at ~250 MPH.
Not a good year so far...
Wednesday 8/17/05:
There wasn't any racing on Wednesday or the rest of the week. The event was cancelled.
Mother Nature delt the death blow after battling hard and rough salt conditions during the course preparations phase. The BNI heard the final death knell from Mother Nature as a major wind and rain storm flooded the salt flats on Tuesday evening. The shortened event netted 14 (8 pending) car records and 11 (9 pending) M/C records and unfortunately 6 qualified vehicles in impound, unable to complete their record runs.
