The August
Club Meeting took place at Al Lamb’s Dallas Honda, and was very well
attended despite the heat. Aside from the many new bikes and Powersports
vehicles in the showroom, Al has an excellent selection of classic and
vintage Honda motorcycles on display.
Chris Parry opened the meeting at 2pm and thanked Al for hosting the
meeting and opening up his dealership for us to look around. Chris then
shared the very sad news of Jay Pope’s passing only the night before.
Jay has been a stalwart and much regarded member of the Club, and our
thoughts are with his wife Shirley and his family. Rest in peace, Jay
and rubber side down!
In other news, Mark Petersen broke his leg in several places about a
month ago! He is on the mend and should recover fully, but he’ll be in
rehab for a while.
Chris then asked Al to speak about the recent trip to Bolivia to attempt
to break 300mph on Big Red on the salt. Al kept the members gripped with
details of the trip where pretty much everything that could go wrong:
from delayed delivery of the shipping containers, from hotel rooms
without heat or too much heat, from cracked intercoolers due to freezing
temperatures in the teens, to broken down support vehicles, dropped
valves, and a lack of ice for the cooling systems. The other teams also
had bad luck including a crash on the first run which meant a Careflight
to the hospital, and then a lengthy search of the salt for FOD to ensure
safe runs for other riders.
Due to heroic attempts by the team, replacing both the engine and the
intercooler - Al did get one run in at nearly 260mph but then time ran
out. They only had six days on the salt, and with the containers being
three days late - there just wasn’t enough time.
We got a great insight into just how heartbreakingly difficult and
dangerous these landspeed attempts are, and also how the different teams
work together and help each other out. It was great stuff!
Chris closed the meeting with a vote of thanks to Al for hosting and
laying on hotdogs and burgers; and also to Steven Webster who acted as
our Grill Master par excellence. Steven also went to Bolivia with Al as
part of the team.
