September 15-18 the “KillaJoule” electric streamliner motorcycle with builder Eva Håkansson (me!) as pilot made its debut on the legendary Bonneville Salt Flats. Here is the summary from this memorable event.
Picture: Bill, Eva and KillaJoule. Photo: Michael Cooper.
Well, we kept the rubber side down and the shiny side up. That is the summary of the “World of Speed” on the Bonneville Salt Flats in September, and that was also our main goal. We had difficulty with weight balance (and perhaps wheel alignment) that kept us from making a “clean straight pass” on the fully-sanctioned SCTA track, so no records. We did make several good, but cautiously slow, passes on the USFRA “130 mph Club” track, but those don’t count for official records.
KillaJoule passed the tech inspection with flying colors, which is a big deal. It is far more typical that brand new, scratch built race vehicles don’t pass “tech” and have to go home again without even a chance to run on the race course. Showing up with our tattered, worn out rule book at the tech inspection scored really high. Far too many racers show up without even having read, or even bought the rule book in the first place. One of the tech inspectors actually mentioned afterwards that he noticed was impressed that we had worn out our rule book and confirmed that the back was broken, the pages full of highlights, dog ears, and greasy finger prints.
The inspection itself took more than two and one half hours, and was very very thorough, as is typical for newly constructed vehicles. They scrutinized everything from date stamp on the fire extinguisher to the quality of the welds. Talking about fire extinguisher – we have to have 11 lbs of Halotron onboard, and we don’t even have any fuel! It was a big accomplishment to pass this rigorous safety inspection this first time through.
Eva’s fire suit (required for all streamliner drivers) would be approved for a top fuel dragster – it is a five layer Nomex® suit and it makes me look like a space man. It is warmer than a ski suit and doesn’t breathe at all – it is like wearing a rubber suit. We did some test runs outside the track, and when we stopped Mike Willmon thought something was on fire because smoke came out of the driver’s compartment. It wasn’t smoke – it was steam from me sweating… 😉
Kent Singleton, Utah Salt Flats Racing Association, Mike Willmon, president of National Electric Drag Racing Association and Chester Reed, a local retired mechanical engineer, were our awesome “pick-up” pit crew. “Pick-up” meaning that they didn’t come with us, they just happened to be there at the event and opted to help us. No offense intended to other crew members, but it was the best crew we ever had! They not only read our minds; they were one step ahead of us all the time!
We know exactly what modifications we have to make for the next LSR attempt. Nothing too radical or expensive is needed. The drive system, electrical system, brake, and everything else worked perfectly, so no changes are needed there.
The Vincent “Black Lightning” motorcycle streamliner team was extremely helpful and gave us the advice and insider tips we needed. They told us that we need to increase the mechanical advantage on our steering to reduce the force the driver must use and help with the “light touch” needed to hold a streamliner on the balance point.
We also plan to stretch the driver’s compartment 12 inches to allow another, experienced driver, other than just Eva, to take the KillaJoule for a test run. The way it was at this first event, we could not have an experienced driver tell us what might need to change in the steering, etc. because a test ride was impossible. The Vincent team also told us in detail how to balance and align a streamliner motorcycle correctly. It is not difficult, once someone tells you how, but there is no “book” so you must find someone that has done it and ask.
The big change we will make is to add a removable “side car” wheel. We are allowed to add a sidecar wheel under the rules, and it will make the streamliner balance issues vanish. If we get it to balance without the wheel, it would be great, but wheel allows us to set a record even if we don’t manage to fully master the balancing issues. We can get the bike running fast on the track for sure with the added sidecar wheel and that is our main goal.
We will make the next attempt at the El Mirage dry lake either in November or in May 2011 when the season starts again. The Bonneville season is already over, August through October is the only time a year when the salt is dry enough to race on. Since we run the entire KillaCycle Racing program – including ElectroCat in Hill Climb, KillaCycle in drag racing and KillaJoule in land speed – on Bill’s very modest governmental salary, it is mostly a budget decision where to race. We joke that we aren’t a shoestring budget team – we can’t even afford shoestrings, but the fact is that our annual budget is what a professional team spends in a weekend.
Anyway, we loved the “World of Speed” event and with very few exceptions all the people were wonderful. We definitely have salt fever – we’ll be back!
Eva & Bill
P.S. Plenty of photos in our Facebook album – see link below. You don’t have to be a Facebook member to view them. Also worth checking out is Rocky Robinson’s website – Rocky just set a new world record for motorcycles – 376 mph (602 km/h). Rocky is a prince of a guy and has helped us with very valuable advice during the build of KillaJoule.
Interesting links:
Photos of KillaJoule from World of Speed: www.Facebook.com/killacycle
The beautiful Vincent “Black Lightning” streamliner that also was at Bonneville: www.vincentstreamliner.com
Rocky Robinson and AckAttack that just set a new world record for motorcycles – 376.363 mph (602 km/h): http://www.rocky-robinson.com/
Southern California Racing Association (the sanctioning body for World of Speed): www.scta-bni.org
Utah Salt Flats Racing Association www.saltflats.com