IRONWIGWAM and JJ'ers at Bonneville Salt Flats. A report

[octane98]

Some of you might have read about JJ'er Ironwigwams
INDIAN powered Land Speed Record Streamliner
the DREAMCATCHER:
CLICK

here on the board.

Well , a bunch of guys decided to come help
Rocky making his dream come through,
and thanks to this board I came in contact with him,
and he invited me to join.

It's not every day that you are invited to
come join a team of guys with a dream
of setting a Land Speed Record in an Indian stream-liner
..is it?!

So first of all a big big thanks to Rocky for letting me in.
I'm truly honored to have been part of this effort.
Rocky: you're the salt of the earth !!!

A bunch of guys from all over the United States of Motorcycling
decided to come join in, and bike-builder Chris flew in from the UK
and flew in from Copenhagen, Denmark.

Let me tell you; from the bottom of my heart;
those guys are THE coolest guys
you can possible imagine. Period.

Her they are:



From the Jockey Journal;
from the left: (arrow'ed) Lyle alias '"CREEPINOGIE", the great Rocky alias "IRONWIGWAM", yours truly alias "OCTANE98",
Bob alias "FOE"...and on my right 'Crusty'
who opened his house in nearby Wendover
and let everyone stay in his house and in his backyard
drinking his coffee, using his bathroom
and generally fool around for the entire period.
WHAT a guy!

Thank you guys, all of you
it was a pleasure and an honour working with you.
10-12 guys working at the same time on around the bike,
and no one ever raised their voice, complained, made any fuss,
...no sir; everyone just got down to business;
getting this thing ready, working from dusk till dawn
for 3-4 days straigth
pulling the engine... open the crankcase..fixing it..
making and working the engine mounts..fixing
a billion wires..fixing the 'landing wheels' system
..the parashutes and release system...the steering gear
...the clutch and the master cylinder and mounting plate
..and a billion small and big issues.

The camp:




Everyone working hard:




Rocky (on the left) working the engine:




Bonnevile IS a magical place:

[octane98]

A shitload of wires to fix.
Electrical gear-shift (except for first gear)
Security lamps for parashutes an 'landing wheels
magneto shut-off
and a bunch of other stuff




WHAT a contraption




Lyle "CREEPINOGIE" who was supposed to pilot
the darn thing, tryes it out for size.
He's got a LOT of balls !!!...to want to do that.




Crusty working on the engine




Finally yesterday it was ready for tech inspection,
but the sad thing was that on Tuesday a guy
got killed running a streamliner on the flats
doing around 200 m/h, so security was stepped up dramatically
and even though the Dreamcatcher was living up to
(more or less) the rules and regulations (of which
there is a shitload) they came up with a bunch
of rules and demands that was not in the book
and there was no way we could live up to them
and get it ready to run.
DARN!...but everyone took it in great style
and hell; we'll be back next year

Shit; I never had so much fun with my clothes on before.
A magical place, and working with a bunck
of the coolest guys that I had never meet before in my life.

Stuff that dreams are made of.

Thanks Rocky!...thanks guys!
.



PS: a shitload of pics the coolest bike
on the flat coming your way soon.
Right now I'm on a slow line in a motel
in Wendover

In the meantime
Here's a video of the camp:

[nofiron]

Looks like fun, to bad they wouldn't let it launch. Sorry that other bike crashed, that's the real tragedy.

[octane98]

From an electrical-engined bike


to a streamliner with two supercharged Vincent engines


and everything in between

[octane98]

[octane98]

[octane98]

...loads more to come later.

[YETI CUSTOMS]

I will be there next year,all these pictures are killing me, oh well just under a year to go and yea get those pics up.

[octane98]

John Deere mini-tractor engine'd:

[octane98]

[not45blesk]

Awesome!!!!

[Frosty]

octane98,Thanks for the pitures.The salt is addicting...

[TR6]

Thanks , That was great!!!!!!

[Twig]

Wow what an experience, It's a dream many will only dream about. Thank you for taking the time to post all you have. Much enjoyed. A good mate of mine was over there from Australia I got him to bring me back some salt. He was a little shady bringing it through customs as he does look like a bit of a drug mule. hahah. One day I hope to get there myself.

I'd like to think the guy died doing what he loved......you hope so anyway.

How cool is it that the JJ helped bring all these like mined people together to accomplish something of this magnitude.

[Creepinogie]

Lars, it was a real pleasure meeting you too. And your expert help was much needed. What Lars didn't say was that 2-3 of us were back at Crusty's house for the better part of 3 days taking the heads off and replacing the head gaskets on Rocky's 460 engine in the bus. We needed a set of gasket's on labor day while still on the road and Kiwi-Mike took some detours on his way back from the Davenport meet to get us the gaskets. It took 3 days of taking the head and manifold off and scraping and putting it all back together. We took care of the water comsumption problem but it's still overheating even with a new thermostat and leaving the thermostat out. The latest I heard is Rocky is in Iowa about halfway home. I'm confident he'll make it back as long as he is careful. Here's a photo of Lars riding Neil's 45 on the salt:

[FOE]

Lars!!! Great pictures! Did you make it to the races at Miller Motorsports park?
Had a great time, good to meet everyone. Creepin, always good to see you, ya Jammy Git.

[Creepinogie]

It was almost surreal with some of the things going on. Landshark and I drove out there with our Chief's in the back of my truck. The 2nd day on the road he got a call that his next door neighbor's garage was torched. Then the broke tooth and emergency dental visit. And how in the world can one meet up with 3 guys from Minnesota, invite them to join our crew ( I knew they'd be good being from Minnnesota) and have one of them turn out to be a parachute expert. Those 3 guys from the Blind Lizards saved our ass more than once. Somehow everything fell into place. And I cannot express enough thanks to Crusty's wife for letting 12 dirtballs take over her house. And to Kiwi-Mike for helping us out more than once and borrowing us the pinion gear puller while helping Rocky and Crusty clearance the cases for Rocky's special rods.

[YETI CUSTOMS]

That krtt just reminded me that there is one on www.trademe.co.nz item #173482403 starting bid $60.000 nz or about $39.000 us dollars.The guy who owns it raced against burt munro in the day.

[thecary]

god, that's so awesome. how cool was it just to ride a bike on the flat, not even to race it?

[Chris B.]

fabulous thread~