The Kawasaki Mean Streak was ready to roll this week, but had to wait a few days for the Salt Flats to dry out after a light rain last week.
The
Sherm's Cycle Products/MotorcycleUSA Kawasaki Mean Streak project bike successfully kicked ass at the BUB Speed Trials that came to a close today. We set a new AMA Land Speed record for the Metric Cruiser/Production/Gas class.
BUB officials were forced to postpone any running on the fragile surface earlier this week due to rain that fell on the Bonneville Salt Flats a week ago. Riders and bikes were forced to wait while the surface dried enough to accommodate high-speed runs. By Wednesday, the surface dried enough for many riders to take a few passes on the Salt Flats.
Sherm's own Butch Cook took the Mean Streak out at approximately 5:05 pm and pushed it to 125.1 mph, despite a light layer of wet salt on the surface that caused some tire spin. The second run was 123.8 mph for an average speed of 124.4 mph over the two runs.
While it was a little less than what we expected from the lightly modified Mean Streak, the boys at Sherm's were expecting more the following day.
The conditions did, in fact, improve on Thursday. It took a while for the Mean Streak to get its turn, but it didn't disappoint when it did. Cook pushed the MS to a whopping 138.96 mph. But there was confusion in the pits when it was announced that our bike ran 183 mph! Obviously, there was speculation of cheating, but the timing officials sorted out the problem and it was announced that we ran 138.6 mph through the speed trap.
However, Bonneville rules require speeds to be backed up with a second run, and the official speed becomes the average of the two. But because of the shortened amount of track time due to the wet surface at Bonneville, the lines to re-enter the track were especially long. Four hours later, the course was closed for the day without us getting a chance to back up our fast run.
But we got redemption on the next day when Cook blasted across the salt with an average of 126.809 mph, a new AMA record! We have to wait for 30 days to see if anyone will contest the new record, and at that point if no one disputes the run, Sherm's Cycle Center and MotorcycleUSA will be the current land-speed record holders for the Production/Gas metric V-Twin cruiser class.
We're proud of the efforts put in by everyone involved, especially Kawasaki who has let us develop their Mean Streak into a speed record holder.
Stay tuned for a full report on our time at Bonneville next week.
SCP Owner, Steve Lacewell would like to thank the following people/companies:
Kawasaki USA
MotorcycleUSA.com
Butch Cook - Rider
Rych Racing - Porting, Top-end - North Bend, 541-756-8719
Action Machine - Frame - Coos Bay , 541-271-0839
Webster Machine - Coos bay
