What do you do when an ancient lake recedes over the course of thousands of years, leaving nothing but rigid, desolate, crystalline aggregate, salt deposits for 159-square-miles? If your answer involves anything that deals with environmental studies, this story is not for you. Because when you come face to face with nine miles of smooth racing surfaces like this, the only thing that should go through your mind is SPEED.

The Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah have attracted racers since the late 1800s, and throughout the 1900s, numerous speed records have been set and broken on the barren landscape. On the week of September 6-10, BUB Enterprises will continue the tradition with their International Motorcycle Speed Trials.

Hundreds of competitors will gather on these hallowed grounds to push their motorcycles to the limit in one of a number of different classes. Everything from juiced-up metric cruisers and American V-Twins to the ultimate land-speed motorcycles, the streamliners, will be on hand and competing for top-honors in the ultimate top-speed showdown. With all of this talk of raw speed being thrown around, MotorcycleUSA had to get into the mix, but probably not in the way you might expect.

Remember our friendly little metric cruiser showdown between our Mean Streak project bike and the Sherms Cycle Products Mean Streak? Well, after a year of talking about how fast we could make a metric go, they suggested we team up and make a run at becoming the fastest metric-cruiser in the 2004 Speed Trials by BUB. Of course, we jumped at the chance join our neighbors at giving our 2002 Kawasaki Mean Streak a diet and injecting it with some serious horespower.

The techs at Sherms have big plans for the 1,470cc cruiser, and even greater expectations. Although we can reveal some of the secrets that will hopefully make our bike blow away the competition, you'll have to wait until the medals are handed out and the bragging begins to find out the most covert alterations.

First, let's take a look at the heart of our team; Sherms Cycle Products of Reedsport, Ore. Sherms was established in 1987 as an accessories and repair shop, and throughout the 1990s, the business was often found on the road participating in every motorcycle rally they could get to in order to market their products. At the time, their primary-focus was on selling and setting up specialized trailers meant to be pulled behind the bikes. In 1998, Steve Lacewell bought Sherms and started selling specialized performance parts for metric cruisers, and before too long spawned a whole crop of aftermarket accessories. The outfit mainly works on Honda VTXs and Kawasaki Vulcans, but the shop supports the entire metric industry including Yamahas and Suzuki.

Over the past couple of years, Sherms has continued to improve their products through a steady process of redesigning existing components and making prototypes for new ones.

"As a bike model changes and graduates to the next step, to the next year, and next model, we will change our adaptors to meet its needs and keep it universal," Lacewell points out. "We constantly critique our own product. We don't put something out and say 'that's good.' Our product research is continual."

Guy Mobbley, Sherms motor technician, will also be heavily involved with our Mean Streak project. For these two motorcycle enthusiasts the goal is simple. They plan on beefing up the Kawasaki with technology other builders couldn't even dream of, all while staying within the parameters of the rules.

So what are the rules? They vary depending on who you talk to. As it is now, BUB is still fine-tuning the details.

"It's a typical racing situation. Here we are, we're ready to go, and we're waiting on the paperwork," Mobbley says. "I'm reluctant to make changes until I find out exactly what's going on because if I make a certain change and it puts us in a different category then I'm not happy. I want us to be in a category that we can compete in."

More than likely, the MCUSA/Sherms Mean Streak will compete for the AMA speed title in the V-Twin Metric Class, which includes bikes with motor sizes from 1351cc to 1650cc. Thus far we have determined the first thing that must remain unchanged on the bike is the chassis. Builders can't make any changes to the frame itself, which is fine by us. The rock-solid Mean Streak platform seems like an excellent choice for this venture. The second item that can't be tweaked is the gearing. The gears must stay the same, but builders can use a higher profile tire. And the third aspect that will be highly monitored is what type of fueling system is used on the bikes. What ever comes stock on the motorcycle has to remain on the machine.

"If the bike came out with fuel injection, it's got to have fuel injection to run," Mobbley explains.

Now that we've thrown out the list of the cannots, check back in June for more updates to the MCUSA-SCP Mean Streak Project and what can be done to make our bike scream as we prepare for the 2004 International Motorcycle Speed Trials by Bub.

If you are interested in being involved with the project then please visit Sherms Cycle Products on-line and show your support by buying a 2004 Speed Trials limited-edition commemorative patch and certificate of sponsorship for only $10.


Are we crazy? Tell us what you think about the Bonneville Project in the MCUSA Forum. Click Here