Women On The Salt, Jet Engine In The Car - April 25 (2)

Wednesday, April 25

In the hangar next to the Stearman, Kenny Lyons wrenches on his land speed record motorcycles. He's been at it since forever, and I see four bikes and a streamliner shell. Two of them six-cylinder GoldWings - one retired and the one with a sidecar setup still in business - and a blown 500 cc Triumph that even has done 250 cc runs with one cylinder unused. The fourth bike is a twin engined Harley shovelhead beast with water jackets on the cylinders. It looks shite and purposeful at the same time.

Setting Bonneville records is as much about going fast, as it is about finding a class with not too much competition. This may be one reason Kenny finds women riders and mounts a third wheel to his much lengthened contraption. Finding a crew of volunteers that can take a week off to go on the salt is hard work too.

The gentleman sitting on my bike in yesterday's entry set me up to meet Randy at Rock'n'roll Customs Paint, a shop doing all sorts of paint jobs on dressers, chopper and hotrods. Going through another 100+ traffic lights is none too tempting, so against my hosts' advice I enter the freeway. It works fine, though, in part because there's a lot of traffic slowing things down to a reasonable level, and in part because I can legally ride between lanes when things come to a standstill.

At R'nR the most interesting vehicle on display is a probably 10 meters long, low car, which has six wheels and a friggin' jet engine off a Russian MiG fighter aircraft. "4 seconds" says Randy, who used to drive it. Then I'm detouring my way through out to the coast, stop briefly at Mother's and ride home.

Most paint jobs at R'n'R are the usual flames, but some like a more poetic style.

Sign in parking lot outside a Home Depot store. There were more of these than there were parking spaces for the handicapped.

Andy and his 'real deal' 1970s chopper, outside Mother's, the bar we rode to a few days ago.