Monday, October 17, 2016

A sheep in wolf's clothing

I have owned a good running drag bike for over six years and never taken it to a drag strip. Shit, I ant even ridden it in six years. There is a simple explanation for this: It is the opposite of a sleeper. It is a sheep in wolf's clothing. It came to be my bike because it was sitting in a friend's back yard getting destroyed by the weather. After much hackling he finally relinquished it to me on the condition that I operate it in the land speed trials out at the bonneville salt falts. I had a few months to get the engine-less pro level drag bike ready. Step one was enter the BUB speed week- $350. Step two was borrow (with-out returning) an engine from an unsuspecting 1979 GS1000 left to rot in the bone yard at the shop I worked at. Step three was miraculously shoe horning the old air cooled hunk into the ZX frame. I ended up welding the rear motor mount with the engine in place. All I did was rebuild the carbs and on the salt I kept hogging out the main jets until I realized the fuel supply line was doing the starving. So I chopped the stock head pipes a few inches at a time increasing my top speed to 140mph. The pro chassis at that speed is a lot like strolling down the empty parkway at 25mph. It has sat for the last six years while I have blabbed on about bolting a cheap turbo set up on or something that would make it exciting to ride. And then my horsepower loving burn out, belching beloved, hot rodder wife finally inspired me to take it to the drag strip yesterday. The most difficult part of race prepping it was getting it off the ground enough to fit an oil pan under neath of it and get to the salt crusted drain plug. I was happy to check off another form of motorcycle competition. But as I feared, I was slow as porridge on my first run. So, I took off the 18 tooth counter shaft sprocket and replaced it with an eleven toother. I dropped a few seconds but I was still getting my doors blown off by machismo run what ya brung teenagers wearing nike air jordans piloting gsxr600s with ground effect lighting. In staging a little kid looking for somebody to look up to complemented my bike. He was enamored when I told him I put it together for a few hundred dollars. Then He asked me what it did the 1/4 mile in. After telling him he looked like I had just shit in his captain crunch. He quickly walked away with out even any sympathy. On my next run I got my socks knocked off by a dodge neon. My wife called me a slow bastard and said If I did not break into triple digit speed she was going to go home with the ford fairlane driver who could do 100ft wheelies. I knew all I could do was at the least a crowd winning burn out. And that was pretty fun. Because there are only a few things that drive me crazy and two of them are the sound of screeching women and the smell of burning rubber. Ride on.

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