BUB Motorcycle Speed Trials
Article By: Big Joe Mielke
Photos By: Bart Mitchell, Chris Callen
Originally Published In The December 2012 Issue Of Cycle Source Magazine
The 2006 BUB Speed Trials was my first trip to the Bonneville Salt Flats for landspeed racing. That year and every year since, I have spent at least one week a year racing on the flats with my family and the team at Klock Werks. Up until mid July of this year, racing on the salt was a bit of a question mark for many reasons. I didn’t know if I would be able to attend this year; work, family and other commitments members of the team had would prove to keep them from going. I suppose it was sometime in June when my wife asked if Klock Werks was racing at Bonneville this year. My answer was, ‘I don’t know.’ To that she replied, “If they don’t, I still want to go.” We didn’t know if we could financially afford to race this year, but we started making plans to still make our yearly pilgrimage. We decided that if we couldn’t get motorcycles ready in time, we would work as volunteers during the event. More than the racing itself, the people of Bonneville is the reason we keep going back. It is very much a family atmosphere, so we wanted to make it work if we could. With the decision made, and Sturgis on the horizon, things were very busy at the shop and I didn’t have a lot of time to get two motorcycles ready to race. My first phone call was to my friend Tom Tomsha; he owns a 1993 Yamaha FZR 600 which I pulled from his barn several years ago. I’ve kept it in running over the last 8 years or so and rode it off and on knowing that one day he’d call it back home. I called him just the same to tell him/ask him if I could run it at Bonneville. I explained to him that last year we got everything we could out of our Kawasaki 250 Ninja that my daughter Tiadra races and we were looking to get her on something faster this year. Needless to say my buddy Tom is a great guy and he said, “Do what you need to do, and send me photos!”
Two years ago my wife Michelle raced a Yamaha Road Star Warrior at the BUB event. Due to electrical gremlins, I was unable to have that motorcycle ready to race last year. I even stayed back two extra days trying to get it done while the rest of the team was on the salt racing. Fortunately, we have lots of friends at Bonneville and she was able to race a friend’s (Erin Hunter & Andy Sills) motorcycle last year. But if we were going to have one for her to run this time, I was going to have to get the Warrior running. Now I had my marching orders; I had two motorcycles to prep for racing. We had a family meeting and it was decided to save money on room and board, we’d help out as volunteers. Most of the week my girls would work on the track, and I would make sure their motorcycles were ready for racing. I ended up applying for press credentials in hopes to shoot photos and line up a couple freelance gigs. We figured if I was unable to get either motorcycle ready in time, we’d all have plenty to do as track volunteers. Since I already had the FZR running like a champ, getting it race-ready was going to be relatively simple. I made a few phone calls to some of our sponsors for a few parts, and I raided my change jar to buy some sprockets. When all the parts came in, a solid week of nights in the garage was all I needed to get the FZR completed. The Warrior was going to be a bit more work simply because it had been raced on the salt for three years and I had been dealing with electrical gremlins for a year. Rather than chasing my tail any longer, I chose to remove a lot of the wiring harness that was still relatively stock. With a new harness, I eliminated a bunch of problems but still didn’t have it fixed. I had a sinking feeling that there was a problem with the stock ECU.
The Sturgis rally had come and gone by this point. BUB wasn’t far away and the Warrior wasn’t running. I had been shopping for a replacement ECU off and on since last year. I could buy a new one, but they were around $800. I couldn’t afford to spend that kind of money and possibly not solve the problem. There had been a used one on eBay for months but it was still almost $500. Since the girls were working as volunteers, and BUB was providing us with a hotel room, we needed to be there on time and ready to work. So I put the word out on Facebook and I joined a couple Warrior forums looking for some help. To my surprise, a Facebook friend turned one up right away. The only problem … it was in Sweden. I didn’t have the time or the money to make that one work. I kept trying and found one in AZ. and another in FL. The guy in Florida wanted $100 plus shipping. I gambled and sent him $150 via PayPal so he could ship it second day. I would have it 2 days before we had to leave. Needless to say, my fingers were crossed. The new ECU made it. I swapped it out, tried to start it and it didn’t work! In all of my troubleshooting I had eliminated a bad ground but neglected to replace it. Once I found that, I replaced the ground connection and with the new ECU, the Warrior came back to life. I had rebuilt the top end of the engine two years ago, but had never run it. I had some heat cycling to do, change fluids, tidy up some loose ends and we would be ready to go. By the time it was all said and done, both motorcycles were ready to race, trailer was loaded and we were on the road!
We left Mitchell, SD. on Friday, Aug. 24th. Fast forward 24 hours and we are in Wendover, NV. getting ready to head out to the salt. Since the girls were working, we had to be on there bright and early. During the staff meeting, my girls found out where they would be working. As it turns out, there was a shortage of volunteers this year. Subsequently, both Michelle and Tiadra were given a little more responsibility than they had anticipated. Being that they have both either attended or raced at the BUB event for the last six years, they have a pretty good idea how things work. Tiadra was sent to work mile one of the mountain course and Michelle was in charge of mile five of the mountain course. One and five are the starting lines for the down and return runs of that course. If you set a record on the mountain course, you saw my girls at both ends of the track. Saturday was just a tech inspection day, so everyone’s day was doing final prep work and waiting in line to have their motorcycles and safety gear inspected. 2012 marked the return of S&S to the Bonneville Salt Flats. S&S had a very impressive showing with at least 12 factory sponsored racers. Sunday would be the first day of racing. The salt condition was pretty good, and as riders were getting their legs, some pretty impressive speeds were being made.
As we neared the end of the first race day, a pretty good storm was making its way to the track. I had just told one of the new guys a story of my first electrical storm experience on the salt when my wife’s hair began to stand on end. It was time to leave. The problem was I was 4 miles away from shelter and I was riding a motorcycle. Needless to say I got wet. The storm went almost as fast as it came, but it left a substantial amount of surface water on the salt. The race day was done and we would have to wait until Monday morning to know how the track would be affected. Monday started off bright and early before sunrise once again. The end of the road leading onto the salt flats is affectionately known as the boat ramp and it would live up to that name. The track officials made the decision to postpone racing for the day in order to give the track a chance to dry and hopefully preserve the salt conditions for the remainder of the race week. This “rain day” provided us the opportunity to take in a couple of cave tours. We were fortunate to have a local historian in our midst who took us to Danger Cave and Jukebox Cave. The interesting story about Jukebox Cave is that soldiers stationed at the base in Wendover actually had parties there. They even backpacked water and cement up into the cave so they could pour a concrete dance floor. With the rise of the sun on Tuesday morning, we were greeted with good news. The track condition had improved well enough to race: game on! My days were filled running things back and forth, shooting photos and helping where I could. My biggest responsibility on Wednesday was to get both of our motorcycles through tech inspection so my girls would be ready to run on Thursday. Wednesday also brought a little excitement via the TV show Storage Wars. A large enclosed car hauler pulled in alongside our pits and it turned out to be a carrying a few of Barry Weiss’ motorcycles and a custom pickup truck. The episode they filmed may have aired by the time you read this.
Thursday morning comes it’s race day! Michelle was able to get in two runs that day, but neither of them were really solid runs. We made a sprocket change to try and get in a third run, but we knew we were fighting a fuel delivery issue in the upper RPM range at around 130-135 m.p.h. For Tiadra it would prove to be a day of personal bests. In 2011, she was able to reach a speed of 103 m.p.h. This year she was able to push a basically stock ‘93 Yamaha FZR 600 to 133 m.p.h! She was very excited, and Michelle and I were very proud of her. Friday morning proved to give Michelle her best run of the event. Even though it was not her personal best, it was an improvement over the day before. She was able to hit 139 m.p.h. We fell short of our goal, but it leaves us with a reason to try again. As the old saying goes: If it was easy, everyone would do it. The remainder of Friday the girls were back to working their posts. As the final day of racing came to an end, the hustle and bustle that had been in staging and on the track had now shifted to impound. Teams that had posted speeds fast enough to set a record now had to prove that they accomplished it legitimately. The 2012 Speedtrials by BUB was over and the talk of what we would bring to the table next year had already begun. As I reflect upon this year’s week of racing, I am conflicted. For 6 years my Bonneville experience had included my family at Klock Werks. This year that element was missing, but it did allow my family and I to enjoy a new Bonneville experience. We spent more time in conversation with other teams and with more of the track volunteers. I know I spoke of it before this year, but it came to be even more apparent after this year’s event. The sport of landspeed racing at the Bonneville Salt Flats is less about the records you set and the speeds that you attain. It is far greater than all of that. It is truly about the people you share that experience with. It’s the hugs you give to your wife and daughter as they jump out of their boots excited about the numbers on their time slips.
It’s the anticipation you feel waiting for your buddy from Pittsburgh to make it to the salt. It’s the conversations you have in the pits with Bonneville racing legends; some of those legends have names that are known by people around the world and some are only known by the people on the salt. Each one of them is significant; each one of them makes the entire experience better. Whether your motorcycle is capable of going 200 m.p.h. or 80 m.p.h., everyone is supportive of each other and people get excited when others do well. I think that is true of all motorcycle enthusiasts who ride for the love of motorcycling. It doesn’t matter how new or how old your motorcycle is, it doesn’t matter how much money you spend on a motorcycle, and it doesn’t matter how fast or how loud your motorcycle is, what matter is who you surround yourself with while enjoying the life of a motorcyclist. Motorcycles have connected me to people all across this county and literally around the world. They connect people beyond race, beyond religion and beyond oceans. It’s a wonderful thing. Thank you to Team Klock Werks, my wife Michelle and my daughter Tiadra. You and all of the “Salt People” make me the luckiest kid I know. See you on the Salt!
