When Chris Rivas makes the long trip from his Florida home to Utah to compete at this year’s world-famous Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trials, scheduled to run from 23-28 August, he will have four-hundred very good reasons for his epic journey.
Once strapped into the cockpit of the BUB Seven Streamliner, the fifty-seven-year-old will attempt to pilot the 2997cc, turbo-charged V-four to a mind-boggling four-hundred miles per hour (643.738km/h) and in the process set a new FIM-accredited outright Land Speed World Record for a motorcycle.
The current record of 376.156mph (605.697km/h) was set by Rocky Robinson on a Suzuki Hayabusa 2600 at Bonneville in 2010 and Rivas – racing the machine designed and built by Land Speed legend Denis Manning – does not simply want to beat this figure, he wants to obliterate it.
“Everybody’s looking for four-hundred miles per hour,” he says in a calm, matter-of-fact way. “It’s about the accomplishment of doing something no-one else has done.”
Manning and his BUB Seven Streamliner have held the record on two previous occasions with Chris Carr at the controls, first in 2006 and again in 2009 with the latter attempt extending the record to 367.382mph (591.244km/h) which stood for three-hundred-and-sixty-six days before Robinson regained it.
A former Drag Racing champion, Rivas – whose daughter, Cayla, also holds multiple records – is no stranger to high speeds and is famed for his work with Harley-Davidsons having built a successful business around producing high-performance engine parts for the iconic American manufacturer. His ability to walk the walk as well as talk the talk is well documented and he holds a number of National records, including setting a landmark two-hundred-and-forty-four miles per hour (392.68km/h) on a Harley-Davidson Dyna Glide.
Cayla Rivas at Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trials © Jean Turner “I grew up in an all-American house where we worked on a lot of hot-rods and had old cars and I had an uncle who was really big into Harley-Davidsons. It was always very intriguing to me and then I found out that you could go faster on a motorcycle for less money than you could a car. I bought my first Harley-Davidson in 1992 – just a cheap little Sportster – and I started tweaking on it and moving things around, trying to make it as fast as I possibly could.
“After owning it for a year I took it to a quarter-mile [Drag Racing] track and found out I could go in the twelve-second range [around one-hundred-and-ten miles per hour] very consistently. I had been faster in cars, but those cars we had spent thousands and thousands of dollars on while the motorcycle needed just a few little tweaks. So I did a little bit more to it and got down to the eleven-second range, then the tens and then the nines.
“The last time I was down the quarter-mile on a motorcycle it was 6.9 seconds and one-hundred-and-ninety-two miles per hour so I progressed all the way to that level and I pretty much finished at the very top of the game.”
While Drag Racing and Land Speed are linked by the ultimate quest for speed, Rivas is quick to point out how the different disciplines call for different machinery with Land Speed motorcycles carrying more weight on narrower tyres with the chassis designed to allow for air to circulate around the distinctive ‘torpedo’ bodywork.
“At Bonneville there’s definitely such a thing as too much horsepower. In Drag Racing you basically pin the throttle all the way and never let up until the end, at Bonneville you have to constantly play with the throttle to make sure the traction stays consistent. Coming from Drag Racing it was a steep learning curve and I had to learn to ride the motorcycle differently.”
Even at one-hundred-and-seventy centimetres tall and weighing just over seventy-seven kilograms, the cockpit of the BUB Seven Streamliner is a tight fit for Rivas, although at least the riding position is similar to Drag Racing.
“I barely fit in it. You’re more laying all the way back in the seat with your feet forward in a very reclined position. You have a seven-point harness with a fire suit. To me it’s probably the safest form of racing I’ve done.”
The Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trials are scheduled to take place this year between 23-28 August.
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