One if by Land, Two if by Sea

I've always dreamed of going to Bonneville, both as a spectator and as a competitor. If you've seen the movies On Any Sunday or The World's Fastest Indian, you know the attraction. Go as fast as you can for one mile. I remember when I was in high school reading about George Roeder, Cal Rayborn, and for many years after, Don Vesco, racing at the salt flats. George Roeder set the land speed record for a 250 cc motorcycle at over 150 miles per hour. This was with a pushrod Sprint motor back in the 60's, as I recall. As the owner of several Sprints over the years, I can tell you with some authority, that's pretty damn impressive. Vesco built several streamliners and the Vesco brothers website has a film clip that allows you to ride along on a 450 mile per hour ride. Even though Don has passed away, there will be a Vesco streamliner back at Bonneville next year. The website says they are looking for people to partner up with. Man, I wish I could get involved with that deal.

Besides Bonneville and the Southern California Timing Association, there's also an East Coast Timing Association. The East Coast Timing Association has five events scheduled for 2009. Instead of a flying mile, they run a standing start mile and because I'm hot and heavy into the building mode, I'm thinking of what it is I should tackle next. I have a Sprint/Aermacchi motor and a frame that's a little tweaked due to a get-off at Daytona. I'm thinking it wouldn't take a lot to make it a lowboy frame and maybe even add a sidecar wheel to it. Both sanctioning bodies have classes for just about anything you want to run. It's not too difficult to get to North Carolina from Indiana and if that works out, the next step could be Bonneville.

The other idea I'm kicking around is to build myself a wooden boat. I've had this idea on the back burner for many a year now. Wooden Boat magazine ran a three part series (after talking about going to North Carolina, that would be pronounced cee-rees) back in 1999, on how to build the Martin skiff. It's a nice little rowing craft that's 13' long. It's lapstrake construction with a plywood bottom. Lapstrake boats have the side planks overlapping one another and are fastened with copper nails. When I built the cradle boat for my grandson, it was that type of construction. It makes a beautiful and traditional style of boat. I was able to build the grandson's without too much difficulty, even though I make absolutely no claim as to being a woodworker. One of the nice things about being a craftsman, though, there is a lot of carry over of skills. Visualizing the finished product, sequence of operations, layout and measuring - it's all pretty much the same regardless of the medium you work in.

So all I need to do now is keep making progress on the midget and the 900. If things go smoothly, I'll build a boat or another motorcycle. Stay tuned.