New Guzzi Land Speed Record Team Needs Your Help

[Mike Stewart]

Hello Guzzist,

 

Bill Ross in Sunny San Diego California is building up a Moto Guzzi land speed bike. His hopes is to take back the Land Speed Record from the Buell/Harley crowd. His job is going to be a tough one, the 1000cc pushrod V Twin record is a very high 169.2 mph.

 

He is working hard with his team collecting parts and cash donations to get the bike (Mandello Meteor) up and running for the 2007 season.

 

Here is an article that was sent to MGNOC:

 

Hi Frank,

 

I wanted to share with you and the other Moto Guzzi club members ,that there will be a Moto Guzzi powered attempt at a world land speed record in 2007. Team Subtle Crowbar is building a land speed racer based upon a 1987 Lemans SE . Our goal is to compete with it at the Bonneville Salt Flats in September of 2007. The bike, named the ` Mandello Meteor `will run in the 1000cc Modified Partial Streamlined Pushrod Gas class. The record for that class is held by a highly modified Harley powered Buell XB9 and now stands at 169.2 mph.

This will be a challenging endeavor, especially at the high elevation of Bonneville. We plan to meet this challenge with extensive top end work and a lot of attention to aerodynamics with the special support of Kent Riches at Airtech Streamlining.

 

The team at this time consists of myself, Bill Ross, Canadian Fred Ghyselincks, Texan Tony Statz, and Eric Hjeltness, Mark Seibert, and Steve Perry also from San Diego County. Steve is a fellow firefighter and put our website together. There are now four firefighters on this team.

We have had had the help of many friends with the donations of parts and cash and would like to thank the following people: John Althaus, Mark Etheridge, Tony Statz, Mike and Janice Stewart, BJ Swartz, Tom Short, Eric Hjeltness, Peter McGrath, David Wilson, Scott Brown, David Knetzer, and Steve Perry for the web space and design.

 

The following businesses have been very supportive and provided partial sponsorships with either donations or reduced prices for parts and services : Phil Wyatt, Airtech Streamlining, Mike Rich Motorsports,

MDR Dynamics, MPH Cycles, MG Cycle, Web Cam,

Carrillo Racing Rods, Euro MotoElectrics and Moto Guzzi Classics

 

If any individuals or businesses would like to get involved we can really use more help. At this point, the bike is completely apart, many parts have been ordered or are in the modification stages and there are many more parts needed. Anyone interested can contact me or visit our website for more specific information at:

www.teamsubtlecrowbar.pitpilot.com

 

The website will be periodically updated with status, photos, results, and changes in needs, sponsors etc. We hope to soon offer team t-shirts to help raise funds for the Mandello Meteor. No funds will be used for travel, lodging, food or drinks, only for the bike and parts.

 

Any folks that would be interested in coming to Bonneville are warmly encouraged to attend and enjoy the comraderie with us. We plan to pit with Tom Liberatore of The Pepperoni Brothers who will be racing their V7 Sport and currently are the only Guzzi to hold a Bonneville record I believe. It would be nice to see some Guzzisti there, maybe even coax Sidney Conn and friends to make the trek west ?

 

At this time there are several scheduled Bonneville events for the Fall of 2007:

 

Speed Week: August 11-17

 

Bub Motorcycles Only: September 2-6

 

World Finals: October 3-6

 

USFRA World of Speed: ` to be announced `

 

 

At this point we have not decided which events we will attend, but probably the Bub event in September and maybe the USFRA or World Finals depending on the many factors: jobs, family, school, team members,

personal finances etc etc…..

 

Again, we really appreciate the support we have been given , and any that may be forthwithcoming. You all are invited to attend, and if anyone has questions, suggestions, ideas, parts etc , please feel free to contact us.

 

Ciao !

 

Bill Ross

Team Subtle Crowbar

1143 Thomas Way

Escondido, Ca. 92027

Ph. 760-489-7794

Email: teamsubtlecrowbar@pitpilot.com

Website: www.teamsubtlecrowbar.pitpilot.com

 

 

Please visit his web site to see what parts he still needs,

 

Thanks,

Mike Stewart

[Daniel Kalal]

Hello Guzzist,

...

Thanks,

Mike Stewart

 

Mike,

Could you give us a re-cap of what happened between the time (several years back) that the Cooked Goose team took the record and now? Who did what, and what were the speeds recorded and what are the classes...

[Mike Stewart]

The Land Speed record stuff is all new to me, so I would be little help of knowing the classes for the bikes.

 

I knew the Cook Goose team held the LSR for the last few years for the air cooled pushrod V twin class and did not know that their record had be taken. Bill Ross had emailed me with his attempt to put Guzzi back in the #1 spot.

 

The class he is in will be: 1000cc Modified Partial Streamlined Pushrod Gas class. The record for that class is held by a highly modified Harley powered Buell XB9 and now stands at 169.2 mph.

 

With alot of work to do, he is aiming to run the bike in the later part of the year. Should be an exciting ride!

 

Mike

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike,

Could you give us a re-cap of what happened between the time (several years back) that the Cooked Goose team took the record and now? Who did what, and what were the speeds recorded and what are the classes...

[Daniel Kalal]

...with alot of work to do...

 

this is the site of the old cooked goose effort. It's old, but there might be something there to help the new team avoid having to re-inventing the wheel...

 

Cooked Goose

[dlaing]

Aaaaargh!

Technical problems postpone the endeavor.

Discussion here:

http://socal-guzzi.com/PHPBB/viewtopic.php...&highlight=

[DeBenGuzzi]

I thought the record would be higher, My aprilia can do 180, I know thats not apples to apples as its liquid cooled but its still a twin

[JoeV11]

Being air cooled and using pushrods are somewhat limiting, besides being an old fashioned head design. In the similar 2000 cc class the record was just set by a highly modified panhead harley at 162 mph using nitrous. I think there isn't a lot of interest in those classes so the records don't get set often.

 

 

 

Special Construction, fuel, pushrod, 2000cc, partial streamline.

 

I'd like to see what a Guzzi motor could do in a frame like that.

[dlaing]

I thought the record would be higher, My aprilia can do 180, I know thats not apples to apples as its liquid cooled but its still a twin

I think the class limits the bikes by cooling method, use of push rods, displacement, number of cylinders, number of valves, amount of fairing, and there are a bunch of other rules. Could be a vintage class, too.

Your bike has the advantage of overhead cams, liquid cooling and multi-valves, so it would not make the class due to at least three reasons.

In stock configuration, I'll bet your bike would be lucky to break 175MPH at Bonneville.

But it probably would not take much to have it break 180mph.

[DeBenGuzzi]

I think the class limits the bikes by cooling method, use of push rods, displacement, number of cylinders, number of valves, amount of fairing, and there are a bunch of other rules. Could be a vintage class, too.

Your bike has the advantage of overhead cams, liquid cooling and multi-valves, so it would not make the class due to at least three reasons.

In stock configuration, I'll bet your bike would be lucky to break 175MPH at Bonneville.

But it probably would not take much to have it break 180mph.

I've seen 2 bone stock Apes with vmax at 178 and one at 179. so 180 with a tail wind is possible I knew there were limitations but with nitrious and body kits, I just thought we'd be talking in the 190's not the 160's I'd like to see a guzzi blow that away, might need a chain to get that high.

[Skeeve]

I thought the record would be higher, My aprilia can do 180, I know thats not apples to apples as its liquid cooled but its still a twin

 

Is that 180 indicated, or did you have someone w/ a calibrated radar gun clock you? I'm guessing the former; standard speedometers aren't to be trusted up that high! As a fer instance, my SV650 reads a somewhat "normal" 6% high: that's 3mph faster at 50, >6mph faster at 100mph [this is why 'DOD nominal' is 110mph, btw], and the error goes UP the faster you go, so by the time the bike is bouncing off the rev-limiter in 6th at close to sea level, indicating 140, it's only doing 129 or so.

 

No insult to your 'Priller, but I kinda doubt its aerodynamics are as clean as the Honda Blackbird, the SuziQ Hayabusa or the Kwakker ZX12, all of which had a more or less difficult time doing 180-190mph [yes, the electronic governor has some to do w/ that] and they're pumping many more ponies than any twin of similar displacement; that's just the nature of the multi-cylinder engines they utilize. So chances are, that 180 indicated is more likely down around 160 or so. And it would be even less at Bonneville, where the altitude thins the air sufficient to rob something like 10% of the sea-level output right off the top, before adding in such diverse factors as the poor coupling [traction] afforded by the salt, etc.

 

Ride on,