been awhile, but i'm still here.
lots of water under the bridge since i last posted, and to get my feet wet again i'll talk about something a bit different from the usual quaker blog-- Land Speed Motorcycle Racing.
land speed racing is a passion i've had all my life, and only in the last several years have i actualized it into something real. in LSR, you take a machine-- any kind, any configuration-- and you build it into something that goes as fast as you can make it go. then you take the machine to a track, perhaps a salt flat, a dry lake, an old airport runway, and you fly it down the line.
there's nobody else on the track with you, there's nobody waiting with money if you accomplish anything significant, and there's nothing to gain in recognition except among a half-dozen people world-wide who pay fierce attention to what you do.
sort of an internal landscape, if you will. quakerism turned into a racing machine.
my own journey has been amongst the ancients. i race a motorcycle first built over fifty years ago: a triumph bonneville. this motorcycle first saw the light of day under that name in 1959, and the machine i ride is a 1965 vintage, sort of:
it started a bit sparse a few years ago, but i quickly added a motor:
and various internal components:
this 50-year-old machine ran 110 miles per hour earlier this year, until a magneto rotor broke. i have since rebuilt the faulty components, and towards the end of september this year will take it back to the track and see where we are.
to be competitive i have to look for 130 miles per hour. not a lot, by modern standards, but then i'll be riding a vehicle designed in the 1930s, with only minor concessions to the progression of the twentieth century.
we'll see how it will do.
and welcome back, folks.
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