Posted by Justin Lorraine on Wed, Sep 08, 2010 @ 01:51 PM
S&S® and Falthead Power® attended the Vintage Motorcycle Races & Swapmeet hosted by the AMCA in Davenport IA September 2nd - September 4th. We debuted the S&S® / Flathead Power® reproduction kicker covers and showed some of our reproduction gear covers, KN rocker arms, breather gear and put out a UL cover casting as a little teaser for things to come. We also had a set of KN heads we borrowed from our friends at WayBack Wheels. Although Thursday was not open to the public and is strictly vendor setup, this was the biggest chance for the vendors to walk around and see what’s what. There were some 820 vendor spots at the Mississippi fair grounds, so the vendors alone made for a busy day on Thursday, and Friday we had a pretty steady flow of traffic. The weather sort of cooperated with us as we didn’t get rained on, but we still had to deal with the mud and high winds that forced us to take down the canopy around noon on Friday.
The kicker covers were well received, comments were mostly directed to the authentic nature of the parts with the markings and casting shape, next was the improvements we made. The gear covers were also a hit, as most people we spoke with didn’t even know we had anything other than our old 4 rib cover available.
If you get the chance, you should attend one of these races, if for no other reason than to see these old bikes literally fly around the track with no suspension and no brakes.
We couldn't get a video of this year but here's one from last year made by Pusherman Racing. (races start at 2:06 in)
Here are a few snapshots of the swapmeet.
Posted by Justin Lorraine on Tue, Aug 31, 2010 @ 02:30 PM
Bonneville Update – Wink Eller's Land Speed Sidecar Goes 178.639 mph!
On Sunday August 8th, Wink Eller set a new land speed record of 178.639 mph with his S&S powered sidecar rig in the SC-PF-3000 class (sidecar pushrod fuel 3000cc). The bike was powered by an S&S TCSA 145" engine, which was assembled and modified by Wink himself. Although the class allows the use of fuel (nitro methane) this engine was running on alcohol.
The first run was clocked at 175.328 and the return run was 181.950 for the two way average of 178.639 mph. That run set the record! On a later run, the fastest clocked speed was 186.999 mph as Wink exited the forth mile running into a headwind, so there is more to be had. Unfortunately, a bearing failure in the clutch basket did enough damage that Wink couldn't continue to race. But there will be other meets! As Wink put it "I cant wait to run the bike at El-Mirage with the big grunt of the S&S 145."
Wink told us that the idea of building the sidecar for the salt, was to develop a vehicle that would allow disabled veterans to race at Bonneville. S&S is proud to provide the power for a great idea like this!