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Salt, speed and success at Bonneville

BMW Motorrad USA's first national XPLOR rally of the year took place at BUB’s Speed Trials early on in September at the iconic Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. More than 250 BMW riders participated in the first BMW XPLOR Bonneville Rally, arriving from various points in the country with some riding all the way from Virginia and New York (over 3,200 kilometres) to join the party, participate in the 'Run Watcha Brung' event and offer support to Andy Sills' efforts on the turbo-charged K 1200 S.

This year, many BMW speed freaks were out in force on the salt flats. Andy Sills was returning for an attempt at bettering his world record of 174 mph (280 km/h), but this time on a modified turbo-powered K 1200 S. A team from San Francisco was running a very unique biodiesel-powered BMW called Die Moto – quite a brave move among all the petrolheads as it was the first non-petroleum powered motorcycle to ever run at Bonneville! And back for yet another record attempt was the San Jose BMW team on their trusty 1978 R 100 Airhead that set a class record of over 161 mph (259 km/h) last year. In addition there were all the BMW riders who participated in the ‘Run Watcha Brung’ event, and some did quite well too.

As it turned out this wasn’t a great year to race on salt. Like wine, salt has good years and then great years. Last year was a great salt year when quite a few F.I.M. records were set, including the world’s fastest land speed record for a motorcycle, when rider Chris Carr piloted the BUB Streamliner 7 to an average of 350.885 mph (564.695 km/h)!

This year, due to high winds, and less than ideal salt, the streamliners didn’t do well; however, the 'Run Watcha Brung' riders were having a great time. One K 1200 R rider from California rode his bike at an average speed of over 161 mph (259 km/h), which is quite special because the top recorded speed for a K 1200 R at Bonneville (at about 164 mph) was set in 2005 by racer Brian Parriott, who recently competed for BMW Motorrad Motorsport at this year’s Bol d'Or.

Andy Sills and his team (Alex Raphael and Lee King of MAXRPM, Washington, and Helli Kornton of MaxMOTO, San Francisco) explained that the record they are chasing is currently more than 250 mph (402 km/h) and is currently held by John Noonan on a turbo-powered Hayabusa. They are working on a specially modified, lowered, more streamlined K 1200 S that they believe will eventually be able to beat Noonan’s record.

This highly inspired K 1200 S land speed attempt is going to be worked on in stages. Stage 1 is a turbo-powered but near stock K 1200 S, with modified fuel mapping. Andy made a few passes on a Stage 1, K 1200 S at this year’s event and was delighted with initial progress.

"The objective for this visit was to try out the first stage tuning modifications and as far as I’m concerned it was an unqualified success," said the 58-year-old speedster. The bike was lowered three inches, a special seat with an aerodynamic hump was added, the suspension was altered and the Electronic Suspension Adjustment removed, but none of this changed the stability of the platform. When the turbo kicked in at 4,000 rpm it was incredible – there’s just so much power that the real wheel was spinning from the middle of mile one and then continued to spin in every gear. However it was completely stable and I had no hesitation and rode it at full throttle all the time. To be riding at 175 mph (281 km/h) in less than perfect conditions with the rear wheel spinning was pure exhilaration for me."

According to Helli Kornton of MaxMOTO, Stage 2 will see the highly-modified, turbo-powered K 1200 S at next year's speed trials event with different gearing and final drive system: "There were plenty of challenges this year, not only from the newly modified bike but also the event itself, because at Bonneville the salt conditions were very poor," said Helli. "That was a challenge that we didn’t anticipate but it’s all part of the nature of Bonneville. From the bike's standpoint, the challenge is the time frame. It always takes a long time to perfect new engineering ideas and – more importantly – the speed we are after is very high, at about 260 mph (418 km/h)."

"To make any bike go that fast you have to go through extensive research. I believe that if we didn’t have the technical issues on the salt, we could have hit the 200 mph mark in Stage 1, and maybe even more. Power is definitely not a problem as we had about 250 horsepower on that engine and were only using .6 bar of boost on our turbo, with plenty of power in reserve. Next year we should be able to bring our speed up to 210-220 mph (approximately 350 km/h) successfully and then we can work our way up towards our goal."

The Bonneville Salt Flats have been inspiring countless riders for over 90 years to set new records as a challenge for other racers to beat. This year may not have been a great salt year, but the experiences and memories will be remembered for a long time. The team of MAXRPM and MaxMOTO will continue to fine-tune the K 1200 S special and Andy Sills is determined to do whatever it takes to get the record.

"We are very excited about the next few months. I’ve had a lot of time with Alex and Lee and have 100 per cent confidence in their capabilities. The plan for the coming months is to get a schedule together for all of the work that needs to be done. We’ll install a different turbo and have the final drive finished, get that on the bike and then start a measured testing program. The team believe that they can get the bike to do 260 mph, and as next year will be the 25th anniversary of the BMW K Series platform, I can’t think of a better achievement to aim for in 2008."