Speed Racer

Montanans give it all they've got for Salt Flats records By TOM LUTEY Of The Gazette Staff He has a cash account for racing that his bookkeeper has been sworn to keep in the black but tell him nothing about. What could be the world's fastest motorcycle is parked in his garage. A man with more than 35 land speed records has him on speed dial. The problem with going fast, said Cliff Gullett, is that it's hard to stop. "I've never done drugs, but if drugs are anything like racing, there ought to be a Betty Ford Clinic for racing," Gullett said. And so, the suburban three-car garage of this Bozeman motorcycle dealer has been transformed into a sort of Hangar 18, antiseptic and windowless, a home to a cobalt-blue streamliner that looks like it rode into town on the back of a meteor. Gullett, originally from Billings, is fully immersed in the tiny cult of Montanans who live to race at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. They race only a couple days each year and spend the off months working tirelessly on their machines. "You got to keep those wrenches warm," said Oren Harper, a Billings motorcycle mechanic who won then lost then won again the land speed record on a 124-cubic-inch Harley Davidson chopper. There are dozens of record categories. The first time Harper raced, he entered the motorcycle he rides around Billings, actually riding the bike to the event to break in the engine before going all out. He raced "naked," meaning there weren't any streamlining body parts in the motorcycle. At one point, just as he reached 150 mph, one of his legs blew off the foot peg and flew backward, hitting the motorcycle's rear end. The bike began fishtailing. Harper "gave it the onion," meaning he applied more gas to straighten it out, and kept on going. His only other option would have been to sit up, effectively turning himself into a human parachute to blow free of the wrecking motorcycle. The 34-year-old wants to get back to the salt this year on a new motorcycle racing frame that puts him lower to the ground and nearly horizontal to the salt. But he has to get married first, and funding the return trip could be an issue. A weekend racing on the salt costs $2,500 to $3,500, and some racers consider that the cheapest part of their obsession. Gullett's plan is to return to the salt and set as many land speed records in one setting as possible in his Yamaha blue "salt snake." Racing usually starts in August, though the actual date depends on whether the salt is dry. West of the Great Salt Lake, the 159-square-mile Salt Flats are the remnants of a large glacial lake. In the winter, water pools on the flats then slowly evaporates, leaving a hard level surface that seasonal winds then smooth. Drivers say racing on the surface is like cruising at top speed across a frozen pond. Traction is not the best. A car racing 425 mph can have wheels spinning more than 600 mph. Gullett and streamline designer Jack Costella plan to bring several engines, which they'll swap in and out of the machine, setting records in every class. Their niche is Costella's prowess at building lightweight, low-profile streamliners that reach high speeds with smaller-than-average engines. One of Costella's previous records was for reaching 149 mph in an aerodynamic streamliner powered by what can only be described as child's minibike motor. The pin-shaped aerodynamic motorcycle that Gullet races is 23 feet long, 22 inches wide and 2 feet high. It sits less than an inch off the ground. Racing officials classify the vehicle as a motorcycle because it rides on two wheels. It's propelled by a 350-cubic-centimeter Yamaha engine. Last year Gullett became only the second driver in 30 years to break 200 mph in with an engine that small. He set the record for streamliners in that engine, posting a record 210 mph. "Right now, I go five miles in a minute and a half," Gullett said. "My goal is to go five miles in about 45 seconds." Plenty could go wrong on Gullet's way to the record books. Streamliners rule the day at Bonneville because of their low wind resistance. The fastest car on the Utah salt, the "Turbinator" is a turbine-powered streamliner that averaged 427.8 mph in 1999. The fastest piston-engine vehicle belongs to Tom, Gene and Betty Burkland of Great Falls. The car was clocked at 447 mph, but wrecked before it could make a return trip, which is mandatory for record setting. In short, the parachutes intended to stop the vehicle were ripped from its tail and the car drove off the dry part of the course and into a briny slush of the Great Salt Lake. Conventionally shaped cars have been known to spin out, plow into the ground or lift off like unintended airplanes because of the way wind hits a vehicle at high speeds. Streamliners do what's called a "pencil roll." The name says it all, Gullet said. The driver inside the vehicle twirls like a human centrifuge. Gullet's wrists are strapped to the cars frame, his head and hand movements are limited to just a few inches to keep him from flinging around the vehicle in case of a wreck. If he doesn't get his records this year, it would appear Gullett could race another 20 years attempting to nail them down before he became too old for the sport. At 47, he's a youngster on the salt. "The average racer on the track is between 65 and 70, old-time drag racers," said Gail Tesinsky. She and her husband, Ron, have been heading to the Salt Flats since the 1980s. Ron owns Westside Kustoms, which builds custom cars west of Billings. Ron's ride is a fenderless 1932 Ford Roadster with a twin-turbo, 301-cubic-inch Chrysler Hemi motor. Owned by Bob Lindstrom, the roadster looks like a larger-than-life Pinewood Derby car, with flames curling from its nostrils and the admonishment to "stay in school" stenciled where the doors would be if roadsters had doors. The only thing that rises above the sleek black hood is Ron Tesinsky's head, which is encased on three sides by a cage of red steel plumbing in case the car rolls or takes on wind and flips upside down. Roadsters are a popular body style at the Salt Flats. The cars possess that hot rod allure and they have a history as being one of the first styles of cars raced on the flats. But they're also tricky to drive at top speeds, Ron said. The roadster's sawed off snout dams up wind, which just like water flowing around a river rock starts looking for an easy way around. That shifting air current can send a car twirling like a pinwheel. The slightest imperfection in performance is all it takes. In 2001, Ron had just crept above the 200 mph mark when his engine blew, forcing the car into a severe spin. Video cameras captured Ron spinning three full circles over a half mile before rolling to a stop backwards. The white crusty salt sticking to the sides of Ron's car make it look like a frosted flake by the time the car stopped. It was Ron Tesinsky's idea to get Gail behind the wheel at the Salt Flats. She'd watched him race from the shoulder of the action for years. Because Ron builds custom hot rods, the walls of his shop are papered with photos of custom Tesinsky creations featured on the covers of national hot rod magazines. The cars aren't around, but the curvaceous blonde in the photos admiring the reflection of her yellow bikini top in the metallic paint jobs of Ron's creations is. The couple bought a 1953 Studebaker for Gail that had been raced at the Salt Flats for 37 years. Great Falls racer Gene Burkland set a land speed record in the vehicle in 1978 with a 255.8 mph time. The Tesinskys bought the car from a now-defunct car museum in Florida. "My goal is to take that car out and get that record back," Gail Tesinsky said. "To do that, I have to go 264 mph." At that speed, the 229-mile trip from Billings to Butte would take 52 minutes. Gail Tesinsky's last motor raced to 191 mph before it blew on the Salt Flats. The muscular engine palpitated with the mechanical equivalent of cardiac arrest, but Gail didn't realize it. The tachometer suggested the Hemi was ready for more. She just kept working the accelerator like a jockey works a rider's crop until the motor in her 1953 Studebaker disintegrated. "I blew it to smithereens," she said. "Put holes in the block. It was running real well." Today Tesinsky's motor sits in an aluminum wad in the corner of the family shop west of Billings. The engine's fractured push rods poke from the block like violently stubbed out cigarette butts. It is a very expensive memento of Tesinsky's biggest thrill on wheels. And it is already being replaced by a motor so big it looks like one massive engine riding piggyback on an even bigger pistoned mass. Maybe there was some telltale sign of trouble that she missed, but as Tesinsky says, "it's really hard to pay attention things when you're going 191 mph." Published on Sunday, May 18, 2008. Last modified on 5/18/2008 at 1:37 am Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.