The periscope arrangement reduced the frontal area of the machine from more than 69.3 square centimeters to 48.51 square centimeters (5 square feet to 3-1/2 square feet), which reduces drag and allows the engine to propel the cycle along at a faster rate, Williams said.
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| This is a side view of the rocket-shaped Team Arrow vehicle that holds the world's land speed record for a 600cc motorcycle. The hatch is open to the cockpit where the driver has to virtually lay down and peer through a periscope to see where he is going. (Photo: Cabadas, Canadian Auto Press) |
"Now that I'm retired I've got time to play with it and do it. It's a great engineering challenge because there's no blueprint to make one. There's nothing that you can buy that works. Every little piece is fabricated and tried. If it doesn't work, you throw it away and make a new one. We've been through three or four or even five generations of handle bars, steering systems, and suspensions. It keeps evolving all the time."
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| Buck Mook, the man to the left with goatee wearing a name badge with a red ribbon, looks on in delight as he learns that his 1907 Stoddard Dayton race car has just won an award at the 2004 Eyes on Design car show, held at the Edsel and Eleanor Ford Estate in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. (Photo: Joe Cabadas, Canadian Auto Press) |
This year, Williams hopes to return to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah and, after equipping the motorcycle with nitrous, break the 405 km/h (250 mph) mark.
Another interesting race vehicle on display was a 1907 Stoddard Dayton race car, which is identical to the car that won the 1908 Glidden Tour, a nearly 2,430 kilometer (1,500 mile) endurance race that went from Cleveland, to Chicago, down to Indianapolis, and eastward to New York. That race took 15 days as racers traveled over America's very poor roads at the turn of the last century.
The Stoddard Dayton is owned by Buck Mook, a former Ford Motor Company designer turned artist, who bought it in 1987 from another collector. The car retains its original paint job, although the paint has flaked away in a few places.