Big Red (motorcycle)

Big Red was the machine with which American Don Vesco took the motorcycle land-speed record, 405.25 kilometres per hour (251.81 mph), on September 17, 1970 at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.

Big Red
ManufacturerDon Vesco
Assemblyc. 1969
Successor"Silver Bird" streamliner
ClassSpeed record streamliner motorcycle
EngineTwo, 350 cc two-stroke, two-cylinder Yamaha motors
Frame typeMonocoque body (drop tank)
BrakesParachute assist
DimensionsL: 5486 mm

At Bonneville Speed Week in 1969, Vesco took Big Red to a speed of 365 km/h (227 mph). The following year, with the five and a half meter long motorcycle built from an aircraft drop tank, he undertook several more attempts to break the 395.363-kilometre-per-hour (245.667 mph) record set by Robert Leppan in 1966. He succeeded in setting a new record of 405.25 km/h (251.81 mph). A month later, the record was broken again: Cal Rayborn reached an averaged 427.25 kilometres per hour (265.48 mph) in two runs in opposite directions.

The bike is now an exhibit of the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum.[1][2][3]

References

  1. Graham Clayton (January 1, 2008), "The Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum", Motorcycle Mojo, retrieved 2014-09-15
  2. Greg Smith (November–December 2005), "The Barber Vintage", Roadrunner
  3. "El Dorado de la moto: Barber Vintage Museum" [The dreamland of the motorcycle: Barber Vintage Museum], Motociclismo (in Spanish), January 4, 2007


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