Lightning Bolt (motorcycle)

Lightning Bolt
ManufacturerDon Vesco
PredecessorSilver Bird (streamliner)
ClassStreamliner
Engine2×inline-4, twin turbo, 2,032 cc total displacement
Top speedc. 333 miles per hour (536 km/h)[1]

Lightning Bolt is an American-built streamliner motorcycle that held the motorcycle land-speed record from 1978, when Don Vesco rode it to 318.598 miles per hour (512.734 km/h),[2][3] until 1990.[4][5] It was also the fastest vehicle participating in the 1978 Bonneville Speed Week with a one-way 333.117-mile-per-hour (536.100 km/h) run.[6] It was powered by twin turbocharged inline-4 engines sourced from a Kawasaki Kz1000,[1] with a combined displacement of 2,032 cc.[7] The near-stock engines were linked at both ends of their cranks by two Gilmer belts and utilized the rear engine's gearbox.[8]

Lightning Bolt was apparently succeeded by another streamliner based on two turbocharged six-cylinder Kawasaki motors (probably from the early-1980s Kawasaki Z1300) that did not set records.[9] Vesco turned his attention to automobile land speed racing in the 1990s with a six-wheel car called "Skytracker" that Vesco described as a "cross between a car and a motorcycle",[10] then his final vehicle, the land speed record-setting #111 Turbinator.

Notes

  1. ^ a b Robinson 2007.
  2. ^ American Motorcyclist Association 1999.
  3. ^ American Motorcyclist Association 1978, p. 38.
  4. ^ FIM 2014.
  5. ^ Morris 2005, p. 45.
  6. ^ Noeth 2005, p. 1.
  7. ^ Gunston, Taylor & Ewart 1984, p. 92.
  8. ^ Burns 1993, p. 42.
  9. ^ American Motorcyclist 1982.
  10. ^ Noeth 2005, p. 3.

References

  • Robinson, Rocky (2007), Flat Out: The Race for the Motorcycle Land Speed Record, Motorbooks, ISBN 9781610609296
  • World Records 1979–Present (PDF), Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme
  • Morris, Mark (2005), Motorbikes, Raintree, ISBN 9781410905581
  • Motorcycle Hall of Fame: Don Vesco, American Motorcyclist Association, 1999
  • Noeth, Louise Ann (2005), Who the #$!% is Don Vesco? (PDF)
  • Burns, John (April 1993), "Z Power! – Twenty Years Ago Kawasaki Dropped a Bomb Called the Z-1", Cycle World
  • Gunston, Bill; Taylor, David; Ewart, Andy (1984), The Guinness book of speed facts & feats, Guinness Superlatives
  • "318.598 for Vesco!", American Motorcyclist, American Motorcyclist Association, November 1978
  • "Record runs a family affair with Don and Rick Vesco", American Motorcyclist, American Motorcyclist Association: 86, April 1982

See also


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