HONORING BURT MUNRO, CELEBRATING SPEED

On the Bonneville Salt Flats you stand on a mirror of pure white that will burn your skin from below while the arc-welder sun burns from above. Dark, jagged mountains surround it. But it’s flat. And big. A place to run for top speed.

In August of 1967, one-man R&D team Burt Munro, then 68 years old, streaked across that salt to set a 1,000cc record of 183.586 mph in his homebuilt streamliner. It was powered by an engine that began as a 36.4ci 1920 Indian Scout that he’d bought new. With his own hands he had made the OHV heads, cylinders, pistons, connecting rods, and cams of his engine, working in a New Zealand shed that was his home for 27 years. He had set innumer able records with it. That was 50 years ago.

At the end of 2016 Burt Munro’s son John and grand-nephew Lee Munro inquired from Indian in Minnesota whether the company planned any commemoration of this historic achievement. The answer was, “Of course!” In January 2017 came the go-ahead from the corporate president’s office; a Scout-based Bonneville racer would be built and Lee Munro—a competitor in Australian Superbike— would ride it.

GENERATIONS: Burt’s son John Munro congratulates Lee Munro, Burt’s grand-nephew, on obtaining his SCTA license at El Mirage, Lee’s first crack at land-speed racing.

On Saturday, August 12, 2017,