I hope the next couple of chapters paint a picture of the variety of emotions we’ve encountered during this week of September (12-18). We’re getting close, but every element must fall into place in a timely manner or... All my adult life I’ve dealt with deadlines. I told harried magazine staff members, crumbling under pressure, “Take it easy, no one’s gonna get shot. Just fix the mistake and don’t let it happen again.” I’ve lived through times in which getting shot was an option.

This is almost a year long deadline, a strident one, fulla emotion, research, alterations, let-downs and highs. This week Berry Wardlaw, of Accurate Engineering is flying out for tuning, then we have one week before we roll toward the salt. The bike is just one element in the massive mix. We have an ever changing and growing team, transport that’s shifted from pickups to trailers and now a motorhome. There’s lodging, packing, salt meal preparations handling, with loving grace, by the Bikernet Queen, Nyla Olsen. We needed team apparel, patches, stickers and bling. We still need our Bonneville Sponsor Banner and Nyla’s daughter Karley is supposed to have the Sponsor check list and make sure I install the right Sponsor stickers in the right places. Where is that girl?

It’s a wild undertaking for a couple of old scooter tramps, and I know every race team in the country is flying through the same scenario and praying for good weather conditions over the salt. I’ll clamber into this report on all fours using quotes and e- mails from experts and contributors. Our first note comes from our esteemed engine builder Barry Wardlaw:

We are waiting on the Yellow freight truck coming from Panama City and it might be as late as 7:00 p.m., but if they don't make it, it will be fine with me, as I am putting as many damn minutes of run time on this thing as I can. The next time we run it, we will be on a dyno. I REALLY want this thing perfect and am having some fun with the new laptop and ignition program. You'll see. So far so good.

My very best engine assembler/painter/polisher/fabricator and friend gave his two week notice today. Of course we are still friends but he had an opportunity and I told him to take it. VERY good money and he deserves it. I'm gonna' miss him.

The front end proposed a problem. Harley-Davidson helped with some ’06 Dyna 49 mm components, but one part was missing, which slowed fender mounting. I need to thank H-D profusely. I planned to use another front end and waited seven months for it to arrive. It never showed. Talk about a set-back. Harley moved quickly, and we had front end parts in a couple of weeks. I had to shift to plan B for the final component and called Larry Petri from Chop N Grind racing, who works at Palm Springs Harley-Davidson. He went into red alert on the missing part and grabbed old Bob T., our arch rival on the salt. They brought me a lower Dyna leg and I hunted down a piece of 49mm tubing, or something close.

We set it up on the chassis and Jeremiah and I began fabricating the front fender. Jeremiah is turning into a master fabricator and we worked well into the middle of the night beating steel and tacking pieces in place. This fender was always a critical component to our teardrop, aerodynamic shape. I fixed spacers to the wheel to allow for salt build-up clearance and did my damnest to align the wheel and the fender perfectly.

With the fender mounted Jeremiah began cutting construction paper panels, then cutting them out of 16-guage sheet metal with our plasma cutter.

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