3/25/23 Today would have been Burt Munro’s 124th birthday. Why am I telling you this? Burt Munro is a hero of mine and his story has a universality that I hope most people can appreciate. Ol’ Burt was a motorcycle racer and before you roll your eyes and the bounce rate for my website spikes, give me a second. As a retiree, Burt crated up his motorcycle and traveled from Invercargill, New Zealand to race at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah in the 1960s. What’s so special about that? In 1967, his last world record year, he was 68, riding what started as a 1920 Indian Scout. You have to understand, motorcycles in 1920 were fat-tired bicycles with engines..
Why is this interesting? His unofficial record, officially timed was 190.7mph according to the American Motorcycle Association’s museum. He went that fast, on a motorcycle a year earlier model were built with pedals to start it. A 1970s moped would be a better candidate to build into a land speed record winner. Burt heavily modified his Scout to allow for an aerodynamic laydown position. He also fabricated his own streamliner fairing. Legend has it that Burt machined his engine’s cylinder liners out of a gas pipe he salvaged. What are cylinder liners? They help contain the combustion and sometimes explosions that happen inside an internal combustion engine. They do this while the main reciprocating parts are traveling at thousands of feet per second; stopping and starting twice every revolution per minute, along the length of these cylinders. Wild stuff to think about.
Supposedly, Burt also cast his own pistons, those reciprocating parts I mentioned in the last paragraph. Casting means, melting down the correct composition of aluminum and pouring this molten aluminum into molds in the rough shape of the finished piston. Because Burt’s Indian had two cylinders, he had to cast two pistons for one rebuild. Both pistons had to be the same weight because a couple of grams when traveling at thousands of feet per second equate to pounds of unequal forces on engine parts. At best the engine will run inefficiently, at worst the engine will come apart in the most catastrophic manner.
He did this as a retiree! He was so possessed by making his motorcycle better and faster it consumed him and was his life’s work. With all the distractions today, will there ever be another Burt Munro? I don’t mean a speed freak tweaking antiques to do 200 miles per hour. I mean an individual so focused on improvement for that many years. I know about Burt Munro because of our shared love of motorcycles, but I admire him for his dedication to improvement with unimaginably meager resources. I feel like a lot of us should look hard at what we have and do our best to make our days about building something stronger, faster, and better.