After going to the drags for the first time at the start of the 1981/82 season at Champion Dragway, Ian started racing the very next meeting, in the DYO bike bracket. Racing his 1974 Kawasaki Z1-900, he finished DYO winner, and the bug had well and truly bitten. DYO racing continued on the Z1 for the rest of the season, when he started racing his first GSX1100 in 1983. In 1986 Ian got a little more serious, and raced his second GSX1100 in A/Street Bike for 3 more years. In 1988 he began purchasing parts for a purpose built dragbike, which was later to be named The Rice Rocket. The frame was built to rolling chassis stage by Ian on Auckland anniversary weekend 1989, and almost every weekend for the remainder of the year was spent completing the bike. Ian imported a GSX1135 engine from Sydney in 1988, but by the time it came to think seriously about engines, the opportunity to purchase a race proven engine from the now retired Steve Burton’s A/Pro Suzuki presented itself, and the engine was immediately purchased.

Except for the original race engine, Ian built the entire bike at the premises of his employer, Flotech Limited. Guidelines for the chassis were basic design per the side profile of an unknown dragbike as seen in a British Motorcycle magazine in 1987, fact that Tony Astell had said "if I ever build another dragbike I’ll make it 5" longer" (that would mean an 85" wheelbase), the all important steering head angle, which Ian decided "if Tony Astell’s AA/dragbike runs straight at "those speeds" , that’ll do me". So Ian took a side profile photograph of Tony’s bike, put a protractor on the photo to measure fork angle (38 degrees from vertical for those who are interested), and a drag bike frame was born.

Ian had always liked the sleek lines of Tim Hawke’s BB/Drag bike body, so one evening tried Tim’s fiberglass body on the Rice Rocket’s frame, which by now was 90% complete. Amazingly enough it was a near perfect fit, and Ian purchased one. The rear "wings" that protruded out of the rear of the body were cut off to give the body some individuality.

The bike first hit the track at Champion Dragway’s test ‘n’ tune day in early November 1989, with a stock GSX1100 engine fitted. Runs around 11.2 seconds @ 125mph were recorded, in a reasonably straight fashion – good enough for Ian to strip the bike down and send parts off to the painters. The frame was powder coated, the body sent to Hamilton where Keith Griffiths, a car painter with loads of graphic artist flare, designed and applied the paint job. Ian drove to Hamilton on the evening of 26 December 1989, where Peter Smith had collected the newly painted bodywork from Keith. At this stage, the bike since having had the race motor fitted, had never even been started. Seeing as race day at Hastings’ Thunder park was now just 3 hours away, it was time to see if this thing even ran! With Pete Smith at the controls of his HZ ute – sitting on top of a pair of rollers, Ian fired up the race ready bike for the first time. A small amount of tuning on a Hilborne injection system he knew nothing about, and the engine was running smoothly in the depths of suburban Hamilton! Back on the ute for the trip to Hastings the next day, which for Ian couldn’t come quick enough!

Another fine afternoon at Thunder park, for the first of the two Christmas/New Year meetings and Ian’s first run (which was up against Pete Smith’s brand new A/Pro bike which was making it’s debut in the same race) netted a 10.58 @ 125mph. It was time to open the throttle! Best run for the meeting was 9.8 @ 133 mph.

Next meeting at Thunder park was 5 days later, and Ian was getting to grips with his new bike, and best runs achieved were 9.223 @ 143mph and 9.221 @ 144 mph. Not bad for only his 8^th and 9^th time on the bike.

Engine specs for the bike as it was run above were as follows:

1428cc MTC big bore kit.

Mild Cylinder head, 2mm oversize inlet valves and stock exhaust valves.

Virtually standard Suzuki GSX1100 gearbox, air shifted.

50-K-4 Hilborne injection, running Methanol.

Two engine blowups later (1991 and 1993), the bike was out to 1498cc, and starting to run regular 9.0s.

An 8 second pass seemed to be the next thing, but due mainly to gearbox woes (no top gear) it was 5 years after running those 9.20s before this was achieved. Thunder park – December 1995, and an 8.999 was run on the second practice pass.

The 1995/96 season was Ian’s best ever, when he broke his own et record 3 times, broke the MPH record, and won the New Zealand Nationals with a 8.821 @ 147.1 mph pass. Ian also won the Champion Dragway point score series for the season.

In June 1996 Ian shipped the bike to Brisbane, Australia, where he competed in then Australia’s second largest event, the Winternationals at Willowbank Raceway. Gearbox woes reared their ugly head again, so performance was down, but Ian still managed to qualify number 4 out of 41 bikes, and a second round lose in this tough DYO competition field.

A season off in 1996/7, a slow season in 1997/8, and it was back the Winternationals at Willowbank. Ian qualified number 2 with an ET of 8.71, only to run a 0.399 red light in the first round………but that’s racing!

Thanks go to the following people for crewing at various times along the way:

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