Ex Stud Racing Fuel Bike parts

IAN WILKINS

AFTERBURNER AA/DB

2007

Best ET 8.409

Best MPH 162.85

I caught sight of my first dragbike while working at Howick motorcycles about 18 years ago. It was Tony Astell’s AA dragbike, and a trip to Champion Dragway that weekend followed, just to see that awesome machine in action. I was amazed at the sights and sounds of drag racing, and followed it avidly as a spectator from then on, taking in every detail I could. After dabbling with circuit racing and a bit of off road, plus absolute insanity on the road with some equally mad friends, just seeing the drag bikes of Tony, Tim Hawke, Steve Daniels, Ian Hilder and numerous others, it was becoming clear to me I wanted to be a part of it.

A plan to build one of these beasts for myself was festering, and the lead up to it continued with some rather heavily modified street bikes which resulted in bad habits, big fines and the surrender of my license more than once. It became clear the road was the wrong place to get this out of my system, so with more than a little help from some good friends and several years just figuring how to build a drag bike it began under a house in a small makeshift workshop. Gallons of Jack Daniels and miles of garage racing later, the first methanol fuelled drag bike made it to the track as an A/Drag Bike late in the 2001-2002 season. License passes over with and a few minor teething troubles sorted, my first 9 second run was with the A/PCB of the legendary Mike Drennan in the other lane. Sure he beat me but I couldn’t be happier with a 9.98 after only 4 full runs down the track. The season was over and it was back to the workshop, now a larger one in Penrose where my refrigeration business operated from.

First thing to change was the handmade sheet aluminium bodywork. Several more gallons of Jack Daniels later good friend Dean Fry and myself had made the plug for a carbon fibre body. Paper mache had never been so much fun! NZ Spas came on board and helped make the carbon fibre body, Boss Panel and Paint provided the all-black paintjob. We hit the track for season # 2 thinking, “Hey this thing’s lighter and better made now, so 8 seconds should be a breeze!” Couldn’t be more wrong really, Ian Hilder once told me how long it took him to run an 8, and said it wouldn’t be easy, and I thought, Ha, how hard can it be???

Well, it’s damn hard, end of story. We finished that season with a best of 9.7 at 139 mph. Easy 8’s eh? Oh, and we destroyed an engine at the beginning of the season. Heartbreaking stuff and tough lessons to learn.

The plan for the next season was to guarantee an 8 by switching to VP C16 and adding a nitrous system, supplied by Steve Daniels off his National Championship winning Honda BB/Pro drag bike. We got rid of the alloy engine cradle and added a new chrome moly cradle to the Terry Bowden (Terry’s chassis shoppe) built rear end.

Now an AA drag bike we were certain success would be ours. The bike was damn hard to ride, and quite unpredictable, struggling even more than the earlier versions for traction and impossible to keep on line. So many more problems were occurring and the more we worked on it the worse it got. We couldn’t figure what was wrong with the handling and were never to find out.

In qualifying for the 2003 Nationals the bike went into a horrific and unrecoverable tank slapper at 145 mph. Every attempt to regain control failed, the final moment of opening the throttle again was the start of a long painful tumble which included being run over twice by the wreck and cart wheeling for a damn long way. I didn’t try to save money on safety equipment and frankly, that is the only reason I am here writing this. A smashed shoulder blade and damaged liver was all the major injuries, aside from the bank balance.

After a few months of recovery and a return to work I knew I couldn’t walk away from it all. I found a Kosman funnybike chassis in Chattanooga Tennessee on the internet, and my lovely wife Deanne agreed to the purchase.

After an agonising time waiting for it to show up the day finally arrived, and the usual bunch showed up to help get the new bike underway. A lot of time on the phone to Sandy Kosman ( of Kosman fabrication) and Paul Gast (Fast by Gast) a whole load of new parts were on the way as well.

The plan was a nitrous funnybike, with nothing but the best gear I could get, and to cut a long story short, that is what is now parked in my garage. A massive amount of work from a lot of good people has resulted in a bike that as I write this a week prior to the 2006-2007 season I simply cannot wait to ride.

I started back on the track on it only 11 months after the crash, and the 2 seasons since then have been a living hell, with nearly every run leaving me wondering why I am doing this. The mental assault from the crash left me worrying about every single shake, bump, wobble and every trip down the track was simply terrifying. Those who have not been through a crash of that sort at that speed have no idea how hard it can be to get back on, and it would have been so easy to have just gone back to guzzling Jack Daniels from the stands, but earlier this year I finally got the throttle open all the way for 3 runs in a row and loved it to bits. The bike (without nitrous) ran better than the best 9.19 second run on the old wreck with an easy 9.12. I felt great and the time since then has been spent prepping the bike for some good nitrous runs for the 06/07 season. Well, let’s not make any predictions, and just see how it goes eh! Watch this space for more (And it went well! No comments please on how log it took me to get this storey loaded up on this site –Ed).

So many have helped and the following is a list of all I can recall right now, but there are many more I am sure.

Penrite Oil, Kellow Engineering, Sonax polishes, Mount Eden Motorcycles, Imagin-airing Custom Art, Pro-coat, Custom Chambers

The crew My wife Deanne, Dean Fry, Mark Sanderson, Marcus Ware, Craig Bardell, Jareth Marsh

The many helpers and contributors in no particular order, Noel Heerdegen, Peter Heerdegen, Callum Farndale, Keith Ingram, Terry Bowden, Tony Astell, Ian Hilder, Steve Daniels, Gavin Oram, Bruce Kelly, Nigel Johnston, Laurie Henley, Sean Mckane, Mike O’Sullivan……and anyone I forgot!