Big Red (motorcycle)

Big Red

Big Red at Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum

Manufacturer| Don Vesco
Assembly| c. 1969
Successor| "Silver Bird" streamliner
Class| Speed record streamliner motorcycle
Engine| Two, 350 cc two-stroke, two-cylinder Yamaha motors
Frame type| Monocoque body (drop tank)
Brakes| Parachute assist
Dimensions| L: 5486 mm

Big Red was the machine with which American Don Vesco took the motorcycle land-speed record, 405.25 kilometres per hour (251.81 mph), on September 17, 1970, at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.

At Bonneville Speed Week in 1969, Vesco took Big Red to a speed of 365 km/h (227 mph). The following year, with the five and a half meter long motorcycle built from an aircraft drop tank, he undertook several more attempts to break the 395.363-kilometre-per-hour (245.667 mph) record set by Robert Leppan in 1966. He succeeded in setting a new record of 405.25 km/h (251.81 mph). A month later, the record was broken again: Cal Rayborn reached an averaged 427.25 kilometres per hour (265.48 mph) in two runs in opposite directions.

The bike is now an exhibit of the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum.[1][2][3]

## References

1. ↑ Graham Clayton (January 1, 2008), "The Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum", Motorcycle Mojo, http://www.motorcyclemojo.com/2008/01/the-barber-vintage-motorsports-museum/, retrieved 2014-09-15
2. ↑ Greg Smith (November–December 2005), "The Barber Vintage", Roadrunner, http://www.roadrunner.travel/magazine/read/november-december-2005/page/40/
3. ↑ "El Dorado de la moto: Barber Vintage Museum" (in Spanish), Motociclismo, January 4, 2007, http://www.motociclismo.es/noticias/articulo/dorado-moto-1203

* 1969 - 1970 Don breaks motorcycle landspeed record, Team Vesco, http://www.teamvesco.com/celebratingdonvesco.html, retrieved 2014-01-18
* Power, speed and drag, Yamaha (Europe), http://www.yamaha-motor.eu/designcafe/fr/archive/archived-articles/index.aspx?view=article&id=442628, retrieved 2014-01-19

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*[L]: Length