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]