Valerie Thompson at Bonneville Salt Flats2013 BUB Speed TrialsValerie Thompson, a five-time Land Speed Record Holder and owner/driver of Valerie Thompson Racing (VTR), joined this year the BUB Speed Trials ”201 MPH Club” at Bonneville Salt Flats.
Thompson competed in two Bonnveille events this year aboard her CTEK Battery Chargers sponsored BMW S 1000 RR. Thompson’s first Bonneville competition was the 65th Annual Southern California Timing Association’s Speedweek event, held August 10-16.Valerie Thompson says: “We were plagued with electronic issues all week that kept us sidelined. With help from BMW Motorrad, Heads Up Performance, BMW of Utah and BMW of San Diego we made three runs on the last full day of competition with a top speed of 203 mph, to date, my fastest run on the Salt.”The BUB Speed Trials, a motorcycle-only competition was held August 24 through 29 on the wind swept Salt Flats. Thompson became an official member of the BUB Speed Trials 201 MPH Club after posting a record two way average speed of 201.02 mph in the 1000cc MPS/AG class. Unfortunately, her record was surpassed later in the event.Valerie Thompson says: “They say you don’t own a record, they are only on loan. It would have been nice if they loaned it to me for a bit longer.“Thanks to Scott Horner, Bob Clark and Steve Davidson, our BMW was performing much better at BUB as soon as it rolled-off the trailer. Even with the strong winds I achieved a long-time goal of joining the BUB 201 MPH Club here on the Salt.“I’ve taken my BMW over 200 mph multiple times, but it was always on paved tracks. Exceeding 200 mph on the salt at Bonneville is extremely gratifying due to the difficulty to achieve those speeds on the irregular, unpredictable surface.”.Thompson is also a member of the Mojave Magnum 200 MPH Club and Texas Mile 200 MPH Club. She set a personal best top speed of 212 mph on her BMW S 1000 RR during the March 2013 Texas Mile competition.
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This week, in the first segment Editor Don Williams talks to us about the new Kawasaki Versys 650 LT. It’s the middleweight ADV style machine that uses the same 650 parallel twin motor as the Ninja 650, so it’s an excellent performer in a user-friendly, good looking package.
In the second segment, I chat with one of my dearest industry friends—now retired Honda PR executive, Jon Seidel. Jon’s fascinating career spans some 30 years with Big Red, and gave him some great experiences with some incredible machines. I was fortunate enough to be invited on many of the press launches that he organized. His new project is documenting and saving many of the old archives from years gone by—and incidentally, if you have anything that may be of value to the project, please contact us by email at producer@ultimatemotorcycling.com and we’ll pass it all on to Jon.
So on that note, from all of us here at Ultimate Motorcycling, we hope you enjoy this episode!
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