Jean Turner | August 3, 2017
World Land Speed Trial
Mike Akatiff and the Ack Attack team scoured the globe for the perfect spot to attempt a world-record land-speed run, and now they’re heading to Bolivia
The Dakar Rally helped put the “Salar de Uyuni” on the map in 2015. New roads and hotels have made the Uyuni salt flats and the small Bolivian town much more accessible. Photo by Frederic Le Floch/DPPI/Red Bull Content Pool
What does it take to break land-speed records? Most would answer big horsepower and lots of throttle. But those who have actually done it can tell you all about the myriad complexities that go along with setting world-record speeds on the salt. The first and most obvious requirement: you need salt. Lots of it. Currently that is the limiting factor standing in the way of motorcycle land speed racers Mike Akatiff and his Ack Attack team. They have the machine, they’ve done the calculations, driver Rocky Robinson is ready to set a new world record at 400 mph. The only thing missing is a place to do it.
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Story and Photography by Jean Turner
Season after season recently, the salt flats at Bonneville are just not cooperating. Thinning salt, a rising water table, wind and the overall size limitations have prevented the two-wheel streamliners from making a solid run at the western Utah locale, which has served as an international hub of land-speed racing for over 100 years. After getting stiffed three years in a row at the late-summer motorcycle speed week, Akatiff and his crew have decided to search for another place to make their world-record attempt.
Mike Akatiff and his crew have the potential to change not only the record books, but the face of international land-speed racing.
But locating a suitable land-speed course—one that will accommodate a 400-mph run—is no simple task. Land-speed racing requires an expansive surface that only salt flats can provide. The perfectly flat, glistening white landscape dried to a firm crust, so vast you can see the curvature of the earth, allows miles of runoff in all directions—a critical element in the case of a mishap at 300 mph, where even a three-mph “gust” of wind can blow you off course. There aren’t many places in the world like Bonneville, but a view from space can identify a one such similar environment.
High in the Andes near the small town of Uyuni, Bolivia, you’ll find the biggest salt flats in the world. Roughly the size of LA County at over 4000 square miles, the Bolivian salt flats dwarf the 57 square miles of the Bonneville Speedway. The salt is also far thicker, up to 10 feet compared to less than an inch at Bonneville.
The far-flung “Salar di Uyuni” has been on Akatiff’s radar for more than 10 years, but logistics had always been an issue. “We thought about going to Bolivia in 2006, but at that time it wasn’t practical,” said Akatiff. “The only way to get to the salt lake was through what was called ‘the road of death.’ There was no airport at the town of Uyuni. It was pretty hard to get there and get anything done. Since that time, things have changed tremendously.”
Land-speed racing is all about precision tuning, which is done by performance electronics. Akatiff and his son, Greg, get the Ack Attack dialed in.
It was thanks to another motorsports event—the Dakar Rally—that Uyuni got itself on the map. The Dakar Rally first visited the small Bolivian town in 2015, with the course taking racers across the treacherous salt. Uyuni is now a fixture in the Dakar, which has helped bring roads, hotels and even an airport to the otherwise remote town.
“There’s a paved road from La Paz all the way to Uyuni now,” Akatiff said. “It looked pretty promising.”
Akatiff’s next step was to send a scout—Mike Cook, promoter of Speed Week events at Bonneville and veteran land-speed racer. Cook made the trek to Uyuni in April of 2017 to scout the location, and he was nothing short of flabbergasted by the shimmering hard-pack at his feet.
“I’ve been almost 40 years of racing at the Bonneville salt flats, and I have never seen salt this beautiful,” Cook said. “The Bonneville salt flats [are] maybe two miles wide at the most, and maybe 10 miles [long]. But you come here and it just takes your breath away.
“We’re standing on a foot of salt! A foot thick!” Cook said with a laugh. “I’ve been 300 miles an hour on a quarter of an inch of salt!”
Akatiff’s long-time sponsor Top 1 Oil is bringing FIM official Charlie Hennekam (right) to Bolivia to sanction their private “Top of the World Land Speed Trial.”
Cook found support in the area, even meeting with the Vice President of Bolivia, who was delighted to welcome the world-record attempt to his country. Once Cook sent the green light to Akatiff back in San Jose, California, Akatiff and his long-time sponsor, Top 1 Oil, got to work making arrangements to make a run in Uyuni the first week in August: getting FIM officials to sanction the private meet, equipment to drag the course, containers to ship the Top1 Ack Attack and spare parts, customs, hotels, plane tickets, medics on site, every detail right down to port-a-potties on the salt.
“It’s a real logistics challenge to get there, believe me,” Akatiff said. “It’s absolutely a pioneering effort. We’re going to be the first ones ever to do this.”
VIDEO>> The Quest For Salt
The endeavor is a staggering one, especially give that Akatiff and his crew already have the all-time two-wheel land-speed world record. But 376.4 mph isn’t enough. Not when the 400 mph barrier is so close. Driver Rocky Robinson has actually reached 400 mph in the Top1 Ack Attack once, but didn’t record an “official” speed. (To set a world record, speeds must be recorded by the FIM within a one-mile speed trap. A record-breaking run must be backed up by a return pass, and the two runs are then averaged for an “official” speed.) The Ack Attack’s unofficial time was enough to satisfy Akatiff, but not Robinson. He wants it on the record.
“The whole reason we’re doing this is for Rocky,” Akatiff said. “We already went 400 at Bonneville and it was just for an instant because it was at the end of the timed mile. There wasn’t enough course there. If we could have backed up a mile we would have went into the trap at 400. Officially we went 394, but we knew we went 400. That was kind of my goal. But Rocky wants to be the first guy to go 400 mph on a motorcycle so badly. Once we get him over 400, I’m done. The bike’s going to get retired at that point.”
“The whole reason we’re doing this is for Rocky,” says Mike Akatiff. Rocky Robinson (pictured) is determined to be the first man to “officially” go over 400 mph on two wheels.
Yet as they prepare for their 400-mph attempt, a new number has come up in their calculations—450. The Uyuni salt flats sit at an altitude of 12,500 feet—a factor that has skewed their calculations toward a number they hadn’t yet considered, with the thin air working to the bike’s advantage in a significant way.
“Bonneville is at 4000 feet; Uyuni is at 12,000 feet,” Akatiff explained. “So the difference from going to Bonneville to Bolivia is eight percent less wind resistance. For example, if you have so much wind drag against the bike and you have so much power available and you go 400 at Bonneville, the same bike at Uyuni with the same power, you’re all of a sudden going 432: eight percent faster.”
The altitude is purely an advantage, as the turbo on the Ack Attack will prevent any loss of power in to the thinner air.
The course is being laid out right now for the Top of the World Land Speed Trial. Stay tuned. Photography by Mike Cook
“If you had a normally aspirated bike with no supercharger or turbo on it, it would be a huge mistake to go [to 12,000 feet],” Akatiff continued. “But we have a turbo charger on the Ack Attack. Up there, if you can spin the turbo fast enough to make 25 pounds of boost, you’re going to have the exact same power as we have at sea level, or at Bonneville.”
Of course, the turbo will need to work harder to feed the air to the engines, which presented another potential challenge. Fortunately a run-in with Garrett Turbos at the SEMA show in November resulted in a custom turbocharger for the Ack Attack.
With 100 miles in each direction of perfect salt at their disposal, the Ack Attack will have all the run-up it needs to reach staggering speeds in Bolivia. Photography by Mike Cook
“The Garret turbocharger guys were really interested in [the Top1 Ack Attack]. We talked to them about what turbo we had on it. They told us if you’re turning the turbo at 100,000 rpms to make 25 pounds of boost, to make the same boost at 12,000 feet we’re going to have to turn it 128,000 and you’re in danger of exploding the wheels. So they designed us a new turbo with all solid machined wheels and it is absolutely able to make 30 to 40 pounds of boost up there no problem,” said Akatiff.
“We’re going to be able to have as much or more power than we’ve ever used at Bonneville and that’s a huge advantage. All these things put together is why I’m saying we can go really, really fast. On the other hand, we could get there and break something that’s not fixable and be out. You just don’t know.”
VIDEO>> Making the Calculations
Akatiff’s Bolivian venture is not only a massive undertaking, it’s also a massive gamble—something Akatiff and his team are well aware of. Even an hour’s drive from a major U.S. city can present a challenge, but, once again, the remoteness of Bonneville is dwarfed by that of the Bolivian Andes.
“We can’t get parts overnighted. They just don’t have it over there. You’re so far out there; there’s absolutely nothing.”
The Salar de Uyuni is no stranger to motorsports events. Red Bull stunt rider Aaron Colton. Photo by Patricio Crooker/Red Bull Content Pool
The odds of everything going exactly to plan are never expected to be high in land-speed racing, or any world-record attempt for that matter. And even with extensive calculations in hand, they are headed for uncharted territory.
“We went to a company called Swift engineering in Camarillo. They had just got a brand new Cray supercomputer with all the latest fluid dynamics stuff on it and we did a whole lot of work with them. They told us, ‘At 200 mph, if we change this on a champ car, this is what’s going to happen. We can tell you very accurately, because we have lots of data. But a motorcycle at half the speed of sound, we don’t have any data. We don’t know what the hell happens then!’” Akatiff said with a laugh.
With the prospect of 450 mph now in the team’s scope, Akatiff and his crew have a plan of attack for their six-day private event, dubbed the “Top of the World Land Speed Trial” in Bolivia.
This is what perfect salt looks like. It’s been a while since Bonneville looked this way.
“We just want to be able to go a little over 400 two ways and get Rocky into the record book,” said Akatiff. “And then it will be up to Rocky. We’ll just start raising the gear or doing whatever it takes, and he says he’s ready to go as fast as that bike will go.”
If the salt conditions are optimum (as expected), there is little to stand in the way of Robinson’s quest for the Ack Attack’s maximum speed.
“We have 10 miles, if we need it, to run up before we get to the trap,” Akatiff explained, revealing another major advantage of the Uyuni salt. The longest track at Bonneville is around 11 miles, which includes both run-up and slowdown. With nearly 100 miles in each direction at Uyuni, the possibilities are limitless. “I’m almost scared to think how fast the stupid bike can go!” Akatiff chuckled.
If the Ack Attack’s run in Uyuni is a success, it will not only spell victory for the team, but for the Uyuni salt flat, itself. Record-breaking land speed will have a new home, and will that spell the end for world-record speed trials at Bonneville? In Akatiff’s opinion, those who are chasing outright world-record speed might need to take a serious look at Bolivia. But he hasn’t lost faith in Bonneville.
Mike Akatiff’s background in avionics, and passion for speed and innovation, have led his Ack Attack team to capture the all-time land-speed world record three times. They’re hoping for a fourth in Bolivia.
“Bonneville was in good shape in 2010. It was the best course I’d ever seen in 2013,” Akatiff said. “They’re working on trying to restore Bonneville, too. So I have hopes that it will come back. But it will never be like this salt lake in Bolivia.”
The track for the Top 1 Oil-sponsored Top of the World Land Speed Trial is being laid out right now, and the team heads to Bolivia the first week in August. The trial begins on August 3 and ends on Tuesday, August 8. Expect to see some fireworks from the Top1 Ack Attack more than once throughout the six-day event.CN
To find out more about the Top of the World Land Speed Trial and the Top1 Ack Attack, visit http://top1ackattack.com/index.htm.
