Jay made the jump into land speed racing when he bought a 1946 Indian Chief from Buck Lovell . The bike was originally intended as decoration . After ten years of being an ornament , Jay took the bike to Bonneville . He was bitten by the land speed bug and is now in his 20th year of land speed racing and holds 55 land speed records .
Herbert J . " Bert " Munro - Motorcycle Performance Genius and Land Speed Racing Legend
Bert Munro had a " need for speed " and the creativity and the drive to make it happen . He was born in 1899 near Invercargill , New Zealand . His childhood was spent on the family farm , where he would often tear across the fields on the family ' s fastest horse . Cars , airplanes and motorcycles were just emerging as he became a teenager . He left the farm at age 14 to be apprenticed as a carpenter and would later go to work on the construction of the Ora Tunnel through the Southern Alps of New Zealand , only to return when his father bought a new farm near Invercargill . He also found work as a motorcycle salesman and mechanic . Munro became a successful motorcycle racer in New Zealand . Over the years , he owned many motorcycles , but two of them consumed a very large part of his life . They were a 1920 Indian Scout he bought at 21 , and in the 1950s , a 1936 Velocette MSS . The Scout wasn ' t the fastest bike , topping out at 55 mph . Bert went to work on it for the next 55 + years , wringing every bit of speed out of the motor . Unlike his competitors , who had factory-backed rides , Bert ' s was entirely handmade . He refurbished bike parts , fabricated new ones from scrap , and repurposed car parts . He had punched the motor out to nearly 850 cc and was running fast . While it wasn ' t the prettiest machine to look at , the performance told another story . He regularly crushed his competition and set his first speed record in New Zealand in 1938 at 120.8 mph . Bert made ten trips to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah . While the first trip in 1957 was " sightseeing ," every other trip was for racing . And race he did ... - In 1962 , he set an 883 cc class record of 288 km / h ( 178.95 mph ) with his engine bored out to 850 cc . - In 1966 , he set a 1000 cc class record of 270.476 km / h ( 168.07 mph ) with his engine at 920 cc . - In 1967 , his engine was bored out to 953 cc , and he set an under 1000 cc class record of 295.453 km / h ( 183.59 mph ). To qualify , he made a one-way run of 305.89 km / h ( 190.07 mph ), the fastest-ever officially recorded speed on an Indian . The unofficial speed record ( officially timed ) is 331 km / h ( 205.67 mph ) for a flying mile . - In 2014 , 36 years after his death , he was retroactively awarded a 1967 record of 296.2593 km / h ( 184.087 mph ) after his son John noticed a calculation error by AMA at that time in 1967 . Making it even more amazing , all his Bonneville records were set after Bert turned 60 , and his bike was over 40 years old . His 1967 record still stands . A quote attributed to Munro summarizes his zest for life : " You live more in five minutes on a bike like this going flat-out than some people live in a lifetime ." Bert passed in 1978 . In 2005 his life was immortalized with Anthony Hopkins starring as Munro in " The World ' s Fastest Indian ." In 2013 , Indian Motorcycle Company launched the " Spirit of Munro " streamliner , as a launch platform for the new Indian 111 motor . To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Munro ' s record , Indian modified one of the new Scouts to run at El Mirage and Bonneville in 2017 . This bike was piloted by his grand-nephew Lee from Invercargill , New Zealand , who set three class records at El Mirage and Bonneville .
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