
Top-1
Team Plans Land-Speed World Record Showdown
Top-1 “Ack-Attack” Sets Streamliner
Sights on Bonneville
March 21, 2006 (SAN JOSE, CA)
– Delayed by rain and flooding during the March 6 –
10 Australian Speed Week, a team of American motorcycle racing
veterans will now shift its land-speed world record assault
to the salt flats of Bonneville. The Top-1 “Ack-Attack”
team, sponsored by Burlingame, California-based Top Oil Products
Company and led by noted motorcycle designer Mike Akatiff, plans
a practice run during the August 12 – 18 Bonneville Speed
Week. The team will then return September 3 -7 for the International
Motorcycle Speed Trails by BUB to again challenge the current
record of 322 mph.
The Top-1 team’s custom-built
900-horsepower streamliner bike has already set an unofficial
motorcycle land-speed record of 328.3 miles per hour during
an October 16, 2004 run at Bonneville. While certified by Bonneville
Nationals, Inc. and the Southern California Timing Association,
a record must also be certified by FIM for inclusion in the
Guiness Book of World Records. FIM officials will be on hand
this time to witness the Top-1 “Ack-Attack” attempt
– one that will pit Mike Akatiff and crew against two
other world-class teams for a once-in-a-lifetime land-speed
world record showdown.
An Impending Showdown
This year’s annual BUB Speed
Trials in September promise to be a showdown among the top three
streamliners in the world: the Top-1 Ack-Attack, Sam Wheeler’s
E-Z-Hook, and Denis Manning’s #7. And, if a new world
record isn’t set there, the three competitors are likely
to return to Bonneville in October for the World Finals.
Only Two World
Records in 42 Years
Following less than two years
of design and construction, the Ack-Attack’s unofficial
record is especially impressive in light of the fact that the
current 322-mph world record has stood for 16 years –
also the time it took Dave Campos and the Easy Rider team to
break the old 318-mph record set by Don Vesco, who spent a decade
trying before he made it into the record books.
Twin-Engine Turbo
Power
Looking more like a sleek airplane
fuselage than a conventional motorcycle, the Top-1 streamliner
is about 20 feet long. Beneath its carbon-fiber skin, a chrome-moly
tube frame links the two wheels, cockpit, and powertrain, which
features two heavily modified Hayabusa motorcycle engines with
a combined displacement of about 2.6 liters. The Top-1 Ack Attack
streamliner rides on ultra-high-speed Mickey Thompson automotive
tires – seven inches wide in front and nine inches at
the rear. About Mike Akatiff
Mike Akatiff is a well-known motorcycle
engineer and AMA dirt-track and desert racer who built race
bikes under contract with BSA Motorcycles for AMA champions
Jim Rice and Dick Mann before starting his own company in 1971
to design and manufacture racing and custom motorcycle parts.
In 1987, Akatiff founded another company, ACK Technologies,
which is the largest manufacturer of aircraft altitude digitizers
and emergency location transmitters. In 1997, the Federal Aeronautics
Administration appointed him as a designee with authority to
perform conformity inspections and grant FAA airworthiness certificates.
Akatiff began the design and construction of the Top-1 Ack-Attack
twin-engine motorcycle streamliner in 2002, setting an unofficial
land-speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats less than two
years later.
Check back soon for more updates
on the Ack Attack!
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