A fine photo-essay. Rebuilt Vesco Streamliner. From The Motorcyclist Cafe. Hattip Jason.
Rick Vesco had his ‘summer of ’69 too. Built this liner. Used Yamaha’s new fangeled 4 stroke twin motors…. tuned mildly for the ‘Pepco’ superchargers. Raced into the seventy’s. Crashed and may never haved raced again. Top speed around the high 170’s or 180’s…….not bad for two little 650 motors (stock: about 30 horse .. Supercharged: not more than 130-140 horse)
Builder Rick Vesco explains, “My brother Don was a Yamaha dealer and had been racing the 350cc Yamaha two-strokes at Bonneville. One problem with the two-strokes was that they didn’t have much torque, so when the overhead-cam four-stroke came out in 1969, I thought that two of these, supercharged might provide the kind of power we needed.”
The streamliner was campaigned only one season. Crashed in 1970 at over 175 mph. A short wheelbase + no stabilizing fin = insability. Vesco said something about incorrect tyre selection.
“I had no money to put a lot of work into it, so we never rebuilt it or ran it again.”
Apparently Rick and brother Don had Yamaha dealerships. May have been indirect factory support.
Kent Riches from Airtech bought the derelict streamliner for $1,500 from Bonneville veteran Ron Secor in 2001.
“It was mostly just the chassis. Most of the body panels were gone, but Secor actually had the original molds. The engines and engine plates were missing also.”
‘Rick Vesco still had the engines. Don Vesco had the plates. One blower was missing, but was acquired from a man who had bought it from Vesco in 1974’.
Kent made new body panels and restored the machine to better-than-new condition.
Prepared for display, not racing.
He’s also involved in e-drag.
December 2010, collector John Parham displayed the vintage liner at the National Motorcycle Museum.
Riches-Nelson Racing and Southern Utah University (SUU) teaming up to create a 300 mph electric motorcycle.
Lightning Motorcycles. 206.079 mph. Bonneville Salt Flats. Utah. Sunday, August 14. 2011. Smashed the previous Riches/Nelson E-bike LSR (176.434 mph on the Airtech Lightning Bolt streamliner) . Heavily faired. Traditional sit-on design. Previous best, 173.388 mph (2010 BUB Motorcycle Speed Trials).
Don Vesco. Current custodian of the ‘Wheel Driven Labd Speed Record’ at 458.196 mph over 1 km … 470.444 mph over 1 mile. RIP.
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