Big Red (motorcycle)

Big Red
Big Red at Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum
ManufacturerDon Vesco
Assemblyc. 1969
Successor"Silver Bird" streamliner
ClassSpeed record streamliner motorcycle
EngineTwo, 350 cc two-stroke, two-cylinder Yamaha motors
Frame typeMonocoque body (drop tank)
BrakesParachute assist
DimensionsL: 5486 mm

Big Red was the machine with which American Don Vesco took the motorcycle land-speed record, 405.25 kilometres per hour (251.81 mph), on September 17, 1970, at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.

At Bonneville Speed Week in 1969, Vesco took Big Red to a speed of 365 km/h (227 mph). The following year, with the five and a half meter long motorcycle built from an aircraft drop tank, he undertook several more attempts to break the 395.363-kilometre-per-hour (245.667 mph) record set by Robert Leppan in 1966. He succeeded in setting a new record of 405.25 km/h (251.81 mph). A month later, the record was broken again: Cal Rayborn reached an averaged 427.25 kilometres per hour (265.48 mph) in two runs in opposite directions.

The bike is now an exhibit of the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum.[1][2][3]

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