Record-breaking time for the Waikato’s answer to Burt Munro
Landspeed NZ news letter by John Crane (Bonniville Bob) of Gisborne American car club
Against the backdrop of a bright, almost windless early autumn day, the 2024 rendition of Landspeed NZ’s Goudies Road speed event took place in nearly flawless fashion. This was my third consecutive Landspeed event and it’s safe to say the event over this timeframe has gotten more organized, more professional, and undoubtedly better recognized. The 9th March 2024 event’s entrant numbers were down slightly from the 3rd December 2023 event, but at 38 entries, these entrants were just about all the organizers could handle efficiently in the one-day format. The participants came from all over the c o u n t r y —
Northland to Dunedin—and featured cars and bikes ranging from Inia Taylor’s 1928 Excelsior
motorbike to Reg Cook’s high dollar race car “Cookie”, to Don Short’s 50cc KTM streamlined motor bike, that prompted one casual observer to joke, “….. sounded like someone…..riding a chainsaw!”
Landspeed is a quintessential example of the egalitarian Kiwi attitude that originality, planning, imagination, and perseverance can level a playing field populated by deep pockets. A good clue to how this works is when you see an entrant’s car equipped with a tow bar.
While the scintillating speed of a Cole Scammel or Patric Nussbaum pass by the pits at well over 340 km/hr run is an adrenalin rush, what I find really interesting is the wide variety of vehicles and entrants. Each and every entrant has a goal and while that goal usually is measured in kph/Mph, that’s not always true.
Case in point: Inia Taylor drove into the pit area on Friday, trailering three bikes—three really old, some would charitably say “vintage” bikes—behind his Jeep Cherokee wagon. As he drove into the pit area Friday afternoon, I noticed that the bikes didn’t have the appearance of being a threat to breech 200 mph, leading me to wonder what was his team’s thinking was.
Once they got their camp set-up, I approached the three of them, identifying myself and asking if I
could interview them. As was the spirit of virtually all the event’s competitors, they were very forthcoming as to why they were there. Inia, owner of the bikes, brought two mates, Rudi Buchanan and Chris Steadman with him to ride and set-up the three bikes.
Bike #801, ridden by Orb Morbey, was a 1925 Excelsior, an English bike, that Inia has owned for more or less 20 years. He and his team hoped to push the 99-year-old bike past it’s age, in MPH, of course….100 MPH.
The #127 bike is a Norton Manx, fitted with a 1937 J.A.P. 500cc speedway engine when the
bike was new. Inia has owned it since he was 18.
Interestingly, he acquired the bike from a landlord that had taken the bike from his tenant for unpaid rent. Inia believes this particular model bike—and perhaps even this exact bike—beat Burt Munro at a Muriwai Beach race in or around 1955 and still holds the race record @ 122 MPH. I’m told the
history of this bike is well documented, having once belonged to Don Cameron, a mate of Munro’s.
Inia’s third entrant, the #231 bike, is a 1931 Norton, factory-fitted with a very rare speedway cylinder head. The team refers to this bike as the “swamp bike” because it was recovered from a Waikato swamp. While I didn’t take the opportunity to talk to Inia after the day’s racing, I did overhear him
saying they were pleased with what they found and planned on returning with the bikes tuned differently to handle the altitude (560 meters) of Goudies Road.
Karapiro’s Don Short entered his streamlined 50cc KTM motorbike, once again demonstrating the variety of entrants to the Landspeed March event. I did not speak with Don, but there is a great article in the Waikato Times which is recommended if you’re further interested in Don’s story. Search for Matthew Martin’s March 16 article “Record-breaking time for the Waikato’s answer to Burt
Munro”