US Land Steam Record!!

Good luck Chuk
Show them how it’s done.
Rolly

Absolutely, All the luck in the world Chuk, You just have to do it. Fantastic the salt dried out so fast.
For heavens sake take lots of video!! Daily reports please.
As we thought, that other LSR fantasy contraption won't run.
Jim

Jim Crank Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> For heavens sake take lots of video!! Daily
> reports please.

> Jim


Yes please Chuk

Best of luck !

Mike

Good luck! Looking forward to hear updates!

Jared

Jared Schoenly

Hey-

We arrived at Bonneville yesterday afternoon and set up camp at the "bend in the road", and we'll be able to get out on the salt this afternoon. Then we'll start getting the pit set up and the car unloaded-in readiness for the car inspections which start tomorrow afternoon. Our crew will be arriving by then-so things will get easier!

Friday we'll have time to fire up the machine and get the burner adjusted to the ambient conditions here. Local temps have been in the 80's during the day, and 60's-70's at night-great weather!

Thanks for the interest and support-everyone-without you behind us-we wouldn't be here!

Chuk

Hi Chuk,

Setting the record would be great...... but safety first, last and always!

Fair Winds and Smooth Salts,

Ken

Hi Chuk,

That's "Petal to the metal" Chuk.

Best of luck.

Since this is a possible attempt at a world record for steam can the Bonneville people roll the salt flat for you. I have seem movies of cars trying for the 200 mph mark and the salt left a rooster tail behind the car. Kicking up that much salt and a rough surface cost hp. What are the surface conditions?

Bill G.

Bill-

I'm posting using my phone-so I have to make it short!

The salt conditions on the track are fine, but getting out to the staging area is a mess. It's slushy, and the stuff is all over everything.

We have our pit area set up-today we'll get the machine unloaded and ready for inspection. Hopefully, we'll be able to get that done this afternoon. We had a helluva evening last night-sitting around the fire with our toddies and listening to the beautiful 60's-70's music provided by our new friend Tex Deville. The wind was howlin-gusting to 15 or so...a minor cold front passage. This morning it's calm, bright-and beautiful on the salt!!


Chuk

Hey-


Thanks everyone for your concerns and best wishes, I am still here, still alive and kicking- though I did use up quite a bit of my luck this time!

The following is how the run went-leading up to the accdent:

The start-up procedure went very smoothly and the push vehicle got me to 40 mph, after which I got on it and pulled away. Almost immediately I had difficulty with the wet mushy track conditions. It's possible that I was getting some rear wheel spin that was making things worse. The steam temperature was right on the money, but the low engine RPM was causing the tube temperature to run high, which forced me to monitor and deal with it all the way up to about the 3 mile mark. This distraction added to the difficulty of holding a good course down the track. At the 4 mile mark, I finally called it and pulled the chute. The chute handle wouldn't budge even though I tugged at it several times.

After the passage of time, and remembering more about the events leading up to the accident-I have pieced together the following:

When I pulled the chute release-nothing happened-the T handle wouldn't budge. I tugged on it several times and then looked down at it to see if I could see anything wrong. When I took my attention away from the control of the car for those few moments-I lost control, and that caused the accident. The accident investigator thinks that I let off the throttle before I pulled the chute, but that is not the case. I always pull the chute under full throttle and gradually ease off.

After many rolls-as well as an airborne excursion, the vehicle was scattered over about 1/2 mile of track . The crew that cleared the track told us they picked up over 1600 pieces!

Tis a real shame our time at Bonneville turned out the way it did...The car was pulling strong all the way thru the run-even though I was dumping steam to control the tube temp, and I wasn't giving it full throttle. We had at least 10mph left at the end of the run-and possibly as much as 20mph or more!

I feel very lucky to come away from this with a broken arm -a couple of broken fingers, and three fractured vertebrae. If any of my safety gear had failed-the ending would have been very different indeed. Many, many heartfelt thanks go to the crew who literally picked up the pieces-loaded everything into the trailer, and drove the rig to Tom Stoecker's place in Illinois for safe keeping. Robin Roarke, Jim Anderson, Tom Stoecker, Nick Mesmer, George Knight, all gave invaluable time and energy to even make this attempt possible. Also many thanks Miles & Val Twete for providing support and jumping in to help.

To all our friends-thank you for your endless support!

Chuk



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2014 02:53PM by chuk williams.

Good to hear from you Chuk - hope you have a speedy recovery.

Mike

Chuk, I can't tell you how good it is to see your post. Let me offer my best wishes for your speedy recovery.

All the best,

Tim

PS: you type pretty good for a guy with two broken fingers.

Thank you very much for the update, Chuk, and heal well.

Chuk,

Always wishing you the best. Any idea when you will be back yet?


Bill G.

Hey-

Home sure feels good! We took the redeye out of SLC last night.....

I plan to take some serious time out for the body to heal!

Sorry to say it-bit we're gonna miss the BerrienSprings Meet-as always, I was looking forwrd to it-but this time my body just can't make it!



Chuk

Well-

I'm happy to hear that the Meet went well! It seems that our new President has hit the ground running, and that we have new directors-with a bit more of a geographical mix-that's good.

I want to let everyone know that I am healing rapidly, and feeling grateful that my body came thru the crash with only the relatively minor injuries that I have.

I finally saw photos of the car yesterday.......almost unbelievable damage to the frame-of course the body was trashed on the first roll. The rollcage sustained a major blow from the left side that left it bent slightly to the right-I suspect that that is the reason my helmet is cracked on the left side, and that is also the reason my left eye had an alarming bleed behind it. The eye is OK now-thank goodness, but was a major worry for awhile.

The recent news from Bonneville is that George Poteet-a driver with many, many runs at 450+mph-had an accident with his "Speed Demon" at 300+. The vehicle was heavily damaged, but George was out of the car-waiting-when the emergency vehicles arrived! That's another great example of how well the safety gear does its job......

Hangin around the house is driving me a bit batty, but I have been thinking a bit about the next steam car project. Finding a suitable engine is the hardest part of the concept. I can build almost everything else, but finding a good engine of 100-150hp is almost impossible. I have a Bryan, but I would rather have a V4 or similar that would bolt up to a tranny in the conventional position. If anyone has such a jewel of an engine hidden away that they want to pa$$ on this way-I'm interested!

Thanks again-to everyone for your support and best wishes! I'm sure that's helping me heal quickly!



Chuk

Hi,

Glad to hear you are doing OK Chuk. Was the old engine trashed, or are you looking for a bigger one?

How long until you are, say, back to work or jogging or something? Back to normal?

My Best to You,

Bill G.

Bill-

The engine in the Streamliner wasn't damaged very much at all-the frame protected it. The steam generator is in pretty good shape also-with just a few hits to the casing.

I'm looking for a suitable engine to be used in a "road car"....a hot rod that I can blast around town or on the freeway at 80+....

I'm healing pretty quickly-the cast is off my left hand, and I'm getting around ok. The vertabrae will take months to totally heal-but the broken right arm should be out of the cast in about a month. I have no strength in my hands because of the broken fingers-but I'm getting the flexibility back slowly. I'd say it'll take me a coupla months more for me to feel back to somewhat "normal", but meanwhile-I've got time to plan for the next steam project!

Here's a coupla pix of the car after the crash-courtesy of Nick Mesmer.. Take notice of how far away in the background the debris field starts!


Chuk

Chuk,

From the looks of the debris field, as I can count it the car must have rolled about 11 times over.

Ouch!

Really glad your head is not too damaged or neck.

For the road car, maybe something like the little 1/4 ton truck I designed, the three cylinder double acting, cross slide block engine. 160 - 200 hp That's about all that is condensible on a hot day. That condensers radiators take up the roof of the little truck 43" wide by 7 ft long. about 23 ft 2 of frontal surface. I'd figure a boiler of about 1,400-1,500 lbs/hr. That would push on the condenser a little but not too much. It's design is for 110 F ambient. At 80 deg F outside then it's capacity goes up by 30%. The engine is 260 "3 as double acting. Expansion is about 12:1

It should be a decent running little thing.


Best,

Bill G.

Chuk-
Glad to hear you're healing & getting more motion.
Just noticed that video of the Speed Demon's crash that weekend is posted online...it's amazing he walked away.
Speed Demon crash
-Myles

Edit "Link" to story no longer on landing page.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/2016 07:36AM by Scott Finegan.

Hey Myles!

Thanks for the link! I was hoping to be able to see a video of his car-his cameras survived to tell the tale! My tail camera was in pieces-but I managed to salvage the memory card. Unfortunately, there was nothing on it.....I think it must have been erased by the camera damage.

My cockpit camera wouldn't come on when we went thru the startup procedure-before the run-so there wasn't any data there either.

This forced holiday that I'm on is a bit hard to take!


Chuk

Yeah---forced recliner action isn't great at all---I used to rock climb and after a 100ft fall ended up with 2 broken wrists, broken elbow, broken femur and a destroyed ankle...after surgeries and plates and bolts in my hip and ankle I was non-weight-bearing on my right leg for about 6 months. About all I looked forward to was a new cast every few weeks...but at 29 years old (1987), I healed well.

Say, you should see if you can post a few of the images that the photographer caught of your steamer just before the accident and during the flipping. I've seen the one before and the steamer looks great. I wonder though---from that image, knowing the tire pressure and dimensions and the photograph showing contact area on the front tires and back tires, it seems you could estimate the downward force on the front end if that was a concern/factor in the crash.

Happy healing-

-Myles

Myles-

There has never a question in my mind regarding the stability of the streamliner-it's always felt very stable and tracked like it was on rails. Until this time at the Flats-that is. When we did the first shakedown runs at Bonneville in October '12, the salt was hard and dry, the vehicle tracked straight and was very stable.

This time the track conditions were very different....as in-wet and slushy. The handling of the vehicle was very different, and very difficult. Nonetheless-the track conditions were not to blame for my accident.

The blame for the accident lies squarely on my shoulders. I packed the parachute-I diverted my attention to the parachute release when it didn't function as expected-those two things are the reasons for the accident. The track conditions were a contributing factor, but if either one of the two reasons above had functioned as they should have-the accident would probably have never happened. I had control of the vehicle all thru the run-right up to the 5-1/4 mile-when I diverted my attention to the parachute release.

The photos were taken a few seconds before the accident.

Chuk

Was there any video coverage

Thanks for posting the pics Chuk---either of these images would look great on the first page of the website, by the way :-).

There is a video, but after what looks like fish-tailing after the finish, I couldn't really make out what's happening or whether the car goes into flipping, rolling or whatever.

Myles-

Yes there is a video, taken from about 3/8th mile away. The photographer was Randy Maxwell, affiliated with the guy who had the big truck with a V16 with quad turbos. He was getting anything that looked interesting, and part of that included my run-along with the accident.

The video is 5+minutes long....Randy had the video running as we started the vehicle at the start line in prep for the run. You can hear the radio announcer thru out the tape, calling off speed as we progressed down the track. Finally, at about the 2:10 portion of the tape you can see the streamliner enter the video on the right.
As you watch the streamliner progress down the track-moving from right to left-you'll notice that as it passes the last two black markers(they're the 1/4mile designator) the image of the vehicle changes and you can see a fog of salt being thrown up....that's the beginning of the end! Watch closely, and you'll see a small change in the image again-with more salt being thrown up. At this point the vehicle makes a ninety degree turn away from the camera-this is when it became airborne for approx 400 feet-you see lots of pieces flying off/clouds of salt obscuring your view because the vehicle is going away from the viewer. If you pause and restart the video at this point(for a split second at a time)you can see the vehicle go end-for-end at least once, before finally rolling to a stop to the right of the body pieces. If you listen closely during the crash you will hear the violence of it. Then you will hear-and see-the emergency reponse teams doing their thing.

It's not a pleasant thing for me to watch......

[www.youtube.com]

Chuk


Chuk

Thanks for the link to the video on YouTube, Chuk.
And for another 5-minute video of one of the other things that goes on at Bonneville, check this out:
[www.youtube.com]
At 4 1/2 minutes in, tragedy strikes one team's rocket...

-Myles

Hey Everyone!

Many Thanks to everyone who have sent their Good Wishes and great energy-I'm healing well. My injuries are becoming less noticable, and the physical therapy is expected to succeed in getting the full range of motion back in my hands and wrists. The cracked vertabrae aren't causing any problems-though I still have limitations on lifting. The right arm is limited to lifting 5 pounds, otherwise it feels normal.

Last week we flew up to pick up the van/trailer at Tom Stoeckers' farm in Illinois. Tom, Jim Anderson, Nick Mesmer, and George Knight had picked up the pieces, and driven the rig back from Bonneville immediately after the accident. Tom had taken the wrecked vehicle out of the trailer, washed all the salt off, sprayed the whole thing with WD40, and loaded it back into the trailer...As a result of his work, there is just a minimum of rust on the chassis-Thank You-Thank You Tom!

We visited Art Gardiner on the way back down-he wanted to make sure his engine survived! We also stopped thru and visited Jerry Peoples, Burton Marsh, and Roger Ulsky. We're back home in warm, sunny South Florida-and glad to be out of the cold weather up north!

Today I'm going to start unloading the trailer load of streamliner parts. Most of the small pieces of the body will be thrown in the trash, but I plan to keep the big sections to remind myself how quickly things can change! The engine and the steam generator survived, though the generator case and insulation are pretty badly damaged.

We'll see how it goes!


Chuk

Hi Chuk,

I'm glad to hear that you are getting around. It's nice to have good friends to help out, glad to hear that too.

Best Wishes,

Bill G.

Hey!

Well-it's been awhile since I posted anything.....there wasn't much to say except that my injuries were healing! I've been trying to forget the LSR dream ever since the accident-without success. We were sooo close, and had the capability(it seemed) to set a new record quite a few mph above the 148+ record.

Of course, there is no real way to ascertain what "could" have happened if I hadn't had the accident. However, I feel very strongly that we had the right combination of crew, vehicle, and steam plant to get us there.

As I've said many times-without the support of the Club members, we could not have made it to where we were. I have broached the subject of possibly returning to the salt with a different vehicle to a few close friends within the Club, and they have overwhelmingly voiced their support for the idea.

Drawing on the experience we have with the previous streamliner-as well as the wealth of parts that survived the crash unscathed-I foresee that the Markll version could be realized much quicker and cheaper than the first one.

The primary concern for me regarding the design of the MKll is safety, and I have quite a few ideas about how to increase the safety and stability with the next vehicle. I might not be so lucky-if there is another accident!

I'm building a new shop at present, so-for the moment-anything past that is just "icing on the cake"!


Chuk

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100hp speed vs distance.gif	8.1 KB	open | download	Tim Nye	05/05/2014	Read message
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