Motorcycling: Calling all thrillseekers

Phil Garrett riding a 1979 Kawasaki 1260 Turbo at the Bonneville salt flats, in 2008. It is the...
Phil Garrett riding a 1979 Kawasaki 1260 Turbo at the Bonneville salt flats, in 2008. It is the same bike he is taking back to the United States this year. Photo supplied.

Christchurch speedster Phil Garrett is on the hunt for one more adventurous rider to join his Flying Kiwi team at the Bonneville salt flats, in Utah, in August.

Experience on a bike was essential - as was medical insurance - but Garrett said the most important quality was personality.

''What I am looking for is a good ambassador for New Zealand - a proud but humble New Zealander.''

Garrett is addicted to speed.

In the early 2000s, he spent 3 years leading the team which built a 1000cc Flying Kiwi three-wheeler bike and sidecar.

In 2005, it reached a top speed of 272kmh with Glenn Hayward in the rider's seat and a 60kg weight in the sidecar, setting a world and New Zealand sidecar speed record.

Garrett also completed a run, reaching a speed of 264kmh.

Three years later, he raced at the Bonneville BUB Speed Trials in a highly modified, turbocharged 1979 Kawasaki Z1000.

Garrett said he ''had the best time'' at Bonneville and decided to put together a team for this year's event.

The best-known New Zealander to race at Bonneville is the late Burt Munro, of Invercargill, who made 10 visits there, the first when he was 68.

His efforts were immortalised in the 2005 movie, The World's Fastest Indian, which sparked the Burt Munro classic motorcycle festival held in the city each November.

Garrett already has four of his five team members, each prepared to pay $10,000 towards the cost of getting the 1979 Kawasaki bike and a second turbo-charged 1984 750cc Kawasaki to the United States and back, as well as paying for their own travel and accommodation.

In return, he will teach his amateur enthusiasts to ride on the salt - which he says has 40% of the traction of riding on tarmac and is like ''riding on wet grass'' - and give them at least two race runs each.

''I've got people already aged from 26 to 52 including a single mother, a civil engineer and a police officer,'' he said.

''It's great. I always wanted this to be an intergenerational thing.''

But he still has room for one more and was hopeful it would be a Southerner inspired by the Burt Munro story.

''If it is high on your bucket list to race on the Boneville salt flats, then this is probably your best option.''

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