2000-2001 Fifth Streamliner - 1

About this time, I believe it was the latter part of 2000, maybe October, I received a phone call from my friend, Larry Feece. He told me that Dan Smith had approached him at some sort of motorcycle event in Southern California, and asked, "Whatever happened to Max's liner?". Larry told Dan he was storing it at his place, and that nothing much had been done to the bike since the crash in 1998; however, he said that Max, Don and he, had been making plans to get it going again, and that Don was already working on the nose, and that he was working on the front axle. Larry said that Dan asked him to ask Max if he would consider getting help with both finances and labor, from the Vancouver Section of the VOC, to put the liner back on the salt in 2001.

Many things came to mind as I considered the offer. I thought of all the people who had helped finance the Vincent streamliner in the past; I thought of my volunteer pit crew; I thought of the crash in 1997, the crash in 1998--and here these guys were offering me the opportunity to get back to Black Lightning, they were offering me the opportunity to make good on the promise I'd made to myself, and to my backers, to "keep on keeping on". Private thoughts of personal events also entered in, but I knew that work had always been my haven, and I would be working on what I could really lose myself in--my Vincent streamliner, Black Lightning. I would have been able eventually to put her back on the salt myself, but their offer made it possible to step up the time table by two whole years.

I made the phone call, and agreed to accept their generous offer to help set the Motorcycle Land Speed Record for the Vincent marque, with Black Lighting.

A few phone calls back and forth between Dan and myself, and we soon formulated a plan to meet at Larry's place to ascertain what was needed in the line of parts, and who was to do what to get it back on the salt.