Ride Like Hell and You'll Get There (13 page)

We walked Doug over to his plane. I hung around and watched him turn into a speck in the distance, then lay back on the grass next to the runway and enjoyed the spectacle of the army parachute display team hurling themselves out of their aircraft. They morphed from dots in the sky to an amazing coordinated descent, one after the other landing next to me like they were casually stepping off a chairlift. My brother-in-law Dan shares this slightly frightening obsession with throwing himself out of aircraft and off the edge of cliffs; he shows me the footage from his tiny helmet camera and it seriously makes me feel ill.

Diego flopped down next to me followed by Colin and Ed and we all lay there for an hour, idly chatting about the last three years. How close we had come, the excitement and innovation, a bike that was the first of its kind in Australia. Even the Clean Diesel fuel was a first in this country. I was so proud that everyone who worked on this project did it because they wanted to see it work, and work here in Australia, built by Aussies, from the Holden engine to the galah I killed on the runway.

We packed everything into the trailer, car and bikes on autopilot then went back to the motel to clean up, check out and meet up for lunch at the pub. Colin and Ed were heading back to Adelaide where they would try to talk the university into holding on to the bike. Diego and I were heading down to Melbourne and straight on to the 4.30 p.m. ferry to Tassie.

But Colin wasn’t quite finished. After we’d done our runs at the airfield he’d poked around the bike for a bit, clipboard in one hand, then back at the motel he’d disappeared, saying he had some calls to make. Halfway through our burgers he casually mentioned, ‘I’ve got an idea.’

We all leant in to hear it.

Colin started talking about British Aerospace, who he worked for when he first arrived in Australia. He’d been on the team that designed a missile system purchased by the Australian Navy and had been sent here to assist with the weapons system being integrated into the maritime theatre of operations. The handover took months as the whole system needed to be tested and the navy personnel had to be trained in its use. This was all done, Colin explained, inside a large secure military live-missile firing range.

Now we were really listening.

Colin paused to drink his beer. ‘Well, I’ve been on the phone and the same army officer who ran the place is still there.’ He had a bite of his burger.

‘Great, Colin, that’s nice. How is he?’ I said, suddenly and uncontrollably flooded with hope again.

‘The facility has a 5-kilometre dead-straight access road that’s used to move the missiles from storage to the firing range.’

‘And?’ The bastard was torturing me now. He had a bit more burger, another sip of drink.

‘And so I asked him if we could run the bike down it. He thought it was a great idea.’

We erupted like a footy team that just learnt that peptides are now allowed in sport, then started firing questions at him all at once.

Colin was grinning madly, but as always remained the voice of reason. ‘There’s a mile of red tape involved, lads,’ he cautioned. ‘He needs to put it to the military chain, and we need to be patient. It’s not the sort of place you can just ride into.’ He was still smiling, though, which gave away his optimism. ‘I also spoke to the senior police officer for that area about an hour ago, and he thought it was a great idea, too. He even offered to use his radar gun to register the speed, but it can’t go above 200.’

Colin added that the military facility had grown and they now had all kinds of new kit that wasn’t available in his time. If we got the go-ahead, we’d also be allowed to play with the army’s new toys, courtesy of Colin’s mate, including a four-wheel-drive vehicle with what looks like a giant golf ball on the back but is actually a laser-guided missile tracking system. I couldn’t wait to tell Doug, he was going to wet his pants.

The five of us dreamt on for another hour, then parted company with the life breathed into us again. Diego and I hit the freeway south towards Melbourne to meet our ferry.

The Bio Diesel Motorcycle Salt Lake Special—just an engine gearbox and rear swingarm in 2008.

In one piece in late 2009.

And in 2010.

The salt is like riding over crazy paving.

Focused on the endgame.

Speed Week 2013.

Passing the one-mile marker.

Tailem Bend test track—low-flying eagle situation.

Corowa’s main runway—no wind, just too short.