Monday, 30 April 2012
Honda Hawk Streamliner Week – Post: 08
I would personally like to thank Dick Keller for making
The Honda Hawk Streamliner Week possible.
Without Dick Kellers info and pictures this fantastic journeay down memory lane would not have been possible.
I hope you all injoyed the stories and the documentation of the Honda Hawk projetct, and hope that we will see you soon here on COFDL.
With warm regards, The Pilot
Honda Hawk Streamliner Week – Post: 07
DICK KELLER - SPACE AGE SPEEDSTER
Father of the Honda Hawk
Few
men have realized the acclaim and successes in land-speed-record
(LSR) racing and motorsports design innovation as Richard “Dick”
Keller; project manager of Reaction Dynamics’ successful The
Blue Flame rocket-powered LSR racer which streaked to the
world record speed of 630 miles per hour; designer and builder of the
Honda Hawk motorcycle streamliner; rocket engineer,
chassis consultant and designer for the Pollution Packer and
Pollution Packer Bonneville Dragster race cars which
set numerous national, international, and world records on the
Bonneville Salt Flats; and designer of the first successful
rocket-powered race car, the X-1.
How
did this fascination with speed and rockets begin? As a boy, Dick saw
a photograph of auto magnate Fritz von Opel’s rocket car that had
achieved a speed of 121 miles per hour at Berlin’s Avus track in
1928. Emblazoned on the car in large letters were the initials RAK2,
a German abbreviation for the word “raketen”, or rocket, number
two. Young Dick, whose initials are RAK III, imagined the coincidence
to be Destiny pointing a finger at him. Thereafter, rocket propulsion
and motor racing became his greatest interests and enjoyment.
Dick
seemed always in a hurry to get somewhere fast. He earned a
reputation amongst his playmates in his Chicago neighborhood for
modifying bicycles to go faster, stripping off excess weight and
changing the sprockets for more speed. Using war surplus CO2
cartridges for jet propulsion, he built (and wrecked) numerous balsa
wood model Bonneville lakesters.
While
a teenager he built and drove “hot rods” on Chicago streets and
dragstrips as a founding member of the Igniters Auto Club. Then, in
the late Fifties, he was further inspired when he became an
occasional “go-fer” for the greatest dragracing star of all time,
Don “Big Daddy” Garlits.
Continuing
his education after high school at Notre Dame University and Illinois
Institute of Technology, his professional career has spanned
fundamental and applied research as well as engineering design,
development, and management. Early career highlights include research
on aircraft boron fuels and silicone lubricants for the US Air Force,
design of high vacuum test equipment used in developing new
semi-conductor materials and integrated circuits, chemical warfare
projectiles, military satellite defenses, NASA rocket-fueling
monitors for the Saturn I and Saturn V Apollo booster rockets, and a
study of the gas reaction kinetics of methane and oxygen.
Experience
gained at Phoenix Chemical Laboratory, IIT Research Institute, and
the Institute of Gas Technology, in industrial and government
contract research, led to his co-founding Reaction Dynamics, Inc.
with Ray Dausman and Pete Farnsworth in 1965 to design, build, and
develop new concepts in prototype and racing vehicles. There, he and
Ray, who also worked with him at IIT Research Institute, designed and
developed the first hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)
rocket motor for a racing car, the X-1. Its record-setting
speeds on Midwestern dragstrips eventually helped Dick convince the
American Gas Association to sponsor what was to become a successful
attempt on international speed records. On October 23, 1970, Gary
Gabelich, Long Beach, California native, drove The Blue Flame
rocket to a new FIA-recognized kilometer world land-speed-record
of 630.388 miles per hour.
In
1971 at Reaction Dynamics, Dick and Pete designed and built the Honda
Hawk, a turbocharged dual 750cc 4-cylinder motorcycle-engine
powered land missile that zoomed across the Bonneville Salt Flats at
286 miles per hour, more than 30 mph faster than the FIM world record
at that time. Unfortunately, due to poor surface conditions that
year, the required backup run for the official record could not be
made.
After
leaving Reaction Dynamics in 1972, Dick continued racing car design
and building rocket propulsion systems as Keller Design Corporation.
His engines have powered the Pollution Packers, Miss
STP, Conklin Comet, and American Dream
Rocket Dragsters, and the Spirit of ‘76,
Captain America, Moonshot, Chicago
Patrol, Vanishing Point, and Natural High
rocket-powered Funny Cars.
The
Pollution Packer Bonneville Dragster, a unique
monocoque-chassis Rocket Dragster, was designed by Keller and built
by Tim Kolloch at R&B Automotive in Kenosha, WI. In addition to
the World Land Speed Record, Dick’s cars held, at the same time,
all FIA world acceleration and speed records up to one
kilometer distance (see FIA Recognized International Record list).
Numerous dragstrip records set coast-to-coast included the all-time
NHRA low elapsed time (4.62 seconds) and top speed (344 mph) for the
1/4-mile in an NHRA national event by Dave Anderson driving the
Pollution Packer at the NHRA Summernationals in 1973, and the
1/8-mile (3.40 seconds ET at 248 mph) in 1974. Sammy Miller
ultimately blasted his Keller Design-powered Rocket Funny Car, the
Vanishing Point, to over 400 miles per hour in 4.04 seconds
in 1977!
Dick’s
competitive urges turned full circle when, as a Masters Category
competitor, he returned to his early love, bicycle racing. He was won
several national track championships as well as setting European
(UEC) and World (UCI) masters track cycling records.
Beginning
with a young boy’s fascination with (sp)rocket technology,
continuing through a young man’s determination to excel, Dick
Keller’s quest for speed has certainly been
rewarded
with success.
To
quote Dick in his 70s, “Life is short; the road is long; ride
fast!”