Multiple Australian Top Fuel Motorcycle champion Chris Matheson has set his sights on the 2015 championship following a tough 2014.
Matheson holds the Australian national record for Top Fuel Motorcycles, along with numerous track records, including a blistering pass at Willowbank, his home track, where he clocked 6.04 seconds at over 241mph.
But he has also endured a series of lows such as in 2013 when he was blown off his ‘Nitro Voodoo’ machine at over 230mph. Then in Darwin last year he went through a bizarre incident where he suffered an electric shock aboard the motorcycle thanks to the powerful magneto.
“Unfortunately, we did a lot of engine damage in Darwin, so I decided to make some changes to our set up, while I had the opportunity,” Matheson said. “We have struggled with reliability and our short times have been disappointing to say the least.
“Sometimes you just need to stop, think and re-boot and that’s what I am doing. We still have the drive to chase our goals and that we will. We are aiming to test the new combination in the multi-cylinder Nitro Voodoo machine in the new year and pick up where we left off.
“In the meantime, I will run the Nitro Harley, affectionately known as the ‘Jack Hammer’ and try our best to shake up the championship points chase.”
Matheson said the Nitro Harley is a whole new challenge.
“It’s torque, not RPM and you need to keep the RPM in a small window of about 300 revs per minute, where it is happiest,” he said. “The multi-cylinder, well you could ring its neck to 10,000 RPM and it will lap it up in its stride. The twin, well it likes to choof along at about 4500 RPM, a bit like a street cruiser, albeit with around 1000 horsepower.”
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