On The Salt With Young Ross Tomas

In this day and age in this economy it’s not uncommon for families to be uprooted due to the bread winner having to move where his company goes. This can be devastating to young kids, but Ross Tomas turned it into a positive adventure that many young, and old, men would love to do. His father, Mike Tomas works for Kiwi Indian and had to move to South Dakota when Kiwi’s parts department relocated there. Here’s Ross telling his story.

In the past 4 months I have lived a couple of years in my mind.  Kiwi Indian has moved the parts department to Mitchell South Dakota and I moved with it. Since I was staying with Klock Werks I got my driver’s license and a few days later I took the motorcycle safety  
course instructed by Laura Klock and Dan Cheeseman. I completed the course and got my motorcycle license and became legal to ride. Three days later I was making my trip to Sturgis on the Kiwi bobber and was headed about 200 miles north in rain and wind to Aberdeen to meet with friends up at Carl’s Cycle Supply to make our 300 mile trip to Sturgis. We worked late on knucklehead Harleys until 3am. The next day we rode out to Sturgis in a group full of old bikes riding on the back roads to Sturgis. We filled up with gas 25 miles from the county line and I said goodbye to the group. I said I will see them soon as I had to meet my dad. While in Sturgis I had to have ridden another few hundred miles.

I came back to Mitchell South Dakota and a few weeks later it  was time to go to the Bonneville Salt Flats to run the Kiwi bobber  
with our new sponsors, Kiwi Indian, Klock Werks, Alpinestras, Z1R Helmets, Handsome Devil Clothing, American Motordrome, and the Buell Brothers. I caught a ride with the Klock Werks team and met my dad there and he had the bike I was riding. Our friends pointed some things out we didn’t have that we needed such as a full length chain guard and an engine shut off switch on the handle bars. I had to find  
a suit to borrow due to the one we bought was too small. I Borrowed one from the Buell Brothers and I entered tech inspection. We passed and decided to make our first run. I didn’t know what to expect and listened to what the veterans had to say. I ran a pass at 88 miles per  
hour and there was no record in the class and qualified for a return which we made a run at 95 miles per hour. We changed gearing and made a pass the next day at 90 made a return pass at 93 miles per hour.

We changed the gearing again and advanced spark a bit and ran our final 2 passes due to the Davenport Show at 98 and a return run at 97 miles per hour. I now hold a record in the M-VF 1650 class at 98.035. The salt is an amazing place to be it is 30,000 acres of wide open white salt. The experience is something you can’t explain in words but with feelings.

It sounds like Ross certainly had some tales to tell that even most of us old riders can’t tell. Way to go Ross.