Below are some photos of the sidewinder in it's earlier incarnation with the old engine up at Lancelin. The single spottie and flag at "half-mast" show these pictures were taken just after one of it's dozen or so roll-overs.
Mike Hill, Quentin Hall, and myself built this vehicle from scratch in about three months (for about Aus$3,000). Some wits have called it the "Sideliner" because we keep on rolling it, putting holes in the crankcase and other fun things, but it is an awesome little machine.
Below are some photos of the sidewinder in it's earlier incarnation with the old engine up at Lancelin. The single spottie and flag at "half-mast" show these pictures were taken just after one of it's dozen or so roll-overs.
Above you can see Mick with the the drive chain in his hands - One of the reasons friends have dubbed our machine the "Side-liner". These photos were taken by Nick Jenkins. In case you're wondering, we do wear helmets these days when driving and yes, I did bash my knees and elbows on landing the 5m jump below, but only because we hadn't at that stage put padding on the offending roll cage bars. Needless to say, that's the first thing we added following these photos.
The beast as seen in these older photos used to be powered by a 500cc 4 valve 4 stroke single cylinder Honda motorcyle engine. We kept snapping the extended kick-start lever off, the engine vibrations were worthy of a Swedish masseur, it spat oil all over the place like a slobbering dog and the chain kept coming off the cog and punching a hole in the crank-case. Needless to say, we're more than happy with the new engine in comparison! The machine has full independent front suspension and solid rear axle swing arm suspension at the rear.
I'm in the Sidewinder and that's Mick on the Bike.
Lancelin (1.5hrs noth of Perth) has some of the biggest, most extensive and beatiful dunes I've seen. That's my old car in the foreground, somewhat dwarfed by some of the smaller dunes.
