Another movie recommendation

[coffeeseven]

The World's Fastest Indian. Watched it tonight. I'm still chuckling an hour later.

[KBCraig]

I watched it last week via Netflix instant view. Loved it! Anthony Hopkins is a genius.

They had to do the typical Hollywood BS version of a true story that's even better than the fiction, but I had to chuckle at all the people he met along the way: the ship's crew, the transvestite motel clerk, the lonely widow, the Indian with the remedy for prostate trouble, the speed week crew who volunteered to help him, etc.

The true story is amazing enough: his record of 183.586 mph still stands for motorcycles under 1,000cc displacement. He set the record in 1967, when he was 68 years old, riding a motorcycle that he bought new in 1920.  That was his tenth trip to Bonneville, and his third and final land speed record.

"Heavily modified", sure, but the film pretty accurately depicts his working methods. He didn't have the money for tools, so he improvised. Munro was a "shed genius".

The scene where he sits up to counter the high-speed wobble was actually captured by timing light cameras in 1966.

http://ehayes.co.nz/burtmunro/assets/images/scan_1503.gif
"1966. Burt has his goggles around his neck, helmet is almost blown off and he is blinded by salt and wind when he sat up at 200mph, to regain control. Set a A.A. 1000 record of 165 mph."