Valerie Thompson returning to Pro Stock Motorcycle after breaking land-speed records By Brandon W. Mudd

moves pretty fast. If you don’ t stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it.” – F. Bueller,

At 304.263 mph, Valerie Thompson is the world’ s fastest woman on two wheels. This year, she’ s taking Mr. Bueller’ s advice and slowing down, relatively, with her entry into the NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle class. Racing her own bike under the Valerie Thompson Racing banner, she skipped Gainesville to test in North Carolina, hoping to make her 2017 debut at zMAX Dragway near Charlotte for the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals.

Thompson has taken the time to look around in different ways over the past year. She was married in October and recently earned membership into the prestigious Bonneville 200 MPH Club. Oh, and that record run at the salt flats last year.

Racing a streamliner at speeds of 300 + mph across the famous Utah course sounds like something out of Tron. For Thompson, who got into drag racing on the streets of Scottsdale, Ariz., until she took her Harley-Davidson Fat Boy to the track, there is never fear. Only speed.

“ The fear turns into energy for me,” she said.“ When you have that energy and you have that excitement, you can see it in the video, that‘ There is, yeah let’ s go, let’ s go, clap clap.’ Full of excitement in the cockpit. The adrenaline does kick in, but then when they say‘ OK, see you later, have a good ride,’ and you have your hands on the joysticks, it is like,‘ Oh my gosh, this is reality. Wait a minute, calm down, calm down.’ You go from one level of excitement, adrenaline. Then you got the other one that is nice and peaceful.”

Remind you, that’ s the statement of a Bonneville veteran. When Thompson headed there for the first time in 2005, her research led to thoughts of possible escape.

“ As I researched the salt flats and as I researched

what kind of race I was going to, I got so scared, nervous,” she said.“ I was thinking,‘ There has got to be a way … to get out of this. There is no way I’ m going on the salt flats. When I turn the corner, I am going to fall. It’ s like ice out there.’

“ I got all freaked out. I tried to come up with many, many reasons why I couldn’ t go and it just didn’ t work out. I said,‘ You know what, I just got to go, I just got to do it.’”

She continued to race the flats and began to look at returning to drag racing. After making her NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle debut at the 2008 US Nationals, she made a couple more starts, then put that portion of her career on hold to return her focus on Bonneville.

But now, while her desire to push herself and her machine even faster across the salt flats remains, returning to competitive drag racing is the current priority.

Her testing schedule to kick off her season this year has been intense, due mainly to the sizable differences between the streamliner she’ s used to and the Buell she’ s taking to NHRA-sanctioned quarter miles.

“ Going from racing at Bonneville,” Valerie said,“ easing up into the throttle, so now I have to hammer the clutch out, I have to throw the clutch out, and I have to do all the other bells and whistles, and launch a motorcycle that has over three Gs. That is huge, huge.”

Speed is great, competition is incredible, but peace of mind? Serenity? Man, that’ s the good stuff. Cruising through life at 300 + mph makes life move awful fast, but Valerie has what she needs to allow her to look around at her life and accomplishments.

“ It amazes me, it’ s the most happiest and proudest( moment),” she said regarding the first bike she bought.“ I was in banking prior to that for 13 years when I got laid off. That was why I started riding a motorcycle, because I wanted to be outside. Something to have fun with. I had full control over two wheels now.

“ It is just me and my machine.” DI

PHOTOS: VALERIE THOMPSON RACING