I've been making this film now for 2.5 years.

And in that time, I've got to know Bet Munroe pretty well.

I think I've found him to be a most extraordinary person.

53 years ago, Bert took his entire savings out of the bank and, to quote his brother, blew the whole lot on a 1920 Indian Scout motorcycle.

Since that time, Burt devoted half his life to making the bike go faster.

He takes his bike regularly to the vulnerable salt flats in the USA where he holds many international speed records, including a world record.

Burt's unorthodox approach to record breaking sounds like fantasy.

He's reputed to have cast pistons in the sand, made cylinder liners out of cast-iron sewage pipes, carved by hand con rods out of old aircraft, propellers and truck axles.

The stories just go on and on and on.

Good luck.

Now, I'm Dick Rosetta from the Salt Lake Tribune.

Dick Rosetta.

The Salt Lake Tribune in Salt Lake City.

Oh, the Tribune.

That's right.

I used to work with Arthur in Milking machines in 1920.

Is that right?

What are you, what are you driving out here?

I've worked on this sickle I bought new in 1920.

How do you spell your last name?

Is it BERT? - BURT.

How's your last name spelled?

MUNRO.

MUNRO.

Where do you hail from? Where's your hometown?

Inver Cargill.

How do you spell that?

INVER, CARGILL. - GILL?

I generally spell it with one... - New Zealand? In New Zealand.

Yeah, it's the most southerly in the British Empire.

Burt, do you ever quote your age other than 39?

No good meat fighting every... You know how old I am?

I was born last century when Queen Victoria was the woman that counted. At the time...

Are you trying to tell me that you still, you still operate with the same chassis?

Yeah, that's the original frame on my bike.

Did you see it over there?

Yeah, I might have had it a lot and I built a dozen wheels over as wheels changed.

I had kept up with technology, shall we say?

And rebuilt... - You made the wheels, huh?

I just rebuilt them.

I just make this, folks modify the happen, use whatever wheel rim is the latest design.

What... how much power do you have now?

What...

I haven't a clue.

It varies from year to year.

I work nine months and nine days every day except, uh, three hours off Christmas Day.

And I had 27 test runs this year, 24 on the beach.

And three on the road illegally. I was over the speed limit, you know.

That's 89 in 17 years.

We have 100.

(inaudible)

Yeah, but as you said, this morning.

Give us a bit more time. This afternoon, we might make 95.

I'd say she's done it wrong though.

But she, yeah, she's wrecked the pension or the, I think the ride might have broke.

You still got compression there.

She must be... - Np, that's just fracture.

It's an internal friction.

I don't let the show go on.

Well, anybody can buy a bike and go fast nowadays.

And, I think there's a lot more in it and more enjoyable, developing a slow machine to go fast.

In the 1920s when I first had racing, all the guys practically hottered up stock jobs, and, it was a battle.

It wasn't only just riding, it was a battle of, and know how and learning to make the bike go faster by experimentation on that.

But anybody can buy a fast bike today and go fast.

Riding, it is only 1/100 of the actual, experience needed.

I think myself, although there's, it can be pretty hairy at times too, you know, especially in speed trials.

I was running in a speed trial at Drummond two weeks ago tomorrow.

And, the bike was hitting undulations the road so fast, it kept striking my head and finally blew to pieces and I was blood all over as it poured out of my nose and cut on my face

I got heart shock in 1962.

When I got out of control at the speed trials at Bonneville at 150 miles an hour, the bike was slamming over 5 ft at the top and 2 ft six from the salt and leaving a five-inch wide mark.

We measured it all up after Howard Devaney and I, and I got high shock out of that.

A delayed shock that struck me two weeks later and I went five miles like that.

And at 150 mile an hour, I knew I was gonna die because I decided to give it all I had and it went up to over 180 miles an hour, but it made no difference at all.

It just kept slamming into a, what you call a weave, you know, a violent weave.

Why do you like going past then?

Well, who doesn't? Everybody breaks the speed limit, don't they?

Well, you work to get more out of your bike and the only way to really be sure it's going faster is to have it timed and tested and there's something about speed.

It really shows the result of work, whether they're good or bad, doesn't it?

I don't know why I like fast.

Well, when I was a kid I rode horses and that to... on the farm and every now and then you'd have them full gallop, which wasn't very fast.

About 30 miles an hour, I guess.

Why do you think it is that Burt has managed to make a bike that was originally designed to do 50 miles an hour to 200?

Well, Burt, he's just a natural-born tenacious engineer.

He has his theories and he has the ability to put them into practice and he has the ability to evaluate whether they're right or whether they're wrong.

The family were quite small.

I would say I would be about perhaps nine or 10 at the time.

And the father decides that if a car can pull a trailer, a motorbike can pull a trailer.

So he sets to and makes one. Four children in our family, three girls and a boy.

And we used to go to Riverton Rocks for our holidays.

A small seaside resort near in.

And he put the children in the trailer and the way we set out to Ros and Rocks.

At that time, the roads were mostly gravel and we got going in this trailer anyway.

And the faster we went, the more it ruffles and eventually all the children were spilled into the gravel. We were very sad and very upset about this.

However, we were bundled back into the trailer and the way we went again and set off very slowly while we went slowly, it was all right.

And of course, the faster we went, the way it went again, started wobbling and we were spilled out again and all the children crying and we bundled back into the trailer again.

And however, we got to Riverton eventually.

I'm the oldest guy in the world to run in record attempts and speed trials.

And I'm the oldest in the world to break records.

I broke two New Zealand National Beach Records out here about 18 months ago.

I think he's a remarkable old man.

He's probably one of the real individuals, he's a person I envy who because of his freedom is one of the few free people, he does what he wants.

And I think most motorcyclists want to be individuals, but Burt, he's achieved something in that way.