As CBS 2′s Lou Young reported Friday, Laura Klock is revved up for a high-horsepower adventure. She was fitted for her custom racing machine in Pine Bush ahead of her world record attempt this summer in Utah.
The crew members working on her bike are all local high school students once considered to be at risk for dropping out. Now, they’re fabricating and assembling every part of the machine Klock will trust her life to as part of a program called “Helping With Horsepower.”
“We’re going to take a damaged motorcycle and ultimately rebuild it, almost like some of these kids’ lives,” Pine Bush High School principal Aaron Hopmayer told Young.
The bike they’re building is set to challenge four different records at the Bonneville Salt Flats.
The students said meeting the rider in person has brought the gravity of their work home.
“To know that she’s going to be on the bike, it just sets it a little bit more reality that it’s actually happening,” Pine Bush student Alex DeGroat told Young.
“We’re going to put enough work into this and take pride in it so [we] know for a fact she’ll be safe in it,” added student Mike Russa.
There’s a lot at stake for the finished product.
“You hold your top speed for a mile so it’s a lot of time to think about what you’re doing,” Klock told Young.
Klock has organized bike re-building programs elsewhere, but never before at a school.
The program at Pine Bush was funded through private sponsors. The 20 students will work through the summer finishing up the bike and delivering it in person in Utah for the world record attempt in August.
The bike’s designer, Lloyd Greer, said he dropped out of school as a teen and is helping with the project to help the kids in his town avoid the same mistake.
Click on the photo to view video
