An alcohol-powered postie bike with nitrous oxide injection and salad bowl aerodynamic aid, built by a blind mechanic — what could go wrong?

Well, probably a lot, but for a while Don Kidd and his mate Mike Riddell thought their 2002 Honda CT 110 cracked 200km/h.

Mike was clocked at 206.8km/h on Dorothy during the Dry Lakes Racers Australia (DLRA) Speed Week at Lake Gairdner in South Australia in March.

But like so many tales of Aussie battlers having a crack at glory the project had humble beginnings and the road was not smooth.

Don, from Deception Bay, said: “I saw that movie the World’s Fastest Indian and thought would be great to do something like that.”

They brought the bike in 2006 for $400 after it spent four years delivering mail and set about making it quick with help from Joe Hanssen from Caboolture’s One Ten Motorcycles.

“I’m all but blind,” Don said. “(but) I’ve actually got to be a better mechanic these days. I work a bit slower and steadier.

“And my hearing has got so damn good that I can listen to a motor and tell you what’s wrong with it.”

In March they headed to Speed Week for the seventh time, with Dorothy now equipped with nitrous oxide (NOS) injection.

But the trip was not smooth. The transmission in their car died at Cobar and when they arrived at the Lake they discovered they had left bike’s aerodynamic faring at home.

Don and Mike decided to improvise rather than give up.

media_camera Dorothy at Lake Gairdner with the steel salad bowl standing in for the original faring.

“We looked at sheets of iron lying around the place and thought, nah that’s a bit dodgy, they won’t let us do that,” Don said.

But a bowl of sugar packets on the counter of the kiosk was promising.

“It’s about the right shape. If I could get something like that but 3-4 times bigger it would probably do the job,” Don thought.

Salvation came from a kiosk staffer. Don said the next morning he “looks around all guilty like” and produced a big bowl from under the bench, saying: “Get this out of sight quick.”

With a little bending and a couple of bits of scrap metal it attached to the bike.

They were now ready to run, but Don reckons Mike was nervous.

“I had him convinced it would do one of two things. It would either go very fast or very big bang — he was freaking out a bit.”

“As soon as he hit the NOS button in top gear it spat the chain off at 75mph and the motor just peaked through the roof,” Don said

“It did a bit of damage. We couldn’t race anymore.”

Mike, an experienced racer, said he felt nothing and Dorothy stayed “rock solid”.

But, despite having an official DLRA ticket showing 128.533mph, and the timing gear being checked and found to be ok, neither believes Dorothy went near 200km/h.

Mike thinks it was no more than 145km/h.

“We were getting a consistent 85 miles hour (137km/h) out of it — we were hoping to get 100 (161km/h),” he said.

Dorothy is on show at One Ten Motorcycles, 29 Cessna Drive, Caboolture, until Thursday, July 23.