Motorcycles have always been a major part of Chas Haynes’ life. 

Haynes grew up in Europe, with a father who worked for a company that, at the time, owned Harley-Davidson. Together, the pair travelled all over Europe to attend races. 

“There were always motorcycles around me. I learned to ride at probably nine or 10 years old,” Haynes said. “Motorcycles have been part of my life since I was a wee lad.”

Decades later and an ocean away from where he was raised, that love of motorcycles has stuck with Haynes. Today, the 61-year-old Silverthorne resident has set six land speed records riding vintage motorcycles. 

He set his most recent record just two weeks ago at the 2026 American Motorcycle Association’s Land Speed Grand Championship, which ran from Aug. 23-27.  

There, Haynes rode a 71-year-old Triumph Tiger T110 at 82.216 miles per hour across the Bonneville Salt Flats, an arid landscape of densely-packed salt near the Utah-Nevada border. 

“There’s very few places in the world that you can go for seven miles in a perfectly straight line, and so that’s why these races are held on the Salt Flats,” he said. “It’s really quite a unique experience. It’s almost like another planet.”

His time set a new record for the 750 M-VF class, which features motorcycles meeting specific qualifications, like pre-1956 engines and modified frames. 

Though he’s long been interested in motorcycles, Haynes’ journey to racing vintage modified bikes began more recently. In 2018, he found himself at the Salt Flats, watching others race. 

“I went with a friend, just as a spectator, to take a look and I thought, ‘Boy, I can do this. I need to find the right motorcycle and start setting it up,'” he said.  “The following year, in 2019, I went out, found a motorcycle in Italy, had it shipped over, found a mechanic that could work on those kinds of motorcycles, and we all met out there in Bonneville.”

His first time competing, he said, was a “disaster.” 

“It seemed quite easy, but when you get out there, with the altitude of the Salt Flats and the conditions, it really was difficult,” he said. “But we learned a lot that year, and we came back the following year with two different motorcycles — one British and one Italian — and set a record.” 

Since then, he’s set records in various classes each time he’s come to Bonneville. 

“You get bitten by — they call it salt fever — and it just becomes something that you devote a lot of your free time to,” Haynes said. 

Though the championships in Utah are held just once each year, he spends all year preparing, modifying and striving to set another record. 

“The motorcycles live in Austin, Texas, and that’s where the mechanic is. Our team — we have biweekly conference calls with the racers and the mechanics, and we figure out what we need to do to get the engines set up,” he said. “For example, this year, we increased the displacement of the engine from a 650-cc engine that we raced in 2025 to a 750-cc engine that we raced this year, so we had to have the engine parts shipped over from England (and a) variety of other different improvements to try and squeeze as much power as we can out of these motorcycles.”

Preparations aren’t easy. The motorcycles are modified so intensely that they’re no longer street-legal, making it difficult for Haynes to practice riding. 

“We found a racetrack in Texas that would … let us test them there, so we tested them over the summer on this racetrack just outside of Austin,” he said. 

Haynes also spends a significant portion of his year readying himself for anything to go wrong out on the flats, in all their remote glory.

“The motorcycles that we race are all antiques, and so it’s almost guaranteed that on every run, something is going to come loose or break. You have to anticipate all of these things before you get to the salt because it’s incredibly remote, and there’s no way you’re going to be able to find any parts for hundreds and hundreds of miles,” Haynes said. “That adds an extra layer of challenge to racing a vintage motorcycle.”

But outside of modifying his vintage bikes, preparing for competitions and training to break more records, Haynes manages to find time to enjoy his passion at home in Summit County. 

“It’s an amazing place to own a motorcycle. There’s very little traffic. The roads are beautiful. The scenery is outstanding and there’s all kinds of challenging trails,” he said.