John Buddenbaum is a fabricator by trade, but he couldn’t make this up if he tried. En route to building their 50cc racing motorcycle the BuddFab Streamliner, Buddenbaum and his partner Eric Noyes faced an unlikely problem.

The BuddFab Streamliner is on a mission to be the world’s fastest 50cc motorcycle

Drag coefficient? No. Faulty parts? Guess again. Fuel leaks. Not even close. The dynamic duo did not account for the thickness of the driver’s fire suit and had trouble fitting into the vehicle in the 3/4-inch-thick garment.

With typical good humor, they managed to work it out by raising the roll bar. Now, four years into their racing career, the team has only one modest goal: to make the BuddFab Streamliner the world’s fastest 50cc motorcycle by clocking an official time of more than 139 mph.

They are getting close. The team set a new AMA National Record at the 2006 International Motorcycle Speed Trials by BUB held on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, with a flying start one mile two way average of 133.895 mph. If they can add just over 4 mph to their last record performance they will then hold the distinction of having built the fastest 50cc motorcycle ever officially timed.

The challenges do not daunt these motorcycle-racing lifers. Noyes, raised in upstate New York, raced in amateur motocross events throughout the 1970s and go-karts in the ‘80s. Buddenbaum as a child in Northern California “saw an article in Hot Rod Magazine that always stuck with me,” and competed on California’s American Federation of Motorcyclists amateur roadracing circuit from 1976-1981.

Two years ago, Buddenbaum was contracted to build the nose of Mike Akatiff’s 900-horsepower streamliner that is currently pursuing a land speed record in Australia, and he was hooked. “I like the building and design of something that comes alive,” he said. “I like being able to use what I create. I get off on the fact that it works.”

Noyes enjoys “the design and packaging, the rational organization of the parts, and the fact that if you get a record, you may be more clever than some of the others who have tried.”

Buddenbaum and Noyes designed and specially constructed the streamliner in Buddenbaum’s fabrication shop in Palo Alto.

It is powered by an Aprilia 50cc (Minarelli AM6 engine) modified with METRAKIT pro race engine parts running on methanol and nitrous oxide. The 13-foot long fiberglass body weighs only 60 pounds, and the frame is 1 1/4-inch by .095-inch mild steel tubing, with stressed aluminum paneling and a full rollcage head to feet — now modified, of course, to allow a 3/4-inch-thick fire suit.

One thing is sure: to paraphrase the old Willie Dixon blues song, the BuddFab “ain’t built for comfort, it’s built for speed.”

The BuddFab Streamliner will be on display at the Pacific Coast Dream Machines Show on Sunday, April 26 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Half Moon Bay Airport.