WITH A TWIST OF HIS SEGWAY'S handgrip, Mike Akatiff goes off looking for a fight. Deftly navigating the nerdy scooter, he glides past dozens of tented, makeshift motorcycle race pits set up in the middle of Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats. The oil-stained outpost, situated on top of an ancient lakebed in western Utah, is littered with bikes in various states of assembly: a custom-framed Harley here, an ancient Enfield there, and crazy-modded Suzukis and Kawasakis all over the place. Akatiff barely gives a glance. Almost nothing in this internal-combustion ghetto can sniff at the monster machine he's brought.

Akatiff, 61, rolls up to a crowd of greasers, hog riders, 5-Ballers, dirtbags, biker babes, and one of the guys he's looking for: Denis Manning. Like Akatiff, the 60-year-old Manning is here to set the salt on fire. Both of them have built, from the ground up, supercustomized vehicles called motorcycle streamliners: rocket-shaped, fully enclosed bikes that pack gobs of horsepower and can travel faster than 300 miles per hour. Each man has come to this September 2006 event—formally known as the International Motorcycle Speed Trials by BUB—to pursue the most elusive prize in the obscure sport of land-speed racing: the official record and bragging rights that go to the creator of the world's fastest motorcycle.

Manning steps into the bed of a pickup and calls a couple hundred people to attention. As the meet's chief moneyman and founder, he dutifully reviews a few rules for the riders, most of whom have brought less exotic hardware and would love to touch 150 miles per hour. "If you can't stop, veer away from the interstate," Manning says. "Avoid hitting the portable toilets bordering the track." Then the potbellied Manning, a 40-year veteran of the salt whose nickname is BUB (for "big ugly bastard"), gets down to more personal needs.

"Cooperate with the streamliners," he says while zeroing in on Akatiff, a tall, wide-shouldered guy who's standing even taller on his Segway. "We want to make sure history is done here."

That won't be easy. In a sport that's often guilty of more show than go, the streamliners have had a bad run in recent times. Every year, two or three of the sleek machines arrive at the salt full of promise. And every year they tank. The rigs' owners, drivers, and crews usually have good excuses (wet salt, bad crosswinds), but for whatever reason, the current motorcycle speed record of 322 miles per hour—set here on a streamliner by rider Dave Campos—hasn't been beaten for 16 years.

Speed rivals Manning and Akatiff with their streamliners, Seven and Ack Attack (Tom Fowlks)