When Leslie Porterfield was 16, a slip of a girl at that, she bought an old Yamaha cruiser from a Lewisville neighbor for $200.

No one called it a steal.

"Everybody thought I was crazy," she said.

They told her she was too little to ride a motorcycle that big, but, really, that was beside the point.

Ride it? First she had to fix it.

"I asked every friend I had to help me," she said.

Bought a service manual, too, and not Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, either.

As it turned out, Porterfield had a knack for mechanics. To the surprise of friends and family, soon she was up and riding.

But that wasn't the least of it. Three years later, after watching friends compete, she entered her first road race. If nothing else, she figured it'd make her a better rider on the dangerous streets around Dallas.

When she finished in the middle of the pack, she stumped her friends again.

"I was hooked," she said.

Porterfield hasn't looked back since, which is probably a good thing when you're sitting on a motorcycle at more than 200 mph.

Besides setting a women's world land speed record last year, Porterfield, 33, owns a motorcycle dealership, High Five Cycles, in Dallas, has smiled from the covers of several racing magazines and has taken up automobile racing, skiing and scuba diving.

And then there's this: A couple of years ago, she lost it on Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats at 110 mph.

Got a little loose, did you?

"Got very loose," she said. "The bike came around on me."

She broke seven ribs, punctured a lung and suffered a concussion. Fortunately, she's not as fragile as she looks. Before week's end, she was out of the hospital. By Tuesday, she was back at the shop.

"The bike," she said, "took a little longer to recover."

In fact, she recently got back from the Flats, where she earned the BUB Speed Trials Top Time Award for a 240-mph one-way streak.

If you've ever wondered what it's like out on the famed 30,000-acre Flats, Porterfield reports that they're indeed vast, flat and occasionally "slushy" after rains.

Slushy?

"It's a little bit amazing," she said, "how much the motorcycle moves around at full speed."

"Amazing," is not how I'd put it.

Even still, Porterfield loves it. Loves the Flats, the camaraderie, the pursuit of top speeds. She plans to keep at it as long as possible.

And exactly what do her friends and family think of her venture now?

Her mom owns a motorcycle. Here's guessing someone else makes the repairs.

Kevin Sherrington, DMN

Speed that earned Porterfield the BUB Speed Trials Top Time Award at a recent one-way streak race at Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah"

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