BUT THIS IS LAND-SPEED RACING, and at the 2006 event, the first thing to break is the track's communications system. Two hours after arriving at the start line, the Ack Attack crew wait to get green-lighted as they wilt in the midday sun. Akatiff paces around the streamliner while multitasking. In one hand he holds a compact anemometer to check for crosswinds; the other hand flips open a cell phone.

"All those high-end walkie-talkies, and BUB has no communications at mile 11?" he asks, shaking his head. "Don't they know Verizon works really good out here?"

If Akatiff seems impatient, it's because he's obsessed with results. As a kid growing up in San Jose, he once worked 13 hours straight to build an oscilloscope, even though he didn't care what an oscilloscope did.

"Mike kind of had a computer brain," recalls his older brother George. The Boy Univac followed George into off-road motorcycling and won a few amateur competitions, but he preferred the fix-it role. In 1969, Akatiff went to work as lead wrench for Jim Rice, a top dirt-track-racing pro. In the seventies, he went on to launch successful companies that designed and manufactured motorcycle parts and tools.

In 1982, while he was going through a messy divorce and custody battle, Akatiff got a pilot's license, bought partial ownership of a plane, and flew all over the place. While doing all that buzzing around, he got annoyed by a serious shortcoming in airplane instrumentation. There was no reliable, affordable device that could beam a private plane's elevation status back to air-traffic-control towers. In 1986, he invented an altimeter gizmo that quickly became essential equipment for small-plane pilots. Within weeks, Akatiff had $335,000 worth of orders.

In October 2002, virtually retired at 57, Akatiff went to a semiannual gathering of old off-road riders. Around a campfire, he asked about an absent member of the gang, a mechanical engineer from Southern California named Sam Wheeler. When the reply came that Wheeler was at Bonneville, trying—as he had for years—to capture a world record with his motorcycle streamliner, Akatiff announced that he could snag that prize in no time flat. Everyone laughed—except Akatiff.

"Don't tell Mike he can't do something," says his wife, Christy. "Red flag."

By early 2003, Akatiff had committed half his San Jose workspace to building a streamliner that would become the Ack Attack. Inside the 4,000-square-foot area, there's a dynamometer for engine testing, computer-controlled metal-cutting machines, and drill bits as thick as corncobs. Akatiff drafted his inner circle of retired riding buddies—who also happen to be welders and machinists—to volunteer. A couple of them consistently put in 60-hour weeks, working alongside Akatiff while he mastered engine-control software and consulted with an aerodynamics expert.

By deploying such talent and spreading the cash, Akatiff accomplished in 18 months what other streamliner builders don't achieve for years. In its debut year of 2004, the Ack Attack reached a blazing 328 miles per hour at an event not officially sanctioned for world-record attempts. The message was sent: In the history of the sport, no rookie team had ever put on such a performance.

"It's hard not to be impressed by Akatiff's operation," says Tom Evans, the chief motorcycle inspector for the Southern California Timing Association, which oversees many of the land-speed events at Bonneville. "That guy is the real deal."