I am Mark Hunnibell and I will be 70 years young on this TransAm run in 2027. I am a retired airline pilot and former USAF pilot, and I live with my wife, Laura, in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
I acquired my “basket case” 1919 Henderson Z2 from my father in 1978. He had a friend who had found it years earlier, mostly as boxed-up parts, in a garage in India. The bike’s story is that it was custom-ordered by the very-wealthy Seventh Nizam of Hyderabad to add to his huge collection of motor vehicles. But the old Henderson had fallen into disrepair after decades of local “maintenance.” On its long road to recovery, once in my care, master painter John Pierce discovered the bike had been uniquely painted “fire engine red” at the factory rather than the standard khaki green. John dutifully matched this “custom-ordered from the factory” color for me during restoration because, as my wife said, “that motorcycle was born red.” I call it the Red One because I believe it to be the only Henderson painted red at the factory.
As restoration was underway and retirement loomed, I began planning a solo transcontinental trip for 2019 as a centennial celebration of the bold 1919 adventure by RAF Captain C.K. Shepherd, described in his book, Across America by Motor-Cycle. I had Mark Hill at 4th Coast Fours restore my engine with as many of the original engine parts as possible (including the original crankshaft, which ended up shearing from the flywheel flange in Kansas about halfway through my 2019 transcontinental ride). As it took some time to replace the crankshaft, I wasn’t able to resume this ride until 2022, when I finished in San Francisco as originally planned. Since then, I have been looking forward to putting the Red One through its paces alongside other riders on transcontinental runs, and the TransAm 2027 seems like the perfect fit.
More info about my own 2019+ adventures on the Red One can be found here:
https://acrossamericabymotorcycle.com/
