By MARK RAYNER

Hurtling along a 12 mile track made of salt at 200 kilometres per hour on a motorcycle that is struggling for grip might not sound like fun for most people, but Sean Kelly can't wait to get amongst the action at the Dry Lake Races in South Australia this week.

The Bathurst resident has been itching to get involved for several years since he helped a client prepare a car for the annual event and starting today he will achieve that goal.

Kelly and his son Matt will take three bikes down to the remote track on Lake Gairdner that is more than 500 kilometres north-west of Adelaide and a 19 hour drive from Bathurst.

As of last Wednesday Kelly was still making preparations, but they travelled down to Lake Gairdner over the weekend and will prepare for their first runs today as long as the weather suits.

"I built a car for a bloke about six or seven years ago, built an engine for him and he was running it on the salt and we got talking about it and he brought me a DVD. I watched it and thought 'yeah I've got to try this, it looks like fun'," he said.

"That's really where the idea came from but it's taken 12 months to get the bikes put together and we still aren't quite ready, we're still doing a few last minute things. The boys are busily working on them, trying to get them happening," he said last week.

The fact that Kelly is willing to get on a bike at all is impressive after a terrible accident that saw him spend months in a wheelchair and having to go through rehabilitation.

"I've been involved in sidecar racing for 30 years on and off and I raced locally for quite a few years, but I had a bad accident in 2001 and broke both my ankles. I spent four months in a wheelchair and then I decided to retire from dirt track racing," he said.

"This came up and I saw it as a way to get back into racing without the extra competitors floating around. I just wanted to do something and after seeing the video he gave me, I thought this is something we can do."