Shopping For A Record

Shopping for a record

ROUNDUP

CAMRON E. BUSSARD

WANNA BE A WORLD-RECORD holder? Have a desire to go faster than anyone has ever gone on a bike of a particular size or type—and have your achievement officially certified?

Well, that’s not as far-fetched an idea as you might think. A careful perusal through motorcycle record books will uncover quite a few existing speed records that are well within the reach of the average rider. There are no better examples than these two: The Bonneville land-speed record for 750cc production motorcycles is 142.61, which is slower than the 24-hour world speed record of 143.108 mph just set by Honda (see “Back to Laredo,” pg.

5 1 ); and the current Bonneville record for lOOOcc production bikes, set in 1985, is 1 50.09 mph. Considering that a stock Honda VFR750 will, with a gearing change, go well over 1 50 mph, and that a bone-stock Kawasaki Ninja 1000 is, according to our January, 1985, road test, ca-

pable of 1 59 mph, breaking both of those records ought to be a piece of cake for anyone.

Some of these records are easily attainable because they have gone unchallenged for a long time—and because the speed capabilities of production motorcycles have increased phenomenally since those records were set. The 250cc production record of 104.37 mph, for instance, has not been surpassed since being set by a Can-Am 1 1 years ago; yet just about any of the latest 250cc sportbikes that currently are so popular in the Japanese domestic market should be able to top that mark by as much as 10 mph. In fact, getting one of those bikes through customs could prove more difficult than breaking the record with it.

One reason why is found in the definition of “stock” in Bonnevillespeak. The sanctioning body there, the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA), allows just about any internal tuning modifica-

tions so long as the displacement falls within the class limits and the bike has a stock external appearance. There are, of course, other classes and categories at Bonneville in which the existing records are quite attainable; but these are modified classes in which the machinery costs significantly more to build and run than what is used in the production classes. And you can get both SCTA and FIM (Fédération Internationale Motocycliste) recognition for your record, meaning you get two records for the price of one.

If straight-line, short-duration records of the Bonneville type don’t appeal to you, perhaps the FIM’s period records (1,6, 12, 24 and 48 hours) or various long-distance records are more to your liking. The big obstacle here, however, is not so much one of obtaining a motorcycle that is fast enough to beat the record; rather, it’s bearing the financial burden of such an attempt. It doesn’t cost all that much to chai-

lenge land-speed records, since you usually do so during a record meet staged by an organization such as the SCTA; but when you attempt to break period and distance records, you do it completely on your own. And by the time you rent a suitable facility that has already been homologated by the FÍM, then pay for the necessary travel expenses, insurance policies, ambulance services, support crew and F1M stewards (not to mention the cost of the bike itself, plus an adequate supply of tires, spare parts, gasoline and other support equipment), you’re faced with a $ 10,000 expenditure at the absolute bare minimum, even if

you penny-pinch at every possible opportunity.

If you're up to the financial challenge. though, you'll discover that, like the Bonneville records, many of these FIM period/distance records are easily within reach of stock motorcycles, most because they have been ignored for so long. The 24-hour record for the lOOOcc class, for example, is remarkably slow—

105.3 mph. set by a BMW in 1977. A stock 1000 Ninja or Honda VF1000R could blow that record to smithereens. And the 500cc record for 24 hours is right at 100 mph. just begging to be shattered by a stock 500 Interceptor. RZ500 Ÿamaha or

RG500 Suzuki.

There are many other period and distance records that are just as vulnerable as these two; but even if you'd be able to ante up for these relatively expensive period/distance records and would be limited to the more inexpensive land-speed records, the point is that the average person with a fast stock bike has the ability to break some kind of world speed record. Yes, as always, it helps either to be rich or to have factory backing; but there's still a reasonable chance that you and the bike you currently ride back and forth to work every day both could become world-record holders.