I've always heard that salt speed tends to be lower than road speed, even in ideal conditions.
Out of curiosity, how would you describe land speed racing? How much of it is prep work and mechanicals, vs riding skill, vs pure luck relating to weather, wind, and other external conditions?
So my top speed (official) at Bonneville during SpeedWeek on a Production ZX14 (1650CC PP Class) was 199.895MPH and 200.016 out the exit of the 5. Lower than road speed is difficult to quantify. There's no road wide, straight or smooth enough where we could achieve "Top Speed". The top cars (streamliners) are all over 400MPH now, and the fastest full streamlined bike is over 375. But even ideally, it has very little traction and is a monster to stay on.
I would describe LSR as the ultimate in patience game. It's just you out there. Your only focus is on how perfect can you make the pass. Everything on a sit on bike must be hyper dialed. We spend a lot of time on prep. Probably more than most. We are thinking about stuff all the time. We are talking and planning all the time. Nick and I meet and think about next moves in a conservative (including budget wise) way. So yes, there is a ton that goes into our bike builds and "prep". On the big 1650 Production bike, thats a 4th generation plant alone. It's also the 5x Champ in the West, and that doesn't come by luck. We are very serious about these bikes and milking everything out of them.
On the skill side, thats a whole other game. Imagine driving your car down 101 and it's been raining all day. First big rain of the year. Road has 3" of water and oil all over it. Now added to this your tires are bald. You also have only 5-10 degree steering and virtually no brakes. Your going 90MPH and you mash the peddle. Things get squirrelly fast. It's a little like that, now add 100MPH so your going 200. You get the picture. My biggest concern is keeping the bike straight.
Now the bike Nick set the Classic record on, that thing is old. Suspension is sub-par compared to today, tires are puny little things. Plus, the bike is Naked! So he has to hang on to that thing under very adverse conditions and try to maintain a constant acceleration and speed. Regardless of potential top speed, it's not easy.
Another word on the bikes. On the bigger bikes (we have two Hayabusa's plus a ZX14), it takes about 210-240HP to get to 200MPH if your a pilot between 170&185#s. That's NA on Race Gas. Lighter the bike, lighter the pilot, some margin less.
Now lets say you want to go just 100MPH faster, or 300MPH on a partially streamlined bike. We calculate to do it effectively that will take 3x the amount of power. So we will need to go from 200HP to 600HP. And thats one of the bikes we are working on now. So basically, to go 1/3 faster, 3x the power, 3x the aero.
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