Road legal land speed record

[Silver]

Barry Beadle will travel to The Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, USA, in an attempt to break the speed record for the bike. The current record is 247mph. Mr Beadle is the only Briton to enter the meet, and will join a line-up of 134 riders.

https://www.witneygazette.co.uk/news/8305881.Witney_biker_Barry_aims_for_speed_record/

A couple of amusing points;

[Kickstart]

Hi

Elvington is far shorter than Bonneville. This weekend some friends were at Elvington and the best they were managing in 1.2 miles was ~213mph. Same people were managing about 10mph less in 1 mile at Honington.

Problem is more down to traction. The tyres can only transmit so much thrust and you get to the point where that is less than the amount of thrust needed to do a speed. Added to which the more power you have from a certain engine the more peaky the delivery is (and the more likely you are to have to suffer problematic turbo lag). Keeping it in the ever smaller window of thrust the tyres can transmit gets difficult if the turbo wakes up and gives you 100hp suddenly after you have backed off and opened the throttle again to recover grip.

All the best

Keith
____________________
Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[Silver]

Are you saying he wouldn't get to top speed at Elvington? If he would then surely he would need masses more power to propel the bike another 34mph (where wind resistance becomes a huge factor)?

[D O G]

I think the short track at Bonnevile is 4 miles long, the long one is 7 - so much longer to build up speed.

It'll depend on the quality of the salt too - if it is nice and hard then is can be very grippy - I've heard tales of cars and bikes laying rubber down on the salt.

All depends on the amount of moisture in it, unsuprisingly.

[Silver]

Sorry, I wasn't necessarily doubting that it was possible at Bonneville (where all the top speed runs seem to be done), more that, I guess, the ideal surface would be tarmac and that he was a long way off the speed at Elvington.

[Teflon-Mike]

34mph is a lot to find, but british tracks dont give us much help.
I think that the longest 'closed' strip in the country is in the middle of BAe Stevenage, and is about four miles long. Only trouble is, its a military air-base.... they dont let civvies down it very often!

Surface differences? I really dont know. Hard packed salt is pretty smooth, but it isn't solid....

What keeps niggling the back of my mind is the discrepancy between ET's on drag bikes brought over from the states, that haven't made the same times here as they did there, even with the same riders.

Remember whey back when, some-one brought, I think it was a double Z1 motor bike over, that had consistantly ran on the 9's on the US strips, to be the 'first' UK drag-bike to break the 10sec barrier (it was probably a class thing, I was never that 'up' on straight liners), and it took them about a season to even get close to threatening it, when the bike should have done it straight out the crate.

Best of luck to him, though.
____________________
My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?'

[Kickstart]

[D O G]

[Spit-Fire]

(exuse my ignorance on the subject)
has any body attempted a land speed record on any thing other then a busa?

most modern thousands are in same ball park power wise, and weigh less, so why not turbo one of them?.
____________________
they say the good die young... i say we just live faster

[Kickstart]

Hi

Modern thousand might be close on stock power, but are far too weak to take the tuning required and lack the decent aerodynamics needed, and lacking in space to hide away a turbo.

Stock 'busa might only be 150hp or so (early one, current ones are more powerful), but with a turbo the engines will put out about 250hp without any changes to the internals, and far more than that if you are prepared to change pistons, rods, etc. The basic 'busa engine is very tough. Try that with a GSXR1000 and you would probably need a strong bin bag to take the pieces home, let alone trying for 500hp.

Weight is virtually irrelevant for top speed (has a tiny effect by increased rolling resistance)

All the best

Keith
____________________
Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[Frost]

I think there is a level of grip that is needed to accelerate within a given distance.

On a runway you have more grip, but less distance. This means you have to use more of the power at lower speeds to accelerate to hit a high speed before you run out of runway.

On the salt flats you have less grip, but more distance to accelerate, so you can build up more slowly and still hit a higher speed.

Eventually the grip level will become a limiting factor, but wheel driven cars have hit over 400mph on the salt flats back in the 60's, so there has to be a reasonable grip level there.

[Kickstart]

[D O G]

[Frost]

[Pete.]

[Frost]

I would have thought that weather plays a part too. The UK is likely to be wetter, colder and have a different humidity. Colder air is denser giving more drag, and colder tarmac is less grippy.

[Kickstart]

[weegieblue]

[Pete.]

[Rob W]

[Ariel Badger]

At Bonneville you get a five mile run up to the timed mile and 6 miles after that to brake.
Here is the 125cc Buddfab taking a record run
Click and enjoy
____________________
Bikers make great organ donors, get 115 on your licence today.

[Rob W]

[Ariel Badger]

This is the 50cc Buddfab
click
____________________
Bikers make great organ donors, get 115 on your licence today.

[Ariel Badger]

[Frost]

Have you seen the bikes though? No way are they anything like street legal.

https://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:Isd-OpY71FQfkM:https://img238.imageshack.us/img238/2826/buddfabstreamlineray1.jpg&t=1

The engines are seriously fiddled with too. Aren't they supercharged or something?