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RD/TZ/LC/RZ
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and RZ250

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What it's like

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This is what it's like landspeed racing on my world record holding Yamaha RD.

In racing everything both bike and rider are tuned for one thing, the finish line. You
climb aboard your bike for the start of the race having spent literally endless hours
late into the night right up to that moment preparing the bike and yourself. You watch
as the vehicle just ahead of you speeds off into the distance and then silence. The
starter turns to you and gives you a nod to start the bike. Your next he says. Your
heart is beating like a drum inside, it feels like it’s going to beat right out of your
chest as you wait for the engine temperature to rise to just the right point, then you commit. It’s visor down and a nod to the starter to let him know there’s no turning back. A thumbs up from the starter and your on your way. You twist the throttle slowly at first checking one last time for sounds of trouble, you try not to loose traction as the engine starts to chime and you accelerate violently down the course. Easy, easy, then twist it up to full throttle and let it rip. The tachometer jumps, climbing and climbing as you click through the gears, 12, 000 rpm and the motor with it’s wide open exhaust is literally shrieking, shift quick, shift quick, if the engine speed drops more than a thousand rpm you mine as well pull over, if your not accelerating your not winning. Now your at 150 and your moving so fast the air is trying to pull you  off the bike, tuck in tighter, tighter. You built everything about this bike from the gearing to the engine, to sing like an insane animal at maximum speed. You have to keep the engine speed at maximum as you make your last shift, will it pull that last shift? Your watching the tachometer climb to maximum one last time but your watching the temperature climb with your other eye, if everything goes just right the temperature will reach it’s peak just below the point of melting the pistons and the engine speed will  reach it’s peak just below the point of the engine flying apart just as you cross the finish line. You’ve built that bike for one reason, to win, you’ve tuned it to be making maximum  horsepower just as it crosses the finish line so closely that you have to shut the engine  off as you cross the line so that it doesn’t explode, and there you are, engine off, your  job done ripping silently through the air at over 160mph, you take it in and enjoy it for a  moment, it’s awesome, then you feel for the brake and start slowing things down.  You’ve pushed it all right up to the jagged edge but you cross that line knowing that  you’ve done absolutely everything possible to win the race set before you.