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.
|