Posted on 09/21/2004 9:43:55 AM PDT by Lijahsbubbe
WABASHA (AP) - With a State Patrol airplane overhead, a Stillwater motorcyclist hit the throttle and possibly set the informal record for the fastest speeding ticket in Minnesota history: 205 mph.
On Saturday afternoon, State Patrol pilot Al Loney was flying near Wabasha, in southeastern Minnesota on the Wisconsin border, watching two motorcyclists racing along U.S. Highway 61.
When one of the riders shot forward, Loney was ready with his stopwatch. He clicked it once when the motorcycle reached a white marker on the road and again a quarter-mile later. The watch read 4.39 seconds, which Loney calculated to be 205 mph.
"I was in total disbelief," Loney told the St. Paul Pioneer Press for Tuesday's editions. "I had to double-check my watch because in 27 years I'd never seen anything move that fast."
Several law enforcement sources told the newspaper that, although no official records are kept, it was probably the fastest ticket ever written in the state.
After about three-quarters of a mile, the biker slowed to about 100 mph and let the other cycle catch up. By then Loney had radioed ahead to another state trooper, who pulled the two over soon afterward.
The State Patrol officer arrested the faster rider, 20-year-old Stillwater resident Samuel Armstrong Tilley, for reckless driving, driving without a motorcycle license - and driving 140 miles per hour over the posted speed limit of 65 mph.
A search of speeding tickets written by state troopers, who patrol most of the state's highways, between 1990 and February 2004 shows the next fastest ticket was for 150 mph in 1994 in Lake of the Woods County.
Tilley did not return calls from the newspaper to his home Monday. A working number for him could not immediately be found by The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Only a handful of exotic sports cars can reach 200 mph, but many high-performance motorcycles can top 175 mph. With minor modifications, they can hit 200 mph. Tilley was riding a Honda 1000, Loney said.
Kathy Swanson of the state Office of Traffic Safety said unless Tilley was wearing the kind of protective gear professional motorcycle racers wear, he was courting death at 200 mph.
"I'm not entirely sure what would happen if you crashed at 200 miles per hour," Swanson said. "But it wouldn't be pretty, that's for sure."
_
Yup, at Pocono.
Not a great experience. The front end just let go, and I low sided, just sliding along the track. It ruined a set of leathers, boots, gloves, and helmet, which is why I bought them in the first place.
Mark
Think of the spinning wheels as gyroscopes. The reason that they hang off towards the inside of the turn is to move the center of gravity inside as far as possible.
Sometimes you see the guys actually dragging an elbow on the pavement!
Mark
Officer: "You been drinkin' boy?"
Joe: "Well my last name is SixPack......sounds sorta indian don't it"?
Like skerry's "Running Eagle" name cause he's too full 'o crap to fly?? :-)
http://www.landracing.com/records/bonneville/moto16503000rec.htm
Right near the bottom of the records:
3000CC S-BF Don Vesco Kawasaki 8/78 318.598
3000CC S-G T. Elrod Kawasaki 8/74 197.047
3000CC S-PF D. Campos H/D 8/90 322.149
But it's a fact that Harley Davidson doesn't make a single production bike today that could be competitive in any type of racing, except maybe air-cooled v-twin drag racing, a class that was basically created for Harleys. Don't bother telling be about the V&H "V-Rod" they run in Pro-Stock, because it doesn't share a single part with a production V-Rod and is allowed a huge displacement advantage and fuel injection, compared to the Japanese designs.
Yes, and they were soon blown off the tracks (except for the oval dirt ones) by Japanese bikes with half the displacement, and have never been competitive in any form of road racing since.
yup....my mistake...you are correct, the XX is 1100.
My only defense for this oversight is 24 years of hard core paint fumes.
140 MPH is fast enough on an unfaired bike, for the old curmudgeon. :)
No they weren't, they retired from racing at the top and not because they were beaten. About this time, Harley Davidson was bought by AMF (American Machine and Foundry), you know, the bowling equipment company, and the accountants thought the H-D racing dept. superfluous. And if you call the mercantile tactic of dumping motorcycles on the US market, for less than it cost Honda to build them, to force Harley out of business as "racing", I guess Harley won that competition also.
So what! Harley outsells all the other makes , combined. Why should they race? To please you? Harley doesn't care, it has a 60 year old competition record that is second to none. Harley has been there and done that. Right now, they are going to the bank. Twice a day.
a police officer told me they don't stop those racing bikes, they scrape them off the road.
and while he is timing, he is FLYING AN AIRPLANE!
Also, on your Bonneville record list is the speed of 322.149mph by Dave Campos in a Harley. If Harley's are so slow, how do you explain that away?
You are accusing Harley of being "unfair"? After all the tricks the Japanese have tried over the years, from dumping, to copying , to just plain bribing the AMA and you have the nerve to call Harley unfair.
As if they could have stayed competitive in road racing much longer, anyway. And if you think Honda was dumping bikes in the US to drive the sickly H-D of the time out of business, you're delusional - H-D was hardly selling any bikes at that time, and not the type that made up most of Honda's business. There was a glut of bikes when the bottom dropped out of the market in the early 80's, and they were sold off at deep discounts.
Then H-D asked for and got a tariff on bikes over 700cc in displacement, as if buyers of 750cc Japanese supersport bikes and H-D buyers had anything in common. All that did was result in a lot of 700cc versions of those same bikes being sold here for a couple years. The Japanese Harley clones didn't really come along until after that tariff was gone.
Yep, Harley has a long history of success in racing, and that's about all it is anymore, history.
Yeah, poor H-D. All they can do now is make a whole bunch of motorcycles that people want to buy.
Make up your mind, you're the one that was talking up Harley's glorious record of racing achievement. Well, that's all long in the past, except for dirt track. And Harley makes more from genuine motor clothes and other baubles (generally made in China or Taiwan, just like a big part of their bikes) than they do from selling bikes. But don't get me wrong, I don't resent Harley's success, even if I don't entirely understand it. You're the one that seems to have some sort of issue with the functionally superior competing brands. But I'd be happy to buy an American made bike (even though I'm Canadian) if any of them (Harley, Victory, Buell) made one that I wanted.
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