Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Cycle News 1985 11 27

Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles

Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126848

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- ~ r- i M ~ o Z During the twenty-four hours between noon, September 4 and noon, September 5,1985, a team ofeight Cycle World staffers and two Suzuki GSX-R'sestablished twelve newFIMworld speed records.Included wasthe outright twenty-four hour distance/speed record of 3,079.2 miles at an average of 128.3 miles per hour, In the process, the eight riders and their nine-man support team set a number of non-FIM world records as well. Their feats in categories such as Gatorade consumption and . number-of-dancing-pigs-dodged-at-140-mph-in-the-middleof-the-night will probably go unmatched for decades to come. Here's a brief look at how it started and what it was like outthere. ~---~ 'n;XAS . 'Et7&E OF Tl-IE.~ '--- ~. ~. "We decided to ~~ ~ ." location other than Daytona for our record run and finally settled on' Uniroyal Tire Company's high-speed test track at its Laredo Proving Grounds in Laredo, Texas:' "It'd be great fun, we . thought. ~ 'd get a couple offast bikes, assemble a team of riders from the Cycle World staf , f ind a f big, banked track somewhere and go set a new 24-hour world speed record. ~_ It seemed like a per- .~ ~~ ~ fectly uxmderful idea, ~~tJ, 'Two month's laterwe were actually doing it. But we wouldn't have used the word 'uxmderful' to describe if' 'T he track is a perfect circle exactlyfive miles in length and four lanes (52 feet) wide and it had been the recipient ofa $2.2 million resurfacing just weeks before ourrecord attempt. The track also has parabolic banking that, in a car, allows a driver to circulate at about 140 mph in the upperlane with his hands off the steering wheel:' T~e. t...A.lit.Et70 ~ Tr\E.. 2 TVPt~l- T12A~

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