New Motorcycle World Speed Record, 367.382 mph

An anonymous reader, apparently a member of the BUB racing team, wrote to let us know that on Thursday, their crew set the new ultimate motorcycle world speed record at 367.382 mph with the BUB Seven Streamliner at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. The Seven is powered by a 3 Liter, turbocharged, 16-valve V4 engine that produces a claimed 500 hp and 400 lb-ft of torque at 8500 rpm. The pilot, Chris Carr, hit 380 mph during the run.

"Ultimate"

[ari_j]

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Not mentioned in the article...

[GameMaster]

What they don't mention in the article is that they strapped the driver dow nto the motorcycle and dropped them both from a really tall building...

Re:And this is on slashdot why?

[master5o1]

What the article doesn't tell you is that the motorbike was running Linux and the driver was thinking about the best car analogy while he was driving.

Car Analogy?

[similar_name]

I need a car analogy before I can understand this.

Re:Not mentioned in the article...

[Matey-O]

Funny thing that...you drop it off a building and it wouldn't go this fast. You need downforce and traction. Dude's got balls of Depleted Uranium.

Re:And this is on slashdot why?

[John Hasler]

My wife says it's boring because it wasn't done by three guys in Hamtramck who bolted a V8 onto a Harley and made a fairing out of oil drums.

I find it interesting because it is about engineering. "IndyCars", on the other hand, are boring. All the cars are identical so it's just about the drivers. Who cares about the drivers?

Re:For those SI unit addicts.

[Eudial]

Who uses SI anyway?

For those of us in the civilized world, it's 116,730,878 smoots / fortnight.

Splat!

[qw0ntum]

If the /record/ speed is 367.382mph, but during the run the driver reached 380mph, I could imagine he must have been very uncomfortable smashed against the windshield of his "motorcycle".

Re:Car Analogy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine driving your car really fast

Re:For those SI unit addicts.

[ubrgeek]

And for those of us normal people, it's Pretty F'ing Fast.

Re:Motorcycle?

[Anonymous Coward]

> I guess they call anything with a motor and two wheels a motorcycle.

Now the segway nerds can try passing themselves off as bikers...

Re:For those SI unit addicts.

[Hojima]

Does it make me a bad person if the first thought that crossed my mind when seeing this article was wondering how far the guy would fly if I pulled a trip wire the second he hit 360? Yea, I think so.

Re:For those SI unit addicts.

[bennomatic]

Doesn't make you a bad person, just a bad mathematician. If you know the guy's speed, it's really just a matter of determining the angle of trajectory to find the distance. If you're going for a land speed record, you can be pretty sure that they chose a day where wind wasn't a significant factor.

Re:And this is on slashdot why?

[John Hasler]

> Well, spec series are about the driver's skill, which is pretty much what
> sports are about - the skill of the players.

And players of any sport, unless they are personal friends, are boring.

Re:For those SI unit addicts.

[Equuleus42]

Alternatively, 532.25 attoparsecs per picocentury.

Re:For those SI unit addicts.

[fullgandoo]

At first it looked to me like 367,382 mph in the summary. And I thought for a while that the speed of light had been breached finally (by a motorcycle) without going into warp and driven by someone named Bubba.

Yes, yes, I know that's mph.

Re:For those SI unit addicts.

[Brian Gordon]

To give you a more concrete feel of just how fast that is, it's about 3.25922905 * 10^-67 Universe diameters per Planck time.

Re:Motorcycle?

[jo42]

Harley

AKA "Paint shaker made from farm machinery".

Re:Pilot is the correct term.

[AJWM]

are you subject to road laws if your vehicle doesn't touch the road?

Probably not, but you don't really want to explain to the FAA why you were (a) below minimum altitude and (b) above maximum speed (250 kt below 10k feet), (c) in an uncertificated aircraft (d) without a pilot's license. The Feds tend not to have a sense of humor about such things.

(And oh yeah: (e) ??? (f) profit! )

Re:Crosswinds

[Animaether]

When you go that fast, there's no point in being scared of much.

I think Jeremy Clarkson put it well when he wrote the following about the Bugatti Veyron at top speed:

Happily, stopping distances become irrelevant because you won't see the obstacle in the first place. By the time you know it was there, you'll have gone through the windscreen, through the Pearly Gates and be half way across God's breakfast table.

( From: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/jeremy_clarkson/article596580.ece [timesonline.co.uk] )

Re:For those SI unit addicts.

[Megatog615]

How about Libraries of Congress?

Re:Crosswinds

[quarterbuck]

You are taking advice from Jeremy Clarkson ?
He is the one who thinks that going backwards through Pearly Gates is a good way to die. And his friend Hammond nearly succeeded [dailymail.co.uk] . OK, he was about to get in upside down through the gates, not backwards, but still.
Clarkson: "If you go through the pearly gates backwards in a fireball, that's a cool way to die!" Hammond: "I love that vision of just blasting through the gates, backwards, in a flaming Swedish supercar! 'Yes! I'm here! Where are the women?'"

Re:Motorcycle?

[TangoMargarine]

And ironically, the guy who drove it was named "Carr." :-)

Re:For those SI unit addicts.

[nigelo]

And I have no idea how loud it was at top speed.

Eleven, I imagine.

Re:Flying Low

[bar-agent]

Given this "motorcycle' has an enclosed cockpit and resembles a missile on two wheels, I'd say "pilot" is a more accurate description than "rider".

Hey, you ride a missile, you don't pilot one. Didn't you ever see Dr. Strangelove?