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.

And this is on slashdot why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe car and driver would be a better place.

Re:And this is on slashdot why?

[dangitman]

My personal opinion is that geek has moved far beyond the 1980's definition of pocket protectors, glasses, and a calculator. Geeks come in all flavours now, from classical computing and math geeks all the way into sports and automotive geeks.

My personal opinion is that geek still means carnival folk who bite the heads off chickens. "Nerd" or "boffin" are my preferred terms for people who are excited or obsessive about technical things. "Geek" has too many connotations of falsity, they remind me of the web-bubble MBA types who wouldn't like being called nerds, and think that "geek" has cooler connotations. But there's nothing cool about biting the heads off chickens.

Re:For those SI unit addicts.

[zippthorne]

3x terminal velocity of a person in a balloon suit. Terminal velocity depends on shape, density, and size. An aerodynamically designed motorcycle is going to beat a person in a loose-fitting garment in that area any day of the week.

Further, terminal velocity is not necessarily "terminal" the way you're making it sound (a mouse walks away, a horse splashes and all that. see Haldane), and has nothing to do with horizontal translation anyway: terminal horizontal velocity, the speed at which wind resistance and other forces balance, if you're not including the powerplant in those forces, is precisely zero.

Re:Motorcycle?

[Runaway1956]

I trim my greying beard from time to time, so it may not be as long as yours. But, I remember all the Harley heads laughing at my bike. "Riceburner" they called it. The only things they had more contempt for were cagers - and it was a close call at that.

IMHO - this is a bike. A very specialized bike, true, but a bike all the same.

I never managed to get my KZ900 up to the speed record set by the Z900, but I managed to get to ~180. Not bad, IMO. Maybe there will be a production bike made someday based on this Seven. Maybe no. I mean, the reason I never got the KZ going any faster, was that I didn't have a long enough straightaway to go any faster. Where do we find a straightaway to crank our machine up to double that speed?

Whatever. It takes plenty of balls to get out on the street with the 4-wheelers, and it took the same kind of balls (if bigger) to crank this bike up to 360 MPH.

Re:And this is on slashdot why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm. Even odder. In my experience there seems to be a disproportionate intersection of the homosexual bondage world and users of slackware, who seem to have their manhood wrapped up in their operating system.

Re:Motorcycle?

[dltaylor]

As a motorcyclist with gray in my beard, too, I totally disagree.

Two wheels, power other than human-generated applied through a wheel to the surface (not jet thrust); that's as much a motorcycle as there is. Sure it's purpose is limited, but that's true for all motorsports-specific bikes.

No way is a supermoto racer as useful a street bike as any of the ones I have at home. The MotoGP and World Superbikes are too small and cramped for a lot of people, and can't even be left unattended without a stand that isn't part of the bike. Drag race and hill climb bikes have wheelbases that are utterly impractical on the street. There are customs that are beautiful sculpture, but uncomfortable, to sit on, yet they have engines driving wheels and CAN be ridden. All of them are motorcycles. Just because the low-drag fairing is closed and the rider/pilot needs assistance getting seated (road racers have to have assistants steady their bikes while mounting, too), doesn't disqualify that as a motorcycle.

Got watch "World's Fastest Indian" and stop flaunting your narrow, overrated opinion of what constitutes a "motorcycle".

Re:not a record

[Anonymous Coward]

At those speeds, air is pretty dense.

Re:Crosswinds

[poopdeville]

Yeah, as long as there's nothing in front of you for miles and miles, going fast is not scary at all.

Re:And this is on slashdot why?

[jamesh]

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

Clearly you aren't acquainted with any sport that involves girls dressed in very little clothing then.

Re:Motorcycle?

[Runaway1956]

Yeah, but it's still two wheels and a power plant. The streamlining is required at those speeds, no matter how may wheels, or how you sit on it. Google "The World's Fastest Indian" That bike was streamlined almost as much as this Seven, with only the rider's head sticking out. But, it was obviously an ancient Indian motorcycle when you opened up the sides. The movie is worth watching too! ;^)

Re:Crosswinds

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the fact that you can't find humor in their macabre vision of death say more about you than it does them. They are juvenile but that's their job, they're entertainers and damn good ones. Having said that they acted like dicks at the Salt and tried to screw the USFRA out of the money they owed them.

Re:Crosswinds

[Gordonjcp]

He is the one who thinks that going backwards through Pearly Gates is a good way to die.

Sounds like a pretty good way to die to me. I mean, compared to dying in a hospital unable to wipe your own arse or recognise your wife with a tube up your dick and a pint of morphine in your bloodstream, just for example.

Re:Flying Low

[hardwarefreak]

I like how Bryan Harley referred to the rider as the "pilot".

http://seven-streamliner.com/ [seven-streamliner.com]

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".

Re:Not mentioned in the article...

[Jawn98685]

I doubt that one tenth of one per cent of /. readers would recognize the name, but Chris Carr does indeed have the anatomical qualifications for this gig, having multiple dirt-track motorcycle championships on his resume. And that's "dirt track" as in oval speedway, not that sissy-boy stadium-racing-cum-bump-jumping that has captured the media's attention for the last 25 years. Motorcycle "flat track" racing is the province of what are arguably the bravest racers on two wheels. Pitching the bike sideways and using a combination of throttle and body-english to steer it through the corner of a slippery clay track, at well over 100 miles per hour is nothing if not ballsy. Doing it fast enough to win multiple AMA championships, including a staggering six consecutive titles, certainly indicates the presence of heavy metals in the guy's leathers.
Congrats, Chris, on bagging yet another major accomplishment in an already legendary career.