SCOTT Wilkins is from Tauranga, New Zealand, and is just crazy enough to decide that 300 horsepower is not enough for him.
Disappointed by the apparently lacklustre performance of the stock H2R, Wilkins modified the supercharged Kawasaki to deliver an extra 50 horsepower. Perhaps he could be of use to Yamaha’s MotoGP project.
Of course, once you have been supplied with an extra 50 horses (at the wheel Ride Apart says that the bike produces 303hp), you have to go out and use them. The results are… alarming.
We have become accustomed to speed records being set on runways and salt flats and dried up lake beds. That would not do for Wilkins, though, who has seemed to decide on a piece of road that could fit in relatively nicely to a New Zealand rally stage. 364km/h on that road is genuinely astonishing.
Land speed records are not just set from one direction, though; the run has to be completed twice - once in either direction - so that an average speed can be taken.
That average worked out to 358.4kph, or 222.7 mph, according to Ride Apart. A mind-blowing speed for a production bike, no doubt. It is actually a little bit scary that theoretically anyone can go out and buy a bike that has the capability to go that fast.
Whereas in MotoGP, there are worries that the bikes are getting too fast for the tracks, such concerns are of course not a part of LSR running. It goes without saying that this record will eventually be broken, as that is part of the point of it being set, and it never gets any less fascinating to wonder where it will go next, or how far it will be pushed.
Lead image courtesy of Ride Apart.
