EVER dragged your elbow on a trackday? Or even out on the road (yeah right)? And did you know that there’s now a Guinness World Record for fastest elbow-drag on a motorcycle? Of course there is, there’s a record for everything!
Well, Josh Herrin headed off to Buttonwillow Raceway Park in California to set the current record, and whilst it took a few failed attempts on a Yamaha R1m, he swapped out to a more-familiar Yamaha R6, reaching 100.9mph (162.4 kph) whilst dragging his elbow on the ground.
Watch | Yamaha R1 & R1M Review
Josh Herrin is 5’8” - which makes it all the more impressive - and races in the MotoAmerica Superbike Championship, with a stint in Moto2 under his belt in 2014.
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Guinness World Record for fastest elbow drag
Fair play on this, the track doesn’t exactly look smooth (on a slow-mo replay you can really see the suspension putting in a shift), and whilst you may be able to touch your elbow down at your local track, this was a case of actually dragging elbow for 30 meters. At 100mph.
Josh Herrin, after achieving the record, said:
“Normally, when I’m riding, I touch [my elbow], and it just skims [the ground] and I lift it back up. Almost like a feeler for me, to let me know what my lean angle is.
So now when I’m having to push-off on it, it’s kind of making the bike get light because I’m putting all of my weight on my elbow, so the front wheel was getting light - it was actually kind of scary! But it ended up working out good.”
I’ve got to say, it’s incredibly impressive that he achieved this - well played Josh Herrin.
Have a watch of the accompanying video here:
(If you want to skip to the good bit, go to around the 6-minute mark)
