Quote:
Originally Posted by racerbruce
It's just SO frightful....it's not just the terminal velocity of a litre works bike @ 200 mph....it's that ANY mistake or....Mrs Brown's dog wandering the street....and you're on your face @ over 300 ft per second....
I had the fortune of attending the United States Grand Prix @ Laguna Seca in Monterey CA in 1991 and 1993....to see the FIM 500 CC Grand Prix works bikes....there are no words to describe what is was like to be present and see these other-worldly machines and riders....the names....Wayne Rainey on the Marlboro Roberts Yamaha....Mick Doohan on the Rothmans Honda....Kevin Schwantz on the Lucky Strike Suzuki....these were 205+mph 2-stroke 500 cc BEASTS....by 1991 there was so much power that they began changing the spark timing so that when they went WOT (wide open throttle) the engine would fire in increments to prevent the rear tire from losing all traction and there were these micro-bursts of power delivered....so the most surreal moment was standing appx 300 ft before the turn-in to the Corkscrew turn and standing in an area where we couldn't see the GP bikes exiting turn 6 at over 100 mph and beginning the climb up the back straight hill towards us....our vision of the track at track surface level was limited and we could hear them approaching....literally pushing air before we saw them in our vision....there was a very minor rise on the uphill back straight and they would, under WOT....carry the front end 1-1 1/2 feet off the track....at over 175 mph....often hanging off the side of the bike a bit because the torque was so extreme that they were compensating the control of the bike on a straight line to keep it under control....oh....and the sound of a massively screaming 500 cc GP works bike will always be a sound I will never forget.
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Do have any high-quality pictures from the said event? I know it would be film-based, but that could be
great with an ultra-fast shutter, exposure, and film speed - got any from that event you could share with us?
Cheers,
Merlin