Kiwi Rider August 2022 Vol.1 | Page 37

In March 2022 , Scott Wilkins and his team made history with a Kawasaki H2R , setting the New Zealand land speed record for a flying quarter mile . This is how they did it ...

In March 2022 , Scott Wilkins and his team made history with a Kawasaki H2R , setting the New Zealand land speed record for a flying quarter mile . This is how they did it ...

state of our secondary roads , as in the ones that you stand a chance of closing for the day . Even our highways would be as rough as guts at 360km / h +. Then you have to hold that speed for a flying quarter mile , which equates to 402.34metres . Lastly , you have to slow that puppy down before joining the landscape . And that country road out the back of Reporoa , although described by the competitors as ‘ wide for a country road ’ is hardly an airstrip . So , to the sceptics , it is not quite the same as getting a MotoGP bike to similar speed for a nanosecond and then braking and going into a perfect surface bend at unbelievable speed . Two different beasts , OK ?
A CRAZY IDEA Like all good stories , it started with a crazy idea , then , along the way , lots of pieces dropped into place . Some planned , others not so much . It goes something like this ... The end of an era and the birth of the dream After years of building up successful motorcycle shops , Mike Wilkins was owner and CEO of Kawasaki NZ for 28 years , before selling it in 2016 . As he was leaving , Mike bought the much lusted-after Kawasaki H2R , with an eye on cracking the land speed record . Who would pilot the carbon-fibre beast was yet to be thought about , the dream was in its infancy . When picking up the supercharged beast , Mike ’ s son Scott was there to give his old man a hand . More known in the motocross and dirt track scene , Scotty made a call when Mike was musing that very point . “ I ’ d be keen to ride it ” and the rest , as they say , is history . To say Scott ’ s
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