LONDON: Land speed racer and record-setting motorcycle rider Zef Eisenberg and his Madmax Race Team now takes aim on the weekend of April 6 to 7 where they intend set the British land speed record on bike and car.
Eisenberg's goal is to reach 200mph (324kph) or beyond in a specially built road legal 2015 Porsche 911 Turbo S at Pendine Sands in South Wales.
“I’m well known for setting records on bikes, so people started asking me why not cars?” said Eisenberg.
In May 2018, Eisenberg became the first person to exceed 200mph (324kph) with a wheel-driven vehicle, at this world famous speed track.
He managed to reach 201.572mph (326.55kph) on his supercharged Suzuki Hayabusa to become the ‘fastest motorbike on sand’ in the world.
The achievement was set just 20 months after surviving Britain’s fastest-ever (230mph) motorcycle crash and spending three months in hospital, followed by another three months in a wheel chair and then defying the odds to race again in less than a year.
Since the crash, he’s set other records including an ACU sanctioned flying quarter-mile, flying kilometre and flying mile, on his heavily modified road legal supercharged Madmax Suzuki Hayabusa.
Eisenberg chose a 2015 550hp Porsche 911 Turbo S that could reach a top speed of 175mph (283.5kph) in a mile on tarmac and boosted the power to 1,200hp.
The Porsche's 4.2-litre flat-six engine received new stronger internals, an upgraded turbo, new E85 fuel system and an advanced cooling set-up to name a few.
To maintain sand traction, it was made so that the copious amount of power comes in as gently as possible to limit wheelspin.
To cope with the excessive output, the gearbox and clutch were upgraded, and the brakes and suspension modified to allow for different wheels and tyres.
Apart from a full FIA roll cage, competition seats and safety harness, the Porsche’s interior is completely standard.
“Weight is actually your friend on sand, it’s about stability – putting enough weight on the tyres to increase traction. Even though, we have accidentally made the car 140kg lighter than standard, we have no need to strip weight out.The car is actually road legal, so we will drive it from the hotel onto the beach and to the restaurant after, hopefully to celebrate,” said Eisenberg.
For the two-wheeled record, Eisenberg will be riding his specially built 350hp supercharged Suzuki ‘Madmax’ Hayabusa. The Pendine attempt comes 55 years after John Surtees won the Formula One title, becoming the first – and so far only man to win the world championship on two wheels and four.
It was also in 1964 that Donald Campbell CBE became the first man to set speed records on both land and water in the same year.
Pendine is the same venue that Sir Malcolm Campbell raced his aero engine Bluebird to a maximum speed of 174mph (281.88kph) in 1927.
