During my time as a motorcyclist and car driver, I've gone fast on both.
The "Ton" was accomplished fairly quickly after I got my license—it was right around the time when The Fast and the Furious came out, so that tracks—while "Two Tons" with both took a bit longer. Both, however, were achieved. And while one is a story I wrote for Playboy, the other may be a story I can now talk about cause I'm fairly certain the statute of limitations is over.
Actually, maybe I just hold off a little while longer about that one...
Either way, going 100 mph is fast, 200 mph feels insane, and I can't even comprehend going much faster than that. Yet, Ricky Robinson is set to try his hand at clicking off 400 mph in just a few short weeks at the Bolivian Salt Flats, straddling a streamlined motorcycle, and holding on for dear life. How do you even see at that speed?
Robinson already holds the fastest motorcyclist alive title, having gone 376.363 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats just outside where I live here in Utah. That record, however, has stood for 16 years, with no one even coming close to beating it. Now Robinson wants to up the ante to a point where most folks will likely ask, "Where do we go from here?"
"We've spent more than 20 years developing ACK Attack and have already proven it is the fastest motorcycle in the world," says Mike Akatiff, who's the motorcycle's owner, designer, and the owner of the team, adding, "At Uyuni, we finally have the distance and conditions to see if a motorcycle can officially break the 400 mph barrier." Salar de Uyuni is the salt flats in Bolivia, which holds a 19-mile-long course where Robinson and his team are set to attempt to break the record.
What's truly cool about the whole event, however, is that those flats are at elevation. 12,000 feet above sea level, to be exact. That means there's less drag on the motorcycle, but it also means there's less air for it to breathe. The ACK Attack, however, is a twin-engine, turbocharged streamliner, so that means it has the power and the aerodynamics to, possibly, do the unthinkable.
Currently, the team, along with MythBusters' own Tory Belleci, are producing a YouTube series leading up to the record attempt run this October. That'll come out later. For now, everyone cross your fingers, toes, and eyes, cause the Ack Attack team are aiming not just to have a need for speed, but one that goes well past it.
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