205 mph earns biker citation

[bungbung]

From St Paul Pioneer Press (www.twincities.com)

Posted on Tue, Sep. 21, 2004



R E L A T E D L I N K S
• 205 mph earns biker citation
• The faster lane




205 mph earns biker citation

Speeding ticket may be Minnesota record

BY HANK SHAW

Pioneer Press


Al Loney couldn't believe his stopwatch.

The Minnesota State Patrol pilot had been flying near Wabasha on Saturday afternoon, watching a pair of motorcycles racing each other along U.S. 61. When one of the bikes accelerated dramatically, Loney was ready — clicking his stopwatch when the cycle reached a white marker painted on the roadside.

A quarter-mile later, he clicked it again. It read 4.39 seconds, which Loney calculated to be an astonishing 205 mph.

"I was in total disbelief," Loney said. "I had to double-check my watch because in 27 years I'd never seen anything move that fast."

The bike was moving nearly twice as fast as Loney's airplane. After about three-quarters of a mile, the biker slowed to about 100 mph and let the other cycle catch up. By then Loney had radioed ahead to another state trooper, who pulled the two over soon afterward.

The State Patrol officer arrested the faster rider, 20-year-old Stillwater resident Samuel Armstrong Tilley, for reckless driving, driving without a motorcycle license — and driving 140 miles per hour over the posted speed limit of 65 mph.

Several law enforcement sources said Tilley might have set the record for the fastest speeding ticket in Minnesota history.

No comprehensive records are kept, but a search of speeding tickets written by state troopers, who patrol most of the state's highways, between 1990 and February 2004 shows the next fastest ticket was for 150 mph in 1994 in Lake of the Woods County.

Tilley, the son of a Washington County sheriff's deputy, did not return calls to his home Monday.

Few vehicles can reach speeds in excess of 200 mph. Only a handful of cars, such as the Dodge Viper, the Porsche Carrera and several Lamborghinis, can hit the 200 mark. But many of the so-called "crotch rocket" motorcycles popular with young men can top 175 mph. With minor modifications, they can top 200 mph. Tilley was riding a Honda 1000, Loney said.

State trooper Steve Stromback, one of the officers who arrested Tilley, said the biker was taking part in the semi-annual Flood Run, a motorcycle rally that started in Hudson, Wis. The ride, in which thousands of bikers participate, raised money for the Gillette Children's hospital this year.

Stromback said most of the participants obey the law, but added that police cited another eight bikers for driving more than 100 mph last weekend. Speed demons show up every year, Stromback said, which is why the State Patrol had aircraft and extra troopers in the area.

Kathy Swanson of the state Office of Traffic Safety said unless Tilley was wearing the kind of protective gear professional motorcycle racers wear, he was courting death riding at such a velocity.

"I'm not entirely sure what would happen if you crashed at 200 miles per hour," Swanson said. "But it wouldn't be pretty, that's for sure."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Staff writer Rick Linsk contributed to this report. Hank Shaw can be reached at hshaw@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5257.

[bungbung]

What is the margin of error for a hand timed run of 4.62 seconds, from an airplane?

[vifferman]

What is the margin of error for a hand timed run of 4.62 seconds, from an airplane?About 4 seconds?:sly:
I've read quite a few of these sort of articles this year, and the media in the US love using statements like: "crotch rocket" motorcycles popular with young menand "speed demons" and other silly emotive statements like that.

[jrandom]

Given that the motorcycle in question was, presumably, a CBR1000RR, and we're probably talking fresh out of the showroom here, it's not even geared to do 300kph, IIRC. Certainly not anything over 320.

You'd think it'd be easy enough for cops to check this kind of thing.

At the very least, if I was the chap in question, I'd use the fact that his vehicle wasn't even capable (with standard gearing) of spinning the wheels at that speed, let alone actually pushing along that fast, to defend the ticket.

[Juan]

Just got to be the fastest haven't they....... :argh:

[Devil]

Given that the motorcycle in question was, presumably, a CBR1000RR, and we're probably talking fresh out of the showroom here, it's not even geared to do 300kph, IIRC. Certainly not anything over 320.

You'd think it'd be easy enough for cops to check this kind of thing.

At the very least, if I was the chap in question, I'd use the fact that his vehicle wasn't even capable (with standard gearing) of spinning the wheels at that speed, let alone actually pushing along that fast, to defend the ticket.
Unless it was modified...

[vifferman]

At the very least, if I was the chap in question, I'd use the fact that his vehicle wasn't even capable (with standard gearing) of spinning the wheels at that speed, let alone actually pushing along that fast, to defend the ticket.But what would be the point? Unless the fine was per mph over the limit. And then he'd lose his bragging rights as the fastest biker ever busted, Man! :headbang:

But you're right. Firstly, you've got the huge margin for erro in the way it was measured (but of course, the cops won't admit to that, "The pilot was a professional stopwatch clicker, skilled at this sort of thing.") And if you read up on the "200 Club", it's just not that easy to do 200 mph; you need a serious amount of horsepower (the articles I read suggested that 225 was a sensible minimum), and the conditions have to be just right. Not something you can just do on a whim, and if the guy didn't have a license (which it sounded like), it's doubtful he had the right technique, gear, etc. And it sounds as though he wasn't wearing leathers, so you'd have to factor in extra wind drag. (Unless he was nude or semi-nude, like those other two eedjits...)

[jrandom]

But what would be the point? Unless the fine was per mph over the limit. And then he'd lose his bragging rights as the fastest biker ever busted, Man! :headbang:

Surely if the speed stated on the ticket was shown to be impossible, the citation would be invalidated?

Doesn't make much sense for a judge, in the face of a complete lack of valid evidence, to say "well, you must have been goin' pretty gosh-darn-dangit fast anyway, so I'm-a gonna fine y'all *real* good regardless!", does it?

[vifferman]

Surely if the speed stated on the ticket was shown to be impossible, the citation would be invalidated?

Doesn't make much sense for a judge, in the face of a complete lack of valid evidence, to say "well, you must have been goin' pretty gosh-darn-dangit fast anyway, so I'm-a gonna fine y'all *real* good regardless!", does it?From what I've heard, that could well be the case, in some jurisdictions!

[Bodge]

"A quarter-mile later, he clicked it again. It read 4.39 seconds, which Loney calculated to be an astonishing 205 mph."

Cough Bullshit cough.....

"With minor modifications, they can top 200 mph."

Cough Bullshit cough.....

My throats too sore to go on....

[jrandom]

From what I've heard, that could well be the case, in some jurisdictions!

Ah, the Land of the Free.

[Mongoose]

But what would be the point? Unless the fine was per mph over the limit. And then he'd lose his bragging rights as the fastest biker ever busted, Man! :headbang:
...)

Ya gotta wonder who would lose the bragging rights, the rider or the cop? :ar15:

[Artifice]

With minor modifications, they can top 200 mph
is nitrous a minor modification?


Tilley, the son of a Washington County sheriff's deputy
sounds like he knew enough to challenge the tickets authenticity in court.
bet his daddy wasn't happy.

[gav]

Apparently it was a modded RC51, kid works for a drag shop that specialises in supercharging. But i dont very much that a supercharger would be a bolt on for a RC51, NOS maybe but very doubtful, what did Colin Edwards manage at Hockenheim? around this speed wasnt it? Dont see how you could get an accurate measurement when he cant keep up with it?

[vifferman]

Apparently it was a modded RC51, kid works for a drag shop that specialises in supercharging. But i dont very much that a supercharger would be a bolt on for a RC51...Nah, very doubtful indeed.

[gav]

Now how did I know some smart arse was going to post that photo? You think it would hit 205?

[Bodge]

Yep thats what I would classify as a minor modification....

[Gasman]

I think it's fair to say that the US has the most outdated and downright stupid system of law enforcement on the roads of any 'developed' nation. Hey, they still make you walk the line to see if your'e drunk. It's apparantley unconstitutional to use electoronic means. What utter bullshit! Any using a stopwatch and a white post to time a rider, probably 3,000 feet below (1,000 minimum) is equally bullshit. However, I bet it would stand up in court in many of those smaller communities, where the rule of law is also the rule of the local judge. I think we've seen enough evidence of that, e.g. the town where the sherrif and deputies arrested every biker one weekend because they 'thought' they might be a law breaker going to an illegal gathering. So much for the land of the free.

[Wenier]

They can actually do something like that, GOD. every biker arrested for possibly nothing, glad i dont live in america.

[vifferman]

They can actually do something like that, GOD. every biker arrested for possibly nothing, glad i dont live in america.Well, they've done things like closed car-parking areas on some of the winding roads to stop the "rice-rocket jockeys" from 'racing on their high-powered murdersikkles' in the weekends, and stationed cops with radar all up and down the road to put a stop to this unlawful behaviour.
But it's not like that everywhere in the US.

[marty]

the 1000 foot (300 metres) minimum is a NZ CAA limit. this can drop to 500 feet (150ish metres) in certain conditions/areas. i am sure in the usa a police spotter plane flying around in the desert can fly at whatever level they want - eagle in auckland often flies at 1000ft AGL - they are almost always cleared to 'not above 1500 feet'.

i can think of 1/2 dozen times when bikes/cars have outrun Eagle on the hauraki plains/southern motorway. it's always gonna hurt when the pilot stands up in court and says " he goddamn outrun my aeroplane your honor'

who cares anyway? the guy was riding fast, and got the bragging rights from hell! good on him.

[gav]

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/graphics/art3/0922042speed1.gif

[Coldkiwi]

grey/red/black sounds like a CBR to me. a 'minor modification' in the US could well be a few KG's of Nos strapped to the bike and some mad gearing. After all, that picture of the VTR would suggest that there's almost nothing you can't do to your vehicle and not get it a road legal certificate.. this is the country that has road legal cars powered by rolls royce 12L Merlin ex-p51 mustang engines!! Yes 200mph is damn fast and would be heavily modded by our standards... but the guy who took the ticket is probably a fan of 8000hp top fuel dragsters where even Nos is childs play!

[gav]

NO No No, it was a RC51 US spec, they call them an RVT1000 (cue photo about here)
http://www.v-four.freeserve.co.uk/images/rc51-usa.jpg
apparently the local TV show showed aphoto of a CBR1000RR and the (red neck) rider rang them up and explained that he had an RC51. :niceone:

[scumdog]

Maybe it is like NZ where all you have to do is exceed 50 kmh over the limit and you've maxed out your speeding fine?? :doobey:

[marty]

even if there was a 1.5 second error in the cop's timing (6 seconds for 400m), that still means around 240km/h - not 205mph i know, but if it was 5 seconds for 400m - that's 288kmh.......

[sAsLEX]

the 1000 foot (300 metres) minimum is a NZ CAA limit. this can drop to 500 feet (150ish metres) in certain conditions/areas.

topdressing?? do these guys have a special allowance, seen them get lower than 150m

[Bob]

The US Racing press have come out against the 205mph claim made by the state trooper.

See here for the article. (http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/showthread.php?t=5380)

[marty]

topdressing?? do these guys have a special allowance, seen them get lower than 150m
150m is pretty high - close to the low flying zone height of 500ft - todressers are more like zero to 30 feet when spraying, 100 feet when dumping super. they operate under their part of the civil aviation rules, which allows them to operate under certain conditions, when undertaking topdressing operations.

[vifferman]

Motorcycle enthusiasts question 205 mph ticket

WABASHA, Minn. (AP) — There's little doubt that a Stillwater motorcyclist could wind up his Honda sport motorcycle past 180 mph, but members of the motorcycle racing world question whether the State Patrol was correct to cite him for 205 mph last weekend.
The State Patrol is standing by its stopwatch, and the speeding ticket a veteran trooper wrote for Samuel Tilley for driving his 2003 Honda RC51 on U.S. Highway 61 near Wabasha on the state's eastern border.

Tilley faces misdemeanor charges of speeding, reckless driving and riding without a motorcycle license. He has declined repeated requests for comment from several media outlets in the past few days.

The St. Paul Pioneer Press first reported the details of the ticket, which is unofficially the highest ever written in the state, on Tuesday. Soon motorcycle enthusiasts were buzzing about whether Tilley really broke the 200 mph barrier.

"Theoretically, it could happen — anything is possible — but I don't believe it," said John Ulrich, editor of Roadracing World, a magazine that covers sport bike racing. "Guys who want to break speed records and go over 200 mph have to go to great lengths to get there."

Ulrich questioned the State Patrol's timing methods, in which a trooper in an airplane used a stopwatch to calculate how long it took Tilley to cover a certain distance. Other enthusiasts said if the timing were off by only a half-second, it would drop Tilley's speed to about 185 mph.

While that would be still be the unofficial state record, and within the specifications for Tilley's Honda, it wouldn't break the prestigious 200 mph mark.

Department of Public Safety Spokesman Kevin Smith there was no reason to believe the trooper, who had 27 years of experience, was wrong. He said the Honda could go 205 mph.

"What we have is what we have," Smith said. "That is the number he came up with, and there's really no going back on it."

Legally, he said, there wasn't much difference between 205 mph and 185 mph because even the lower speed wouldn't help defend against the reckless driving charge. "Let's say he was going 186 — that's still 121 mph over the speed limit. I don't see the relevance," Smith said.

As it is, motorcycle experts say that most unmodified sport bikes already top out at about 185 mph because of limits with their fuel injectors.

To get an RC51 up to 200 mph, they say, the owner would have to change the motorcycle's transmission, fuel injectors and gears — and might have to add either a supercharger or pump nitrous oxide or methane into the fuel system.

All of these changes are possible, but expensive. And anyone with those kinds of modifications isn't likely to tool around southern Minnesota with nitrous or jet fuel in his bike, they say.

"It's just not something that some dude can roll out of his garage and go for a ride and do," Ulrich said. "A hundred fifty? No problem. Two hundred? Big problem."

Tilley will get a chance to plead his case in Wabasha County District Court on Oct. 25.
-----------------------
And here's some other comments, from a friend of mine in Murka:
"That's been kicked around a lot on the DC-Cycles list and the VFR list, including some forwarded comments from the ticketee. At first folks on the DC-Cycles list thought it was a CBR1K double-R, but it later turned out to be an RC51, which makes the claim by the cops of 205 mph even more improbable. Maybe downhill, with hurricane-force tailwinds..... And, I'm bet all those factory teams are wondering where they went wrong, if some kid can best them on a highway in Minnesota.

Ticketee made a good observation, he said the cop in the airplane supposedly clocked both bikes in the 1/4-mile timing zone, not to mention flying while all this was going on. It's BS, and the cops trying to steal some headlines. There was some sort of big rally in the area and that explains all the police presence.

So, I don't see a problem with the guy getting it knocked down to 60-over or so."

[vifferman]

A friend in Texas sent me this photo from Oklahoma of his friend's Blackbird speedo, in top gear, on the redline. It's a bit hard to see but it's sitting on 190mph. My friend Gary authenticated this, as he was doing 160mph when Rick blew by him.

[sAsLEX]

And hes taking a picture with a camera in his left hand at near on 200mph :eek:

[riffer]

And hes taking a picture with a camera in his left hand at near on 200mph :eek:
Check the Sprints thread for an example of how much higher the speedos actually read. He's probably only doing 175mph at the most

[vifferman]

Check the Sprints thread for an example of how much higher the speedos actually read. He's probably only doing 175mph at the mostThe point of the original post was, I think, to show that an RC51 was unlikley to be doing 205 mph, if the best a Blackbird could manage at full throttle in tope was an (indicated) 195. At least that's how I read it.

[vifferman]

Here's some more, this time from the horse's ass - whoops; I mean mouth.:wacko:

"All right, I was the one who got the ticket and it is time to clear some things up. For one, I was riding a 2003 Honda RC51, "heavily modified" with 2 Brothers slip on pipes and, well thats all the mods I have unless you count the "I stop for wh***s" sticker. Next, the bike wasn't impounded, it was towed so it wouldn't be in the roadway. Ok, on to the tickets. 205...uh no. I am personal friends with the owner of "Hitman Motorsports" and tonight, Sept. 22, we did a top speed run on his dyno, in 6th gear, and maxed nearly 60mph slower than I was arrested for. The "no motorcycle endorsement" is because my licence was expired, I do have a motorcycle endoresement for all you people digging into me about that. The stop watch method may be accurate at times, but this is un-conceivable for my motorcycle to approach 205. Honda's RC211v, which is Honda's MotoGP race bike, 5 cyclinders and 268 horespower, just broke 200mph on the track within the last week. And we are talking about a 1/2 to 3/4 million dollar bike. And for you gear-heads, I had on Joe Rocket Boots, Shoei helmet, Leather gloves, Ballistic coat, and leather bottoms. Also, both of us were arrested, and no, the slower one did not get a warning, he was ticketed for 111mph on a F4i. I hope this clears things up for everybody, I am just sick of everyone saying things about what they dont know, making me look like this horrific person. People speed, and if anyone knows anything about the "Flood Run" (which was the ride I was on, which by the way benefits the Gillettes Children Fund) I would be a hell of a lot more concerned about the 7,000 bar-hopping motorcyclist out on the road. 99% of the people you hear things from are misinformed. If you have questions, I will answer them. And one last note, this is information you don't know, the pilot who clocked me, was clocking me, the F4i, and flying his plane at 110mph all at the same time. Think about that for a second."

Go here for more:
http://www.sportbikes.net/forums/showthread.php?t=10677&page=5&pp=15

[Ghost Lemur]

...

From reading that the guy seem like a sensible down to earth guy. A hell of a lot more sensible than 90% of his compatriots judging by the gear he was wearing.

Seriously looks like he got somewhat shafted. Yes was speeding, but no even remotely to the level claimed. Good on him for getting a dyno done.

BTW - did anyone realise that "heavily modified" was yank for "it's got an aftermarket can". :killingme

[Blakamin]

The bit on the Dyno might help him at court with some luck!

[vifferman]

BTW - did anyone realise that "heavily modified" was yank for "it's got an aftermarket can". :killingmeThe fact that he said it in quotes was because of the rumours floating around that it was "heavily modified", e.g., he worked in a shop that fitted superchargers and other performance equipment; it must have been heavily modified to be able to exceed 200, etc. All innuendo, rumours, and out-and-out speculation trying to work out what kind of 1000cc production bike could achieve speeds that are normally the domain of 200+hp fire-breathing monsters.

[Blakamin]

The fact that he said it in quotes was because of the rumours floating around that it was "heavily modified", e.g., he worked in a shop that fitted superchargers and other performance equipment; it must have been heavily modified to be able to exceed 200, etc. All innuendo, rumours, and out-and-out speculation trying to work out what kind of 1000cc production bike could achieve speeds that are normally the domain of 200+hp fire-breathing monsters.

I went trolling on the subject here.. http://www.ircspy.com/comments.asp?mode=view&id=1822
good how all the wankers there reckon they do it everyday!

[Cajun]

http://www.sportbikes.net/forums/showthread.php?t=10677&page=5&pp=15

what a lot of bollocks

[Ghost Lemur]

bahahah Thanks for the link Blackamin. Fuck that guys a tard, give 'em shit.

love this quote


OMG. You dont need a turbo charger to do 330kph on an rc-51. I am a rider myself and you could do that on a stock bike.

I think the guy needs to rename himself lytreen, due to the copious amounts of shit he's full of.

BTW now I've seen everything. There's a post from an American over the page from that first link, advocating tiered licencing. :eek:

[Blakamin]

bahahah Thanks for the link Blackamin. Fuck that guys a tard, give 'em shit.

love this quote



I think the guy needs to rename himself lytreen, due to the copious amounts of shit he's full of.

BTW now I've seen everything. There's a post from an American over the page from that first link, advocating tiered licencing. :eek:
I know....he probably thinks playing motorcross madness makes him a rider! :killingme