Speed
Each track is between 260 to 425 metres long and it takes approximately one minute to complete four laps. For example, Leigh Adams set a record time of 59 seconds on a 342 metres (1,122 ft) track and produced an average speed of 83 km/h (49 mph). The speed on straight sections of the track reaches 110 km/h (70 mph) or more on longer tracks, but the limited speed on curves lowers the average.
At the start of a race it takes between one and two seconds for the motorcycle to reach the "curve speed" (somewhat lower than the average), which is roughly estimated to be the equivalent of 2.5 to 3 seconds to reach 100 kilometres per hour (62 mph) (or 0 to 60 mph). The start of the race is an important aspect of the race overall. "Gating" correctly can help a rider gain an initial advantage over other riders but speed advantages can be made as a race progresses. Those riders willing to take a risk and opt for finding the grippy parts of the track rather than the race line, are sometimes rewarded with extra speed allowing them to pass other riders either on the outside or the inside.
Read more about this topic: Motorcycle Speedway
Famous quotes containing the word speed:
“For myself and my loved ones, I want the heat, which comes at the speed of light. I don’t want to have to hang about for the blast, which idles along at the speed of sound.”
—Martin Amis (b. 1949)
“It was undoubtedly the feeling of exile—that sensation of a void within which never left us, that irrational longing to hark back to the past or else to speed up the march of time, and those keen shafts of memory that stung like fire.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“Among the laws controlling human societies there is one more precise and clearer, it seems to me, than all the others. If men are to remain civilized or to become civilized, the art of association must develop and improve among them at the same speed as equality of conditions spreads.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)