World Wheelie Record

18th-19st of August 2012 :: Elvington

The Straightliners Guinness World Wheelie Record is an extremely serious event. Pinning a motorcycle up on the back wheel at 50mph is dangerous enough, imagine bikes screaming down the drag strip at almost 200mph on the back wheel......no we're not joking, the guys take this VERY seriously and this event is always a jaw dropper. The UK's finest battle out for the Guinness World Wheelie Record with a Guinness official and the Straightliners team on hand to make this event one hell of an experience!

The history of the Guinness World Wheelie Records – by Dodge.

Way, way back in the mid 1980’s the Guinness world wheelie record stated that the wheelie had to be held through a set of ground mounted timing equipment, so there was no set distance to the wheelie, it just had to be carried through the timing equipment..

The first to do it was Frenchman Richard Almet better known as ‘Archy’’ to his fans in the UK, he was probably one of the worlds first motorcycle stunt riders as we know them today, pulling both stopples and fairly long wheelies on his air cooled Suzuki GSX1100-EFE engined Moto-martin, performing both on his own and with his gorgeous lady assistant, for the two up stuff. Now ‘’Archy’’ managed a very respectable 137mph wheelie on his GSX1100 based stunt bike, and it was a balanced through the gears wheelie, and although the actual wheelie distance is not known, it must have been a pretty impressive sight to achieve 137mph with only around 110bhp on tap, so will have been certainly over quarter of a mile long at least, and having cut my teeth wheelie-ing bikes like XS1100’s and GS1000’s, Z13’s, CB900’s and Z-Nines and CBX’s (showing my age here) I know it takes a lot of skill and balance to wheelie these ‘old skool muscle’ bikes from the 70’s and 80’s and ‘’Archy’’ really was a true ‘’wheelie god’’, performing through the gear box wheelies around thirty years ago !!

Now this record had stood for several years and nearly saw the decade out, but then in 1989, our very own Steve Burns (one of the UK’s best bike builders and drag racers of the 80’s and a real biking icon of the time) who managed to achieve just over 150mph on his very famous at the time black and blue turbo charged air cooled GSX 1100 based Spondon. Now this speed was very nearly the equivalent to the maximum speed of the superbikes of the time, for example the Kawasaki Ninja GPZ900R (fastest production bike at the time) did just over 155 on two wheels!! A few months after doing the record Steve famously flipped the Spondon turbo whilst doing some demo runs at a bike show at the Aintree race circuit, and wrote it off!! It was displayed at the NEC bike show later that year still in its mangled state, and I still remember being in awe of it even then. Once again, Steve’s record held for many years but then towards the end of the 90’s in 97 in fact, Streetfighter Magazine and Straightliners got together to set about breaking the wheelie record over at the then annual Jurby Wheelie and Drag Racing Weekend over on the Isle of Man. Conditions were perfect and several riders including me were there to have a go, but in truth only three had any real chance. They were, Ted Bradley, who brought over form Ireland an ex Steve Burns, Harris framed turbo air cooled GSX1100 with a Spondon swinging arm in it. It was affectionately nick named the ‘’Harrdon’’ (get it? Harris /Spondon) . Then there was Chris Hannam better known as ‘’Cannon’’ on his newly built specifically for the wheelie record, a turbo bandit 1200. The bike had been new from the crate only three weeks earlier, and had been stripped with zero miles on it and been fitted with special pistons and clutch to cope with the extra power from the turbo kit, and it was run in and set up on the Dyno the week before the event and Cannon got his first ride on it at Jurby Airfield!!

Finally we had Jack Frost (of Holeshot Racing fame) on his Spondon, only this one was fitted with the later Suzuki oil cooled GSXR 1100 engine, turbo charged of course. Now Jurby is only three quarters of a mile long so to enable us all to do the attempts safely, some of the barriers were removed to give a clear run down the runway to maximise the wheelie speeds but still leave enough braking distance at the other end. All the riders got a few attempts, and then as it became clear that only the turbo bikes there were in with a chance, so all of the slower riders were withdrawn, including me !! So the three turbo Suzuki bikes remained and things went roughly like this, first off, Ted blew the ‘’ Harrdon’s ‘’ engine and he too had to withdraw. This left Jack and Cannon to have a head to head, what you have to realise here is that Jack and Cannon were best of mates, so it was personnal !! Well Cannon set the standard with a blistering 168mph whilst Jack seemed to be struggling in comparison so it looked like Cannon had it in the bag so to speak, but… and it is a very big but, a couple of hours later that day, it was agreed that Jack and Cannon could have an extra few goes each to see if Cannons 168 could be beaten. Now in the down time in between the wheelie attempts, Jack and Cannon had been discussing what boost settings and gearing they had been using, and Jack had taken advantage of this very valuable hour or so to make changes to his bikes sprockets to give it more top speed and turned his waste gate in to give absolutely maximum boost and power, it was basically ‘’shit or bust’’, but would it pay off ??

Well yes it did with Jack managing to eclipse Cannon’s 168 with an amazing 172mph. Now whilst Jack was still as high as a kite after setting the new world record, he was due to go out and do a stunt display for the crowds on his stunt bike bandit 1200, now Jack forgot about the barriers being put back in place after the wheelie attempts finishing and at about 50 mph hit them and ended up in Douglas hospital in quite a mess, with several broken bones!!

Now once again like Steve Burns old record, Jacks wheelie speed was as fast as the current crop of superbikes of the time, example Kawasaki’s ZZR1100’s and Honda’s Blackbird were the fastest street bikes of the mid 90’s with top speeds close to 180mph. As time went by and superbikes improved, and with the likes of Gary Rothwell (stunt rider extraordinaire) and Patrik Furstenoff  (the Ghost Rider), now riding turbo Hayabusa’s and turbo Blackbird’s took the speeds close to 200mph!

I still remember watching their infamous show down, where Gary and Patrik went head to head on t.v, trying to out do each other on the back wheel for the t.v. cameras. Their rivalry and friendship still continues to this day, and although Gary has now retired from such antics, Patrick has gone on to do a personal best and current world record of 214 mph set at Elvington in 2007 on a very trick 500 bhp turbo Hayabusa.

Now whilst this was all going on for the elite few with big power turbo bikes, your average guy on his sports bike was getting left further and further behind, so with Guinness’s consent a new long distance speed wheelie record was created, with the distance of 1 kilometre being the chosen distance.

The rules stated that the wheelie must start before the measured kilometre and finish beyond the timing equipment placed at the end of the kilometre. So in actual fact the wheelie had to be over a kilometre in distance for it to count. The idea behind this new record was that the unruly turbo bikes would be too much of a handful over such a long distance wheelie, so allowing normal sports bike riders to be in with a shot at the new kilometre wheelie record, and this turned out to be correct, together with Guinness and Streetfighter Magazine and the guys from Straightliners the very first kilometre motorcycle wheelie record attempts took place at Elvington in 2001.

Around fifty riders turned up with their sports bikes (and not a turbo in sight) to have a go. Now their first obstacle was to qualify to take part, this was done by seeing who could actually cover the kilometre on the back wheel, everyone was given two chances to put in a kilometre wheelie, those that did got through to the final stage and the rest became spectators!! it was that simple.

Now a kilometre is a long way to wheelie and several of the riders just could not manage the distance required. The conditions were very good, I remember it was a nice day, if a little cloudy, but dry with only a slight wind, so we all took turns, but with so many riders in it, you only got a handful of attempts, so you had to make each run count. I was very surprised to qualify myself as I had only just sold my GSXR 1340cc Fightered slabby which I had been wheelie-ing on for years, and had just bought a bog stock Hayabusa two weeks earlier, which I took the mirrors off and put a one tooth smaller gear box sprocket on and to my surprise did the kilometre first time out. So the first ever Guinness Motorcycle Kilometre Wheelie Record went to Chris McCinness from Inverness, Scotland, on his Suzuki GSXR 750 SRAD with 127 mph. In doing this Chris beat all his rivals who were on bigger machines, including Suzuki GSXR elevens, Bandits, Fireblades and R1’s and me on my Busa.

Now I have to confess at this point that towards the end of the day, the event was cut short by ‘’Dodge’’ managing to flip his Hayabusa as he went through the end of the kilometre at 124 mph on its back wheel….. so we will never know if anyone was going to better Chris’s 127 mph, but I doubt it, he was the best rider on the day. I have to say though it is a shame that Chris has not continued to enter the other wheelie competitions that have been held since, a real shame as there is no doubting his talent.

Chris’s record held for just over a year. but once I had rebuilt my now Street-fightered Busa following the ‘’off’’ at the wheelie competition, I returned to Elvington to try again and despite a very strong side wind that hindered my attempts all day I eventually set a new record of 137 mph, this was way off what I was hoping for, but the very strong side winds were there all day, so I had to make the best of it. Anyway my (Dodge) record then held until 2004, when I received an email from Guinness telling me that an Australian rider called Matt Mingay had set a new world record of 140 mph on a GSXR 1000. Once I discovered that my record had been beaten, I wanted it back, and as I had also beaten my record whilst practising at Elvington, whilst competing in Straightliners events at Elvington, I managed an unofficial 150 mph on the mile long ‘’fliers’’ so I was determined to make it happen. So I set about organising another event to bring the record back to the UK.

Forty riders took up the challenge and in 2005 at Elvington airfield the record once again changed hands, with several riders beating Matt Mingay’s 140 mph, but the outright winner and new record holder was Terry Calcott on another GSXR1000 with an amazing 156 mph. So for the first time now, we had the 1km distance wheelie record faster than Steve Burns’s turbo bike, power wheelie record from the 1989. This just showed how the new generation of GSXR 1000’s and the continued evolution of the Fireblade and R1 had made power to weight ratios that say fifteen years earlier would have graced the grand prix circuits (that’s Moto GP to any youngster’s reading this). Now everyone had such a great time at Elvington that weekend that nearly all of them requested we all do it again. So I got together with Trevor from Straightliners and we agreed to make it an annual event, which to our knowledge, is a unique event anywhere around the world.

So in 2006 everyone turned up again to see if Terry’s incredible 156 could be bettered, and to my surprise, it was, and by two riders. Mick Tickle, riding a Kawasaki ZX1200R managed an eye watering 160 mph and was the new world record holder, but only for the first day of the event…because:
Terry Callcott came back on day two with an amazing 172 mph!!! and all of the top eleven riders of 2006 were over the 150 mph barrier on a kilometre wheelie and still not a turbo in sight!

A knock on affect of the event becoming an annual thing, was that a lot of new friendships were being built amongst the wheelie riders and many were in touch with me and each other throughout the year rather than just meeting up at the wheelie weekend, and it was beginning to feel like one big happy family.

Now the 172 mph of Terry’s and the following ten riders all finishing with speeds over the 150 mph barrier, this now meant that we now had several riders, all able to reach the 150 plus mph speeds that the turbo bikes power wheelies had been doing only a few years earlier, quite an amazing and bizarre situation. It just showed how far modern super bikes had progressed as well as the fact that the riders themselves were improving due to now having the event each year.

Unfortunately a few months after Terry had done his 172 record he was in Germany with some of his biker mates on holiday, when he was in collision with a car and was tragically killed, and within another few months after that, we lost another one of our infamous wheelie riders to a tragic bike accident ‘’Johnny 2K’’ who got his nick name of ‘’2K’’ by wheelieing his Triumph Speed Triple the full length (2.2 miles) of Elvington in 2^nd gear !! 2K had a unique and amazing sense of balance, and like I said earlier about it feeling like a big family, I attended both funerals and it was touching how many of the other riders had made the effort and travelled from all over the UK to be there.

Anyway in honour of these two great guys, we had a very special trophy made called the ‘Wheelie God Trophy’’ which has become our ‘’F.A. Cup’’ if you like, where each years winner gets there name on it and then passes it onto the next years winner and so on.

So now with Terry no longer able to defend his crown it was down to the rest of us to see if the 172 could be beaten. The simple answer was no, we tried each year and in 2007 only the top four managed to get over the 150 barrier with Shaun Mitchell taking top spot with 161 mph. Then in 2008 things heated up with the top four riders all breaking the 160 barrier. They were Nev Moss at 160 mph, Shaun Mitchell at 162 mph and Mark Ratcliffe with 166.4 mph, but top spot in 2008 went to ‘King Kenny’’ Bye with 166.9 mph.

Things got even hotter again in 2009 with the top 19 riders all breaking the 160 barrier, a real testament as to how far both the riders and their bikes had progressed. The names seemed familiar as well, with Mark Ratcliffe, new boy Matti, along with Nev Moss and King Kenny taking the top four spots with speeds between 169 and 171 mph!!

So we were now getting very close to terry’s 172 but no one had topped it yet. Terry’s parents attend every year to keep in touch with us all, and to come and watch, to see if anyone had beaten ‘’their Terry’s ’ record, but it was still safe. Like I said we really are a ‘’family’’.

Also in 2009 I entered on my freshly built  Big CC racing Supercharged Busa and did a personal best of 164.3 mph now I mention this because although I finished in 10^th place behind nine GSXR 1000’s. several of the other riders could see that although my bike had literally only just been finished before the wheelie weekend, that force fed engines had come a very long way since the early days of the turbo power wheelie bikes of the 1980’s and 90’s. This planted the seed with many of them to go away and look into the modern day turbo and supercharger systems out there for the current crop of sports bikes. So when we returned to Elvington in 2010 we not only had my Big CC ‘Supabusa’’ as I have nicknamed it, but also a TTS Supercharged B-King and three Gixer Thou’s now fitted with turbo’s, two running Holeshot kits from Jack Frost and the other one a Hahn racing turbo kit.

All of these machines managed to fulfil a kilometre wheelie, so proving that with the advancements in both turbo and supercharger systems and the fuel injection systems that feed them over the last ten years, it is now possible to have awesome power, but delivered in a way that allows these machines to be ridden virtually the same as a normally aspirated engined super bike. So with these big power machines entered I think it was inevitable that the 172 of Terry’s was going to be beaten, and it was, with Irishman Shane Egan setting a new world record off 181.5 mph. so very well done Shane. I managed to equal my personal best with 164.5 but with plenty left in reserve so not giving up just yet !! The other turbo riders Ted Bradey and Dazz Rose managed 163.6 mph and 145.3 on their first ever outings on the new turbo gixers, and Dom ‘’the Phantom’’ managed a very respectable 134 mph on his Supa B-King, which he had never ridden until he got to Elvington as it was only finished the day before the event !!, as had become the norm over the last year or so GSXR 1000’s made up most of the field with Nev Moss being the first man to do 180 mph on a normally aspirated bike, so only one and a half miles per hour slower than Shane on his turbo. The top 18 riders were all over the 160 mph barrier so you can see just how far thing have progressed in just a few years of the event. My record of 137 mph a few years ago would now have put me in 27^th position in the 2010 results!! As well as Shane and Nev, worthy of a special mention in this years 2010 results are, Jerry Moran and Tony Robinson, both doing 176 mph, Richy Roche, Shaun Mitchell, King Kenny, Craig Davies, Ted Brady, Mark Ratcliffe, all managing to break the 160 barrier, some not for the first time…so there we have it,

...the history of the Guinness Wheelie World Records.