Oct 13, 2008 8:22 pm US/Pacific
Grass Valley Man Claims Motorcycle Speed Record
GRASS VALLEY (CBS13) ―
A local man grabbed the motorcycle land speed record after a decade of effort that included a dangerous crash at more than 300 miles per hour.
Grass Valley's Rocky Robinson made a run on the salt flats in Utah on his motorcycle to reclaim the record he held two years ago, topping 360 miles per hour -- twice as fast as NASCAR stock cars.
"You're flying on the ground faster than most airplanes go," Rocky said.
Two years ago, he broke a 16-year-old record by going 342 miles per hour, only the second time the record had been broken in 32 years. It would be reasonable to guess that his record would have stood for another decade, or even a week.
"The team I used to race for, two days later, broke my record and bumped it to 350," Rocky laughed.
In a dash to snatch it back, he made a run in 2007, cracking 300 miles per hour before things went wrong.
"I ended up crashing at more than 300 miles per hour, the fastest recorded crash on two wheels," Rocky said. "That's a record I'm not all that proud of."
After rebuilding the bike from the ground up, waiting for the perfect conditions and spending thousands to perfect the machine, his team tried again two weeks ago. Rocky held on and reclaimed the record with a 360 mile per hour pass.
"He never panics, he just does what he has to do," said Valerie Robinson, Rocky's mother. "The other thing is, I pray a lot."
When he's not on his bike, Rocky delivers cars for Toyota in Auburn, and slows it down quite a bit on the road -- no speeding tickets in decades, Rocky said.
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