There’s always something special about reaching the ultimate speed on two wheels, and that’s something felt by all the riders and teams that enter the annual Speed Week in Bonneville, United States.
Every year there are some who believe that they can set new speed records, and this year it was Team 38, a Kawasaki backed team, that has shown what a production Ninja H2 can do.
Team 38 and rider Sighera Yamashita have set a new speed record with the Ninja H2, winning the P-PB 1000 class at the Speed Week. The supercharged Ninja H2, which couldn’t be heavily modified to be able to compete in this class, reached an average speed of 337.064 km/h (209.442 mph) after managing a first run with 340.751 km/h and 333.557 km/h on the second run.
To be able to reach this result, Team 38 has had full support from Kawasaki factory, who sent a team of special engineers and even test riders to help with this record run.
The major problem with this attempt is that the dry lake at Bonneville is covered with salt, and that surface creates a lot of problems for the bike to get rear tyre grip, and at the same time, because it isn’t a smooth surface, the salt also creates stability problems at high speeds.
For Team 38 and Kawasaki this isn’t the best top speed though! In 2016 they’ve managed to set a new speed record when they’ve used a Ninja H2R to get to 400 km/h.
If Kawasaki wanted to show off the performance of their supercharged Ninja H2, then they totally hit their goal!