How Fast Will It Go...Really?

HOW FAST WILL IT GO...REALLY?

YAMAHA THREW DOWN THE gauntlet when it introduced the V-Max; this, Yamaha asserted, will be the world's quickest motorcycle, the machine that will take the quarter-mile performance crown away from any pretenders. Any doubt of that was to be erased one fine January day, when Yamaha took a prototype V-Max and Jay "I Set The Records" Gleason to Baylands Raceway in Fremont, California, and recorded the fastest quarter-mile time ever run by a production bike: 10.32 seconds.

But quarter-mile elapsed times set on prototype motorcycles by a featherweight rider after a full day of tuning by factory engineers aren’t a very good standard for comparison. Nothing was really settled that day in January; the V-Max couldn’t truly wear the quarter-mile crown until it strutted its stuff before a neutral audience.

All of this explains why we gave a production V-Max a rematch with Baylands Raceway. Except this time, we would be the witnesses and supply the riders. Cycle World Technical Editor Steve Anderson would provide numbers for the V-Max test, and Dale Walker, a drag racer who came with strong recommendations, would define the outer limits. ”As good as Gleason,” was the word on Walker from Sandy Kosman, the proprietor of the drag-race chassis shop, Kosman Specialties. Walker had ridden bikes for Kosman before, as had Gleason; according to Kosman, Walker had gone as quick, if not quicker. And he had set a number of records on production bikes, making him the perfect choice for the job at hand.

But to make sure we extracted every last bit of performance from the V-Max, we brought some extra hardware to the track; a spare rear wheel mounted with a six-inch, fiat-profile, Firestone slick; solid struts to replace the shocks; and a wheelie bar we had commissioned from Kosman. First would come the stock time, then the time with the full dragstrip regalia.

It's the strongest production bike I've ever ridden~'

Not much time was required to crown the V-Max; on its seventh run with Walker riding, it turned a 10.64second, 128.57-mph quarter. Anderson took five runs, and the fifth was his first-ever into the tens: 10.89 seconds at 128.75 mph. That was almost two-tenths quicker than he had gone on any of the big-bore sportbikes, and along with the high terminal speed, convincing evidence that the V-Max is the most potent production bike on the streets today.

Next came our experiments with the wheelie bar and slick. The slick provided phenomenal traction, allowing Walker to dump the clutch at 7000 rpm and full throttle, and the wheelie bar kept the V-Max from squashing him in the process. The slick didn’t really break loose under the load, but during the first 30 feet of the run it made a horrible graunching sound, as though the rubber in its tread were being ripped apart molecule by molecule. But whatever the sound, in seven runs Walker turned five times in the 10.40 bracket, his best a 10.44 at 126.05 mph. Anderson was up next, and persuaded the Max down the strip in 10.67 seconds at 127.47 mph.

Both Anderson and Walker were impressed by the V-Max’s performance; Walker because he found it hard to believe a production machine had enough motor to pull a six-inch drag slick without bogging, and Anderson because nothing he had ever ridden (or ridden in) accelerated off the line like the V-Max with the slick and wheelie bar. He came back after each run with a mile-wide grin on his face, giggling in his helmet.

Conclusions after this orgy of tireshredding? First, not only is the VMax fast, but it’s also rugged. Our bike withstood more than 30 passes at Baylands without damage to engine or clutch. Second, even though Gleason is 20 pounds lighter than Walker, which might give him a tenth or two advantage, it's hard to believe he could have duplicated his 10.32 on our production bike. Third, it doesn’t seem likely that a stock VMax, even equipped with slick and wheelie bar, will ever run in the nines; it’s simply too heavy. Finally, the V-Max is definitely the strongestrunning motorcycle in production, but it’s somewhat hobbled by its notparticularly-sticky rear tire. The perfect traction available at Baylands allowed it to run in the mid-to-high tens, something that was impossible on the slippery Carlsbad Raceway surface during the V-Max vs. Cobra shootout. But give that rear tire a surface with a little bit of bite, and there isn’t anything that you can buy in a dealership, on two wheels or four, that can keep up with the Max.