http://usatoday.com/news/offbeat/200...OE=click-refer
Motorcycle enthusiasts question 205 mph ticket
WABASHA, Minn. (AP) — There's little doubt that a Stillwater motorcyclist could wind up his Honda sport motorcycle past 180 mph, but members of the motorcycle racing world question whether the State Patrol was correct to cite him for 205 mph last weekend.
The State Patrol is standing by its stopwatch, and the speeding ticket a veteran trooper wrote for Samuel Tilley for driving his 2003 Honda RC51 on U.S. Highway 61 near Wabasha on the state's eastern border.
Tilley faces misdemeanor charges of speeding, reckless driving and riding without a motorcycle license. He has declined repeated requests for comment from several media outlets in the past few days.
The St. Paul Pioneer Press first reported the details of the ticket, which is unofficially the highest ever written in the state, on Tuesday. Soon motorcycle enthusiasts were buzzing about whether Tilley really broke the 200 mph barrier.
"Theoretically, it could happen — anything is possible — but I don't believe it," said John Ulrich, editor of Roadracing World, a magazine that covers sport bike racing. "Guys who want to break speed records and go over 200 mph have to go to great lengths to get there."
Ulrich questioned the State Patrol's timing methods, in which a trooper in an airplane used a stopwatch to calculate how long it took Tilley to cover a certain distance. Other enthusiasts said if the timing were off by only a half-second, it would drop Tilley's speed to about 185 mph.
While that would be still be the unofficial state record, and within the specifications for Tilley's Honda, it wouldn't break the prestigious 200 mph mark.
Department of Public Safety Spokesman Kevin Smith there was no reason to believe the trooper, who had 27 years of experience, was wrong. He said the Honda could go 205 mph.
"What we have is what we have," Smith said. "That is the number he came up with, and there's really no going back on it."
Legally, he said, there wasn't much difference between 205 mph and 185 mph because even the lower speed wouldn't help defend against the reckless driving charge. "Let's say he was going 186 — that's still 121 mph over the speed limit. I don't see the relevance," Smith said.
As it is, motorcycle experts say that most unmodified sport bikes already top out at about 185 mph because of limits with their fuel injectors.
To get an RC51 up to 200 mph, they say, the owner would have to change the motorcycle's transmission, fuel injectors and gears — and might have to add either a supercharger or pump nitrous oxide or methane into the fuel system.
All of these changes are possible, but expensive. And anyone with those kinds of modifications isn't likely to tool around southern Minnesota with nitrous or jet fuel in his bike, they say.
"It's just not something that some dude can roll out of his garage and go for a ride and do," Ulrich said. "A hundred fifty? No problem. Two hundred? Big problem."
Tilley will get a chance to plead his case in Wabasha County District Court on Oct. 25.
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Motorcycle enthusiasts questioning the 205mph ticket
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