Information received from Ray Wakefield (of speedrecordsa.co.za) who was
the navigator beside Hein Wagner on the blind attempt - this may account
for the lack of name for the bike rider in the report as you have to be
quite brave to direct a car at the speed attained!
"Success at setting a new Blind Driver World Record at Mafikeng Airport on
Friday, 8th September, at 269.2 kph over the flying Kilometre.(167.27 mph).
This is of course a 'Guinness' record only, and subject to confirmation at
this stage.
It was set by a 33 year old Blind-from-Birth Cape Town man, Hein Wagner,
driving a Maserati GranSport, accompanied by myself (Ray Wakefield) as
'navigator'.
In addition the SA National LSR was taken from 388kph up to 502 kph by
Johan Jacobs, driving his jet powered dragster Showdown . This was achieved
over the mean of two one-kilo runs.
In addition, someone also achieved over 400kph on a motorcycle".
All SA records are subject to ratification by the MSA.
Ray provided details of the facility used and as you might have anticipated
Motor Sports South Africa work to rules from the FIA and FIM (in other
words the one organisation looks after bikes and cars), so they set up a
central located kilo timing trap.
"With only a 1.7 km run up to the start, we were still accelerating through
the kilo, and I estimate that for the blind speed record we exited same at
275+.
Mafikeng's runway is 4.5 km long, and about 45 m wide".
Malcolm Pittwood, Derby, England
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