Ari Henning is the Senior Road Test Editor for US based Motorcyclist Magazine, and he loves to race – in fact, he’s pretty good at it!
After a regular ribbing from his colleagues about the fact that he races a 36bhp Honda CBR300R, he decided to show them just how much fan you can have on such a small machine.
Ari’s bike has an extra 8 horsepower on the standard CBR300, plus it’s kitted out with a quickshifter, Bridgestone Battlax V02 Racing Slick tyres and the suspension has been tuned – but despite all this nobody really expected him to set a new lap record during a recent race meeting at the Chuckwalla Valley Raceway in Southern California, all filmed on his trusty GoPro camera.
Ari lapped the 2.7 mile circuit with it’s 17 corners in just 1:58.66, which doesn’t necessarily mean a lot until you break it down:
- He averaged 81mph
- The bike was full throttle for 1 minute and 11 seconds
A stock CBR300 can only manage 92mph top speed, and the bike was wide open for 60% of the lap!
You can check out Ari’s full on-board lap video from Chuckwalla on the Motorcyclist Magazine website.
In a recent 1000cc superbike test at the very same circuit, most testers were lapping anywhere between 1:54 and 2:05 on the likes of the latest Aprilia RSV4, BMW S1000 RR and Kawasaki ZX-10R.
That only goes to show how good Ari’s riding skills are, complimented by the grippy Battlax V02 Racing Slicks which clearly give him the confidence to take attack the circuit at full tilt. It also shows just how much fun a small displacement machine can be for even the most experienced of riders!
Who says the smaller capacity sports bikes are just for new riders?
Find out more about the Battlax V02 Racing Slick from Bridgestone.
