Have you ever sat on your lounge chair at home watching motorcycle racing or even better, if you have made the trek out to Goulburn’s Wakefield Park and watched the two wheel action unfold before your very eyes and wondered what it might be like to race a motorcycle?
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
If you answered yes, what about have you wondered what it would be like to race a factory Honda CBR1000 RR SP superbike machine like the bike that local hero Troy Herfoss races in this year’s Swann Insurance Australasian Superbike Championship?
Sure, for all you folks out there that do ride bikes on the road or might even dabble in a bit of track day activities from time to time, I hate to say you will never know what it is like to race a factory bike at ten tenths and at 100% on a knife edge.
With the final round of the Swann Superbike Series just weekends away at Sydney Motorsport Park, we dive into the mind of Herfoss himself to find out what it’s like to man handle a superbike around a race track.
“It’s hard to explain the feeling that you get of racing a superbike,” Herfoss said.
“You are doing speeds that are pretty scary when you think about it.”
Now you would think if you were galloping around a motorcycle race track at up to 300km/ph things would feel like it would come up pretty bloody fast, correct? Not for Herfoss as he explained.
“I feel like when I am going around Sydney Motorsport Park for example at 100% it feels like everything slows down so much. I can feel every bit of movement from the tyre to the tarmac. It’s like your balancing the whole way around the corner, because the bike is sliding around.”
It’s amazing to think Herfoss has 180 Horsepower in his right hand (throttle) on a bike that weighs less than 180 kilograms! Hint the reason why the rear wheel can literally spin up at any moment or wheel stand or get the wobbles up.
“The power to weight is just ridiculous,” expressed the 28-year-old. “You got to have a lot of respect for the machine and you really have to be concentrating 100% all the time. If you don’t concentrate the bike will bite you, and when it bites, it hurts!”
Now this is sure to make you raise an eyebrow.
When the Goulburn Post asked Herfoss what was the most enjoyable part of racing a superbike he replied with this:
“I find the best part of racing a superbike would be when you’re going around a corner at 200km/ph with your knee on the ground and you still have enough power to spin the rear wheel up and send smoke off the rear tyre. That is an amazing feeling!”
