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Schnitz Racing
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News
March
30, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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Tom Gates
with his winnings |
Goliad, TX – Gates Sets New Top Speed Record. On March
27, 2010 Tom Gates of La Porte, Texas jumped from #10 on
the “Standing Mile Over 200” list to the #1 spot with an
amazing run of 261.500 making him the new owner of the
all-time record for the standing mile on a motorcycle.
In the world of land speed racing, the standing mile
200mph mark is so passé that it only places you #169 on
the all-time list over 200. The 210 mark has a ranking
of 78th, 220 the ranking of 40th, 230 the ranking of
24th, and 240 the ranking of 14th. Only seven men held
claim to the 250 honors until this weekend. Lee Shierts
was the lonely man on top of the boards with his record
run of 260.288 set at Maxton back in 2006.
The now holy ground for speed freaks in Goliad, which
has only been active for seven years, is certainly the
rival to the Maxton Mile at the Laurinburg-Maxton
airfield just outside Maxton, North Carolina for top end
enthusiasts and now lays claim to the overall motorcycle
record. The 8000’ long and 200’ wide surface called the
Texas Mile had a previous record of 259.900mph held by
Shane Stubbs set last season. |
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Former record holder
Shane Stubbs stopped by Tom’s shop to drop off a
present, great sportsmanship! |
In February of 2009, Tom Gates was the inaugural subject
in a new column on Dragbike.com entitled “Person of the
Week” sponsored by Schnitz Racing. In that interview Tom
indicated he was transforming his land speed
turbocharged Busa into a Pro Street quarter miler with
plans to race in the Hurricane Alley and AMA Dragbike
Series. At the end of the 2009 season, he decided to get
back to what he was destined to do - land speed racing.
After selling off all his top end equipment, he started
buying it all back and making wholesale changes to get
him to the top of the game. In a mad dash that only
started three months ago, chassis changes where trusted
to McIntosh Racing along with the addition of their
swingarm. RCC supplied the new Super Ultra turbo kit, JE
Pistons their new Sever Duty turbo pistons, along with
valve springs from Bob Carpenter. The use of stock
cases, stock head and crank, and a set of Carrillo rods
completed the engine package. After a clean black paint
job by Colt Bateman, they were off to the Texas Mile. |
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Tom with his
trophy! |
As the Suzuki Hayabusa was off loaded the goal this year
was to use finesse as opposed to Tom’s usual balls out,
go for broke approach. With a winner take all purse up
for grabs on Saturday, the plan was for easy runs on
Friday towards a run at the record starting Saturday. On
Friday, the first shakedown pass was an effortless
189mph pass. Run #2 with a gradual boost increase from
gear to gear netted a 221 pass followed by a 244mph run
to round out the day.
Saturday was the money day. Right out of the box on the
first pass of the day and only the fourth pass of the
new bike, Tom laid down the record breaking pass of
261.500mph. The next morning, Tom was on what he knew
was a better run when he clicked it off into 6th gear,
the bike shut off. After a quick inspection at 200+mph,
he discovered that the kill switch had been knocked into
the off position by the tether as it got caught in the
wind. |
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Tom’s winnings were
sequestered by wife, Cindy. |
The remainder of Sunday turned out to be windy, so Tom
called it a day, took the cash and left the Texas Mile
as the new undisputed king of the standing mile. Tom
would like to extend his appreciation for this honor to
first, Jesus Christ, then his lovely wife Cindy, his
longstanding faithful crew of Chris Brandon, who did all
the welding and wiring, and Mark Dearza. In addition he
could not have pulled this off without the help of Ryan
Schnitz of Schnitz Racing who worked with Penske to
develop a new shock and was on hand to lend his
expertise throughout the project. Tom would also like to
thank his other sponsors Richard Pettler of RCC Turbos
and Mike Gelt of Third Coast Speed.
Standing Mile races are becoming more popular and will
boast five events this year. In addition to the Texas
Mile and the Maxton Mile, there are additional events in
Miami, Mohave (California) and Elvington in the United
Kingdom.
Tom can be reached at TrickTom1 Racing at
tricktom1@yahoo.com
or (281) 468-8744. For more information on the Texas
Mile, visit
www.texasmile.com or
www.suzukihayabusa.org.
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