Motor sport : Fast Bikes’ Project Superlight Sets New Nurburgring Lap Record

UK mag smashes lap record for Bridge-to-Gantry

Future’s Fast Bikes magazine has set a new lap record at the world-famous Nurburgring, with their specially built Suzuki GSX-R600 ‘Project Superlight’.

Widely known as the toughest, most dangerous and most demanding circuit in the world, with 13 miles and 72 corners to negotiate, the Nurburgring is one of the greatest tests that any vehicle can face.

The Fast Bikes team took a standard Suzuki GSX-R600, and teamed up with Richard Vanags, of special parts importer P3 Unlimited, who built the bike using only bolt-on parts. The goal was to reduce weight everywhere possible, while keeping the bike road legal, and not resorting to specialist tuning work. The idea was to get the power to weight ratio as close as possible to 1:1, then take on much more powerful GSX-Rs.

Fast Bikes took Project Superlight, plus a standard GSX-R750 and GSX-R1000 to the Nurburgring, and put them all in the hands of Nurburgring expert, Andy Carlile – who already held the fastest recorded lap of the ‘Ring on an MV Agusta, at 7m21s Bridge-to-Gantry. Andy’s ridden thousands of laps of the ‘Ring and is one of very few riders capable of beating his own record.

Despite limited testing and ‘hot lap’ opportunities, Project Superlight was quicker than both the 750cc and 1000cc bikes, and set a new lap record of 7m17s for a Bridge-to-Gantry lap, despite never quite getting a completely clean lap. Given better conditions Andy Carlile said “I reckon that a sub 7m10s lap is on the cards with clear traffic and good weather”.

Richard Newland, Editor of Fast Bikes said: “This is a phenomenal achievement, and proves that you can build amazing sportsbikes in your garage with no specialist tools or equipment, and that weight has a dramatic effect over performance. Project Superlight is a testament to the original concept, dreamt up by Richard Vanags of P3 Unlimited, and to Andy Carlile’s extraordinary focus on track. We’re delighted to have been a part of this project, and to have broken the ‘Ring lap record.”