Record-breaking racer Zef Eisenberg has again written his name in the history books, by smashing the highest speed and “flying mile” records at the legendary Pendine Sands in South Wales on Saturday driving a road-legal 1200bhp Porsche 911 Turbo. Eisenberg secured four new wheel-powered vehicle records on just his first pair of runs. In addition to setting the fastest sand speed ever at 210.332mph, he also took the fastest flying quarter (one-way) record at 206.492mph; the fastest flying mile (one-way) at 196.970mph; and the fastest flying mile (two-way, using the same measurement as Sir Malcolm Campbell) at 187.962mph.
Eisenberg also beat his own top speed of 201.5mph set at Pendine in May 2018, as well as his 182.4mph flying mile record from April this year set racing a specially-built 400bhp supercharged Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycle. With it all too, Eisenberg becomes the only person in history to have achieved over 200mph on a bike and car at Pendine as well as the only person in Britain to have achieved a flying mile record on a bike and in a car. Eisenberg, as well as being the founder of MAXImuscle, is best known for racing motorbikes, and his recent records come less than two years since surviving Britain’s fastest-ever motorcycle crash, at some 230mph, after which Eisenberg defied doctors by racing one year later.
Since, Eisenberg has added over a dozen new British speed records and with the MADMAX Race Team this weekend he returned to Pendine Sands on four wheels in a specially-built Porsche 911 Turbo Sand Racer. The car was originally a standard 2014 550bhp 911, and the team extensively developed it over the past 12 months. Eisenberg was elated to have secured the iconic records at Pendine Sands, “Pendine has such an illustrious history,” he said, “racers have been flocking here since the 1900s trying to set speed records. The world land speed record heroes of yesteryear like Malcolm Campbell and J.G. Parry-Thomas in the air have all raced here. It really is the holy grail of land speed.
“A huge thank you to ES Motors and my own MADMAX Race Team for working tirelessly on the extensive Porsche preparation, engine build and tune, to ensure we had the engineering and power to achieve this very challenging record. An additional thanks to the event organisers; Straightliners and Speed Record Club for finding and setting a 2-mile course with difficult sand conditions.”
Pendine beach has hosted record-breaking attempts since the 1900s, as when the weather holds the beach delivers a firm, flat sand surface creating the longest straight line race track in the UK. The first person to use Pendine Sands for a world land speed record attempt was Eisenberg’s hero Sir Malcolm Campbell in 1924, prior to Campbell at the venue three years later setting a mark of 174.8mph in the iconic Blue Bird—a record that stood for nearly 90 years—as well as an average flying mile of 174.224mph. Campbell’s record was eventually beaten by The Wire star Idris Elba, who set 180.361mph at Pendine in 2015 in his 650bhp Bentley Continental GT Speed, as part of a TV documentary.
Images courtesy of MADMAX® Race Team
