Team Punisher consists of myself, Marc Rittner(LA), and Micah Shoemaker(TX).
This project has consumed 3-1/2 years of development time for my team mates and I, plus multiple grenaded engines, cubic dollars, and the usual blood, sweat, and tears.
The bike we ride started life as an Aprilia RSV, a 990cc V-twin Italian sport bike modified for land speed racing. It's longer, lower, has full streamlining, and a supercharger, water/methanol injection (for charge cooling and detonation suppression), and a wet nitrous oxide system. No part of the bike is stock.
Power output is 350-ish rwhp
So,....what's it like to ride a pass on The Punisher?
To start with, you rehearse next morning's pass in your head a hundred times while trying to fall asleep early so you will be wide awake to ride your best at -hopefully windless- daybreak, while your team mates are still out in the trailer wrenching on the bike until 2 am. Toss and turn, toss and turn.
Waiting in staging line, the butterflies in your stomach are like a rock band trashing a hotel room, but you yuk it up with the competition anyway and try to enjoy yourself.
When your lane is about to be called, your team puts heat in the engine and attends to the nitrous pressure (adjusts the bottle temperature) and configures the electronics while you zip up your leathers and get your earplugs, helmet, and gloves on.
It's time to lower the bike off the stand and sit on it. Your team helps you clip the dead man switch lanyard to your left glove where it won't be in your way, and they stop talking to you. Or maybe they don't stop, I don't know, I'm "in the zone" by that point and don't hear them, or anything else.
When it's your turn, team mates push you out to "on deck" position and you start the engine.
The vehicle in front of you launches, and the starter waves you up to the line. At this point, nuclear bombs could be going off and I wouldn't notice, my concentration is absolute.
The starter gives you the go ahead, your select first gear and set your shifting foot on the peg ready to shift into second, and......go!
This bike only needs about half or less rpm at launch, and we're easy on the clutch getting moving. With this gearing first gear is good for 80mph or so. As the clutch is fully engaged I smoothly open the throttle wide then shift into second early, at 9k-ish rpm, quickly rev second to 9k-ish rpm, then go for third and press the nitrous button. Shifting the first two gears early helps control wheel spin off the line.
You're going fast enough now that big wheel spin or an abrupt wheelie isn't so likely, so it's time to think about making sure you are completely tucked in out of the airstream. The bike is still trying to hard wheelie and spin the tire, just not as hard as it was.
As the nitrous comes in like a rocket booster up your a$$ things start to happen in a real hurry, a good run requires shifting at exactly 10.5k rpm, not more, not less so you have to be on your toes to get it exactly right.
Hold the button down and run through the rest of the gears, looking for the mile marker when you shift to sixth. The engine pulls the upper gears with an urgency that words can't describe. Hold it WFO till just after the marker and shut the throttle, only now do you see the landscape blurring by and realize just how fast you're really going.
Use the brakes and make the turn off onto the return road, reach down and disarm the nitrous and flip on the aux fan switch, ride up to the timing stand and receive your 200.8 mph slip.
All in a day's work.
