OK, so Bill Warner, a tropical fish farmer from Tampa Bay, Florida, in the United States hit a stultifying 272.3mph in Texas, and not in Tameside, but this is still a mighty impressive feat for a modified road bike, running on the (closed -off) public highway.

Warner took his turbocharged machine to the Maxton, Texas Mile shoot-out last weekend.

The early model, 1298cc Suzuki Hayabusa posted a few warm-up runs at about 255mph, (minus any bodywork!) then he tweaked the air/fuel mixture, put the fairing back on, and ran over 270mph.

“I figured that one of two things were gonna happen,” the intrepid Mr Warner says.

“Either I would have to shut it down early or I’d put in a really good run.

“You get really motivated in these situations.

“I stayed in the throttle and kept the bike straight up, charging forward.”

In fact, Warner was so motivated he hit several traffic cones, including one when he was already travelling at a whopping 167 mph.

The cone ripped off the front fender of the Hayabusa bike and damaged Warner’s hand-built bodywork, which  had taken 300 man-hours to perfect.

But it didn’t wipe the smile off Warner’s face.

The USA remains the only country on earth where motorcycle record-breakers can attempt such speeds, both on Tarmac in Texas and on the salt at Bonneville.

Tuners like Jack Frost from Northern Ireland and Phil Wood from Cheshire have run at over 200mph in the UK, and hope one day to go head-to-head against the best bikes in America in a transatlantic shoot-out.

The Suzuki Hayabusa, despite being a 1998 design motorcycle, remains the strongest, and fastest bike above the ‘double-ton’ whether turbo-charged, normally aspirated or running nitrous oxide.

If you want to know more about super fast bikes in the UK, visit 200mphclub.com.

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