In 1967, the 68-year-old rode a motorcycle at a speed of 296 km / h, setting a world record for motorcycles under 1000 cc, which no one has been able to break to this day.
He is a motorcycle legend named Burt Munro, a motorcycle racer from New Zealand.
Bert was born in 1899 in Invercargill, New Zealand, by farmers William Munro and Lily Agnes Robinson, whose twin sister died at birth, and doctors said Burt "did not live to be two years old." Fortunately, doctors' judgments are not always correct.
Bert was born to love speed, riding his fastest horse through the farm at his family's farm at a young age and then taking the train to Invercargill Port, and when he was a little older, he was fascinated by the moment he saw a motorcycle speeding down a quiet street. The discovery of motorcycles made Burt yearn for speed and furious beyond the farm.
Burt has always lived on a family farm and worked as a motorcycle salesman and mechanic before becoming a racing driver.
In 1915, he bought his first motorcycle, a Douglas. By 1919, he had bought a Clyno with a sidecar for £50, which he dismantled and he used to compete in local races.
1920 was a very important year for Burt. The 31-year-old got a new Indian Scout with the engine 50R627, the 627th car produced by that model (600cc Scout), which had a top speed of 55 mph (88.5 km/h). The car would earn him great honor and remained with him until his death.
Burt began modifying his Indian Scouts in 1926, and his methods were purely DIY, not formal. He has no money, just an obsession, an obsession, and a determination. Using old spokes as micrometers and casting parts in old tin cans, he built his own quad cam design to replace the standard two-cam system and convert to overhead valves.
He made his own barrels, flywheels, pistons, cams and followers, as well as lubrication systems. He hand-carved his connecting rods from Caterpillar tractor axles and hardened and tempered them to a tensile strength of 143 tons. He built a seventeen-plate, thousand-pound pressure clutch and used a three-chain drive. He experimented with popular designs and ended up enclosing the motorcycle completely in a streamlined casing.
In 1940, Burt set the highest speed record for a New Zealand motorcycle at 194.4 km/h.
Burt married in 1927, had four children in 20 years, and divorced his wife in 1947. After the divorce, he gave up his job and lived in a garage, working day and night to upgrade his "classic car", which he called the Munro Special.
He went on to set a series of New Zealand road and beach records.
In February 1957 he set a New Zealand open beach record of 211.44 km/h, and in April 1957 he set a record of 750cc in Christchurch at 231.09 km/h. In March 1962, he ran 1/4 mile (0.41 km) in 12.31 seconds in Invercargill.
Since 1962, Bert, who has been a grandfather, has raced nine times in the Boneville Salt Flats, Utah, the world's most famous and only speeding car race. Here he set a world record three times.
In 1962, his engine reached 850cc, setting a record of 883 cc at 288 km/h.
In 1966, he set a record in the 920 cc class of 270.476 km/h with an engine of 1000 cc.
In 1967, at the age of 68, his engine reached 950 cc, and he set a record of 295.453 km/h below the 1000 cc class. And in the qualifiers, he ran at a speed of 305.89 km / h, setting the fastest speed recorded by an Indian motorcycle. The unofficial speed record reached 331 km / h.
Burt has suffered from angina since the late 1950s, and after his 1977 stroke, his coordination declined, which was frustrating for a racing driver. He died on January 6, 1978, at the age of 78.
In 2006, he was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame.
In 2014, 36 years after his death, after his son John noticed a calculation error in the AMA at the time, he was posthumously awarded the 1967 record of 296.2593 km/h, which stands to this day.
Burt's wonderful story was made into the movie "The World's Fastest Indian Motorcycle", with a Douban score of 8.9, which is an extremely high score.
