Top Speed Accounts
Brian Holgates Account of the World Record 84.10mph
So here is the update. I DID IT!!! Got there and the winds were going from 15-30mph sustained with gusts to 50mph. Decided to wait it out for a while. Once the wind steadied out I got the kite out and hooked up the 500kg lines with my freestyle handles with a shortened leash to the 2.7 Vapor that I borrowed from BB. Went over to the buggy to get everything ready and realized I left my harness at home. So you can guess by now that I also left the spreader bar….YIKES! So after I got done crying, , I called Beamer Bob and asked for his since he lives very close to the edge of town. He agreed to let me use it so off I was.
Once I returned to the dry lake the winds were perfect. They were sustained at 35-40 with gusts to 55mph. We quickly hooked up the spreader bar and pulled the kite back out. When Johnny was helping me to launch the kite the wind was blowing it all over the place. The bridles kept getting tangles, it was actually quite stressful. We were finally able to launch the kite from the side of the wind window. The first time we launched it, we did so without being harnessed in. So as soon as the kite went up I was sent dancing across the playa! Johnny had to run over and hold me down in order to hold the kite down and walk back up wind. Now that I knew the kite was in working order(since it was my first time flying this specific kite) I decided it was time to harness in and go. Didn’t want to harness in till I knew the kite was right. I sat in the buggy and we launched the kite with it secured to the spreader bar and off I went. At first I was cutting almost straight up wind. Went out to the middle of the lake and let it go. Turned the buggy down wind and it accelerated quicker than I have felt in a car. The winds were almost straight west so I thought I would be able to go the length of the dry lake. However there was so much power that I was sliding around at a high speed. Tried to tack back up wind with no prevail.
So here I am barreling toward the brush, on the edge of Ivanpah, at a high rate of speed. I decided there was no saving the run and I would have to let the kite go. I turned downwind a little and tried to pull the leash out of the spreader bar but the kite was loaded with so much power that it wasn’t budging. After about 4 tries to free the leash I turned straight downwind and gave it one last pull and out it came. Let the kite go and turned away from the brush that was now only about 100 yards away. I turned away into the small rocks that run the length of the lake right next to the brush. It was like marbles…I slid a little in the rocks and hit the brakes. Must have slid about 500 feet before it finally stopped. At this point I didn’t think I broke the record but I knew it was a personal best for sure. When I got out and looked at the GPS’s they said 84.0, 84.1, and 84.4 mph!!!!! This all happened within 2 miles. I had just left the camp. Johnny rushed over in his truck to check on me and when he got there I was jumping and screaming. I ripped off all 3 gps and brought them over to Johnny Losada and Steve the Land Sailor Guy(Sorry Steve, don’t know your last name). Not sure what I have to do to make this official but doing it again is no problem. I could have gone faster if I would have went all the way to the freeway and started my run from there. Many thanks goes out to Johnny and Steve for being kite monkeys! Thank you Craig Hansen and Gavin Mulvay at Peter Lynn Kites in New Zealand for allowing me to run their buggy. Thanks to Michel Dekker for making this incredible kite. And Most of all thank you Bobby Muse for letting me borrow you 2.7m Vapor, GPS Units, and spreader bar.
The best thing was I had no idea I was going that fast. I love this PL Speed Buggy and can’t wait to go out again!
Brian Holgate! Cheers
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Arjen’s Account
Hi, Arjen here.
Well they call me here also called Fast Arie, no idea how to get there …….
Pfff, I lie awake again from 4 hours the wind roars around the hotel.
Are there drugs for that virus?
There’s definitely a different record, the least sleep in 1 week …….
But even here small update yesterday:
So it was half 5 and Stephan and I were already awake. We need to pop! but how do we deal with it?
Fortunately we have the car keys so we would be away, but hey ….. problems, problems
1 Buggies are locked
2 Perhaps the rest called it
3 small kites, which are still needed in the camper of the Dragon men
One quickly found the solution: Just to wake everyone!
Jeroen first sent an sms: who was already awake.
When Mary, who had the key of the buggy. With a sleepy head she opened the door and asks what we are doing. Well we want to have the key!
“What?? Do you want to kill your self so early?? She says. No, I say only about a quarter since then we are only at drylake.Al quickly they come back we are unstoppable and she decides also come along.
Ruud has not been very happy with the situation but there is a camera man needs so he dressed himself too.
Nobody dares …… now pilots the boss (Michel) to call, but yes we have a mission so I’m still trying. The phone rings, there is included! But the man on the other hand, pretends he does not understand me and I hang up again. Well then, but the pilots we have.
(Later that it was Michel, but he did not feel ……..)
For an hour or 6 we are on the drylake.Het blows well, 5 Stephan does the deal! I warn him that if he does that I kite pull apart that the air can. Do not want to bring to a bodybag Netherlands. (Excessively overweight than)
It can go with a 3.5 combat.Na a few nice runs, he has 112. Jeroen goes opuit with his new wheels and discs Haan Vapor 2.3, but soon he line break. No fun with that wind. He says that I can try. I get the 2.7 vapor and Jeroen are buggy. After a few runs, I’m good at it, and I tapped on the 116. Fortunately faster than Stephan, we can go have breakfast.
On the back of my 116 run again I get a wind box and decides there is still just to sit.
Counter continues to run when I get the kite 130 row behind me, but fortunately also quickly terug.Oei the edge of the drylake will very soon close. Oh, it must also inhibit ofzo.Ik try to brake, but a full house at the edge is loose stuff and go full bucket small transverse dunes. At the last moment I have to throw him right because otherwise I cannot go on the dunes. Dune which is a 50 cm high, and come with all-wheel loose. Fortunately, I quickly stil.Er gpsen are 2 to 1 in 134 and 133. I like the GPS of 133 miles put on shows that he is 133.4 km 82.9 hours.
Now it’s almost 6 hours, is so light again. We gotta go.
Say you guys later.
Greetings Arjen
sourced from https://www.vliegerforum.nl, translated by google
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Dean Jordan Account of Arjen’s 2010 World Record
At 07:20 the 30th day of March,2010 Fast Arie shattered his old record of 77.05 mph with a top speed of 82.9 mph at the North American Buggy eXpo, Ivanpah Dry Lake, California!
Flying a Peter Lynn 2.7 Vapor in very high wind while riding an Xxtreme Apexx buggy with Haan wheels!
As the NABX Team was doing damage control to the main event tent Arjen van der Tol, a Dutch rider made his high speed run across the lake bed. Winds were out of the south southwest and fast Arie made his way right in front of buggy town.
Witness knew it was a record run right away and this was confirmed when we saw Arie jumping up and down.
Exert from
Dean Jordan in the USA
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Ozzy’s Account of the 2009 World Record
It’s taken over two years for him to get out there, and to find other pilots crazy enough to keep up, but read on for Ozzy’s account of how the Dutch contingent smashed the buggy speed record and brought the titlei back to Europe… “The first to present himself was Ruudje (H5) of Xxtreme. I knew that he had been toying with the NABX idea before so it wasn’t very hard to convince him. And the other guy that was frothing with enthusiasm was Arjen van der Tol or Fast(est) Arie. In the meantime some serious negotiations with Ripsession Kites in Canada, represented by a small Chinese guy, were flowing fast to arrange our presence in the USA. When Michel Dekker, one of the designers at Peter Lynn Products in the Netherlands, got notice of our plan to kick ass at the NABX he offered us full cooperation, in helping us out with shipping, kites, materials and other stuff. We knew the new Peter Lynn Reactor II and Vapor were in an advanced design stage and
we got green light to take protos with us. At the last moment before departure, finally the pre-production models of the
Vapor arrived from Asia. Just a few days before we left Michel Dekker had tested the Vapors on the beach to be sure they
were aligned well. Spare pairs of pants “At Xxtreme, all of us apart from Arie packed our Apex buggies. He already had a Libre buggy arranged for him in the USA. Very wise – it meant Arie had space left in his luggage! It wasn’t for long though because Ruud and I still had a load of socks and underwear to stuff somewhere. Alright, here we go! On 28th March we left for Las Vegas. No problems at the customs, although the custom agents did look somewhat suspicious at our huge bags. “That’s grandma and grandpa” I told them with a wink, because it really looked as if I was carrying a couple of bodies in my bags.
Next day, 29th March, after picking up our gear in Las Vegas, we drove to Lake Ivanpah to get an impression of the area where we were going to go extreme in over the next couple of days. Man, you won’t believe the force of the wind out there. I was really surprised to see a couple of Arcs and some handkerchiefs hanging in the air. Nobody on wheels, which according to the locals was because it was somewhat too windy. Hmm, too windy? Don’t think so – let’s rock! It is very hard to describe clearly what happened from that moment on. All the time I was walking with my head in the clouds. One
day in the morning there was no wind at all while the afternoon it blew our socks off, and the other day it was the other way around; a bit of everything. It became clear that we had picked the right time to come to Las Vegas, for the wind hadn’t blown this hard in the past four years.
Vapor trials
At a certain point I was ready to go out with the Peter Lynn Vapor 3.8. Everybody was flying smaller sizes but I was very
curious about this new ‘toy’. As expected it went like a bullet train: with the hard surface of Lake Ivanpah, a top buggy (Xxtreme Apex) and a kite like a Vapor, I soon hit speeds nearing 60mph. But on that first day, I couldn’t crack the 60mph
mark since I had fitted big foot lights to the buggy. Arie on the other hand at one point came in, “Look, 68mph”. Man, with his quiver of Spirits and Libre buggy, he was fast.
Then came the special day. Friday 3rd April. It was a grey morning, the wind was blowing full power and at 5:30am. Arie sat straight up in his bed, watching the American flag that stood there in the wind like a piece of hard board. “Potters… pssst… Jeroen, are you awake? Look at that flag, dude!” I thought that I was losing the plot what with wanting to be out there all the time, but Arie is on another planet. “Ruud…pssst, let’s go!” Our Chinese Canadian friend, whom we had deprived of much sleep over the last few days thanks to our adrenalin addiction, crawled out of bed complaining “Man, you guys killing me: buggy, buggy, buggy, every day more buggy… I’m so tired now”. But he and Maria (Kitemama), who were taking care of us wonderfully, arranged a great breakfast before we left to ‘the Playa’. Man, you won’t believe the force of the wind at that spot. The locals said we’d be crazy to go out and ride in this wind. “Me first!” I said to Arie before heading out with a proto Peter Lynn Reactor II 2.2.
Dedication, ooh that’s what you need…
The day before, I set my personal record of 70mph with the Peter Lynn Vapor 3.8, so I wanted to give it all I had to
break the world record of 72.8mph! I was launched and saw around 68mph appear on the GPS as I dove into a wall
of dust, sand and small stones that were flying horizontally in the air. And then I made the mistake of starting to think,
which is not the best strategy in these circumstances. I returned and gave the Reactor II to Arie who took his turn
to go for the world record. He dashed away and after a short run he came back with a speed of 72.1pmh on his GPS. And that with a Peter Lynn Reactor II! Earlier that week Arie had equaled the record with the Spirit 3.3m. Arie thought that the Reactor’s bridle was set too tight, so we adjusted it a little bit, but in the meantime the wind was loosing force so finally Arie decided to take the Spirit 3.3m and took off. After a while we got rather nervous because he drove away into the distance and we couldn’t see him anymore. Imagine that something went wrong while he was way out there … I didn’t want to think about it, and was happy to finally see him return…75.2mph! He did it, a massive new world record! But Arie
wasn’t ready yet: “I’m off” he said and after a couple of runs, while we doubted
if he would manage to stay in the buggy, he came back with the biggest possible grin on his face. Unbelievable, he had been able to push the limits up to a crazy 77.05pmh. The world record for buggy racing was pulverized and now belongs to a Dutchman: Arie, our hero! During our NABX trip we’ve been able to test the Peter Lynn Vapor and Reactor II extendedly. Where in Europe is it possible to test a proto with speeds exceeding 70mph? The Vapor proved to be a super stable kite that points very high into the wind while remaining controllable. As for the so called ‘intermediate’ Reactor II, well on this remarkable Friday it certainly was not intermediate. It saw 72.08mph and remained very stable even under these extreme circumstances. Together with the Xxtreme Apexx buggy it formed a formidable alliance.
A big thanks to everybody that
supported us to make our buggy race
dream come true! This was the story of
my life (so far): NABX 2009. Good winds
all, Jeroen Potters a.k.a. ‘Ozzy’.
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Special K Fastest Female Buggier
The fastest lady on a buggy at the moment is Karen Cutbush with a beach sand speed of 77.57kmh / 48.20mph. She was delighted to hear that she held the record adding, “By the end of the day I had covered close to 50 miles, but more importantly I reached a new personal best speed of 48.2mph….I am told that I am now the fastest recorded female pilot in a kite buggy in the world – Wow!”
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Luk’s Story 117.16kmh
Involved in the sport of Traction kiting for over 8 years and competing on international level since 1999 in the areas of kitebuggy, kiteskiing & kitesurfing for last 3 years and now promoting the realms of kitemountainboarding and kitesnowboarding.
Recent Achievements
kitebuggying:
kitebuggy world speed record – 72.8 mph with Libre Full Race and RM 3.0 kite
1999′ Buggy Camp-Open Class in Romo Denmark – 3rd (highest any North American has Ranked)
1999-2000 -2001′ North American Kitebuggy Nationals – in top 3
2000′ Challenge 2000 Parakart World Cup – 7th (highest ranked North American)
2002 – 1st place at SBBB Team Enduro race
kiteskiing
2001′ World Snow and Ice Sailing Championships / Kite Class – 1st WORLD CHAMPION
2002′ World Snow and Ice Sailing Championships (Italy) / Kite Class – 5th
Yeah, it was gusty, dust devils everywhere and everyone was hyped becuase the speeds just kept creeping up into the high 60s. We were taking turns trying to hit the top speed and it looked like no one could touch Eli Andersons 68mph from earlier that day.
i decided to put on the 4th set of 4 ply tires for one last go. i chased every dust devil i could find for about half an hour. tires were getting thin so i decided to head back to camp. on my way i saw another massive dust devil comming. i went for it and just kept my head on the gps readout. watching the numbers climb. i don’t think i truely appreciated the speed and feeling of things until i set the new mark and stopped focussing on the gps.
tell you the truth, driving back in the van from the drylake at 73mph with our heads out the windows felt way worse then sitting in the buggy 2 inches off the ground.
i was using a 3m jojo rm and a libre full race XS with about 5lbs on the front wheel and maybe 25-30lbs onthe rear axle (hard to tell the weight on the rear axle as i used a pvc tube filled with sand/dirt to what felt like a good weight for the conditions). I’m hoping to make it down next year and see how things go with the new gear if the conditions cooperate.
The dry lakes are still my most favorite place to ride for speed and racing. they really test the pilots abilities on such a fast surface at high speeds on a circuit race with lots of other racers. my most favorite race would still have to be the challenge 2000 series on ivanpah dry lake. with over 25 european kite buggiers (mainly form holland, germany and denmark) participated. we had a 2.5 km triangle course. in the first race, verner myer from germany was hitting 60km/hr in the race. you can imagine the adrenaline rush of passing, sliding around the mark with several other racers only feet away.
what can i say, i like the speed and the high of a good technical race.
cheers,
luk
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Eli’s Story 110kmh
I am from the USA. We practice speed all the time. any chance the wind pushes up to 40mph we start hunting for speed.
That morning at SOBB ’03 the winds were rockin. NO one out on the lake kiting. Luk, John and a couple other buds and I were sitting in “mable” luks famous old van. As the van was rockin we sat talking about the opportunity we had to do something special. I chose to ride first. I threw up my fastest 3m in a small full race buggy. Luk and I had just assembled our buggies under the watchful eye of ellis. Not letting us take any short cuts. We squared our wheels straightened our axles and trailered our buggies. Sitting in my buggy, looking at Luk, My eyes had to be showing behing my eye protecion. He let my kite fly to the edge of the window. I sat with one fooot on and one foot off the buggy. When I picked up my foot. wedged it in tight to the foot straps and leaned as far forward as I could. I noticed right away I was cruising at 55mph. I started creating a little tension worked the kite until it locked in. I saw 60….63….65….I stopped looking at the GPS so that I could look at the cars I was passing as they’re traveling down the freeway along side the lake bed, I wonder what the driver of the semi truck is thinking. I redirected, stalled the kite lined up for my run back to camp. The gusts were intense. Yanking my cart sideways as I strain to hold my line I could smell buring rubber. I held on until I could see camp again. Redirecting until my kite was to my right, I pulled in for another run. I wiped the dust off my gps, looked at my max. i saw aprox 66 mph, I smiled huge, locked in and worked and worked the kite. I saw 50….55…60….again I unhook from my harnes and pull away from the kite. My vision started to blur……vibrations from the ground…..kite singing …….I turned the buggy and headed for camp. I felt my buggy loosing traction by the second the smell of rubber more intense. I pulled in. LUk grabbed the GPS, cleaned it off, pointed it to me, then he took off. showing everyone standing near. My attention was on my buggy, the tires were totally bald. I deflated them just a touch and noticed the tube poping through! I rode for about 30 min and scrubbed a fresh set of tires. I helped Luk rig. Poof. out of site in seconds. I repaired my buggy, but before I could go out for another run The wind dropped. Luk and I sat and chated about the morning as we slowly rigged our gear for the races.
A national geographic moment!!
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RedSkyHorizon 106.21 kmh
What can I say, I’m knackered. After a very quick session at Camber on Tuesday then having to work until 4:30am this morning I’m totally destroyed, but it was so worth it.
We recorded the wind speed being 54.9mph gusting to 69.1mph cross onshore. It was super gusty. Just standing up was a mission in itself.
The beach was narrow with deep channels cutting the drag-strip in half and the horizontal rain cut your face should you turn yourself into the wind. Never seen anything like that at Camber before.
It was pretty scary. The 7m Cabrinha Crossbow I used was overpowered by 10-15mph which made it difficult to control. I did a test run to map out and check the condition of the beach as I didn’t want to be running into a deep gully at 40+mph. So I kept the kite at the zenith with almost full depower and travelled down the beach at somewhere like 30mph!
All is good. I intended to make the first run a test run. No balls out, just take it nice and easy. My goggles are steamed up and the driving rain made it difficult to see properly but I continue. I slowly lowered the kite and I start to roll. I start to build some speed but it feels slow and sluggish. The sand is wet, soft and sticky from the rain and I guess it doesn’t help that I’m using huge Kenda Beach Racer tyres on a cambered axle.
I pass James aka XxRisingsunxX who’s standing there freezing and wet through with the GoPro. Only when I pass him do I start to accelerate.
I’m being pulled sideways down the beach, the bug isn’t gripping but it suits me, I’d rather go slow on my first run. I run out of beach quickly, come to a stop before a deep gully and grab the GPS which is held between my legs. I wipe the sand from the screen and to my surprise I got 54.2mph, beating my previous PB by almost 2mph! 54.2mph by going sideways down the beach!!
I try again. This time I try using less power. This feels even slower, but at least the bug isn’t sliding now. The gusts are mental, I’ve never felt anything that fierce. The kite it bending out of shape, diving towards the ground and flapping around before snapping back into shape. It won’t settle down and I’m fighting with it all the way.
I should be on a 5m. I quickly glance down every now and then at the quick release to remind myself where it is. I look in the wrong place and tell myself off. Towards the end of the run I turn the bug downwind for about 20ft to squeeze as much mph out of the run as possible. To use up any more than 20ft will have me in the groyne’s. Jesus! I beat it again!! 56.4mph. This is great news. I punch the air as I make my way upwind passing James, indicating to him that I’ve beaten my record again.
OK, third run, this time I’m really going for it.
I go beyond the kitezone. Naughty, but there’s nobody around so I thought what the hell. I need as much beach as I can get.
I start the run. It feels like I’m getting to my top speed within the first 40-50ft. Still feeling sluggish on the way down the beach. I concentrate hard to keep the bar balanced. Not too much power and not too little and try my best to react to the gusts when they come.
What the hell! 66mph dead. I let out an hysterical giggle. Then like that wasn’t enough I start to wonder what if. What if the beach was wider. What if I had a 5m Crossbow and what if I were using the discs. Then I remind myself that 66mph is more than enough and I should be grateful I survived. I’m so pleased.
BIG THANKS to James for standing there filming and getting soaked to the bone in near gale force winds. BIG THANKS dude
Video footage and GPS picture to follow.
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Andrew Beattie’s Amazing Story 1998, 103km/h with a PL folder and 2 line kite
At BBT3, I met up with my friend, Dave Culp, where we did some
work on the performance of kite buggies. Dave had done considerable
preparation to permit proper investigation. He rigged a pole to the
back of his truck, so that he could pull me along the lake on the
buggy, with the kite line at the proper angle, with a spring (well,
bungee…) balance to measure side-force, and a protractor so that
we could measure the drag angle. The surface where we tested was
hard clay, with a loose surface of grit which made it somewhat
slippery. Dave has the full figures, so I hope that he will
summarise them here, but the basic things learned were:
– at slower speeds, the drag angle was only 5 degrees, increasing
as towing speed increased
– Regardless of speed, I put 80lb of force on the line
– Removing the bungee spring measure did not increase my efficiency
as expected, rather it increased the drag angle by 5 degrees
– I put 10 degrees of tilt on the truck. Dave was concerned that I
might actually be able to tip the truck with a shock load at high
speed.
ElNino had arranged for the lake bed it’sself to be flooded at the
beginning of the week. The truck was kitted out with air-speed and
direction indicators, but whilst the lake bed dried out during the
week, it was too soft or the wind too light for him to chase me on
the lake bed to examine my apparent and real wind.
As soon as Dave left, we had a day of strong wind on a hard
lake-bed. It took 4 attempts to get a decent speed run.
Matt Hurrell and Steve Webb assisted me launching a 7.7m chevron in
25-27mph of wind, and John Gabby tracked my course, matching my
speed. I accellerated from 0 to 30 smoothly, then in John’s words,
I simply “changed gear” and by the time he had caught up with me,
I was doing 62, and then moved up to 64 mph. Having stabalised at
this speed, and without having the space to work the kite harder, I
ditched the kite in order to stop safely before the high-voltage
power lines at the bottom of the lake.
The official buggy speed record is 51 mph, and there is no doubt
that I waltzed straight past it, but the method of speed recording
was not sufficiently reliable to claim a new record. The reason
for the run was not to break records, but rather to investigate
what performance might be possible.
It was noteable that I did the run with a large kite, despite the
common belief that you need a small kite to go fast. In my
discussions with Dave during the week, we had come to the
conclusion that a larger kite would be useful, and it would appear
that we may be right.
Also of note is the course that I took. It was straightforward
to go back to the lake-bed, 5 hours after the run and to identify
my tracks, despite the fact that the lake had been in use all day
by buggiers. All the other tracks were within 45 degrees either
side of a beam reach (unless cornering). Mine were a long, very
gentle curve that was within 10 degrees of straight down-wind for
the fastest part of the course. I had been doing 2.5 times
windspeed on a course almost straight downwind.
At maximum speed, my apparent windspeed would have been 37-39mph,
however, the pressure that I was putting on the line was
considerably less than I would expect when holding the kite at the
edge of the wind at that speed. I strongly suspect that my angle
to the apparent wind direction was considerably less than the
combined drag angle of the kite and buggy.
At speed, the ride was incredibly smooth. The line tension was
easily manageable, the steering was secure, I felt much safer at
speed than I did at the launch…
I’ve always said that I don’t want to claim a speed record for
a speed that isn’t worth having. Last week I didn’t know what
target to aim for:
– 55mph (the USA speed limit)
– 60mph (a mile-a-minute)
– 100kph (about 61mph)
All of those are blown out of the water.
My next target is Mach 0.1 Maybe I can do it at Black Rock, where
the British broke Mach 1.0 on land last year…
Many thanks to:
My crew on the day (Matt Hurrell, Steve Webb, John Gabby),
Dave Culp (sorry you had to leave that one day early), to my
mentor, Peter Lynn, and to Corey for organising the venue.
O yeah, and I had a lot of *fun* too, but this is an R&D report…
Andrew
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