Flat Out: The Race for the Motorcycle Land Speed Record

Some records are made to be broken. Others stand for a lifetime. And sometimes the achievement of a lifetime is surpassed in days.

In the world of motorsports, the one record that has proven the toughest to break is the motorcycle land speed record. Don Vesco rode a streamlined motorcycle to a record-breaking speed of 318 miles per hour at the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1974. It was sixteen years before Dave Campos flew past that record at a speed of 322 miles per hour. And that record had stood for another sixteen years when, on Labor Day Weekend, 2006, a motorcycle daredevil and aspiring writer named Rocky Robinson rode a Suzuki-powered streamliner at an incredible 344 mph.

How he got there--and how he faced his greatest challenge at his moment of triumph--is the story Robinson tells in Flat Out. Here is Robinson's epic decade-long quest to be the fastest motorcycle rider on earth, recounted in all its gritty detail--a compulsively readable account that captures the hard work, sacrifice, and dedication that go into being the world's best, as well as the sheer terror of riding these two-wheeled rockets nearly six miles per minute.