In 2016, racing superstar Kenan Sofuoglu, who boasts the world record for most Supersport World Championship wins, set out to put the machine through its paces. True to form, he coaxed every last drop of speed from it in a record-breaking run across the Gulf of Izmit bridge.
Sofuoglu said, WorldSBK reports, that “four long months of training” went into the attempt and that the parameters for the H2R were clear: “Kawasaki said its maximum speed was 380 km/h (236 mph) and that their dream was to reach 400km/h (249 mph).” For a racer of his caliber, then, only 400 km/h would do. He achieved this pace in an early-morning run, a remarkable and rare speed that pushed the land record for a motorcycle in production.
“The top speed we get to in the world championship races is about 300 km/h (186 mph), so 400 km/h is a really high speed,” Sofuoglu said. At 2018’s Bonneville Speed Week, Team 38 achieved an average speed of 337.064 km/h (209 mph) to secure the sub-1,000 cc speed record in a Kawasaki H2, and the fact that the H2R model topped even this demonstrates exactly what it’s capable of. Even so, there’s much more to its specs than just an envelope-pushing top speed.
