Porsche 911 Turbo Sets New Land Speed Record On Pendine Beach

Zef Eisenberg has powered into the history books with a new 'sand' speed record, courtesy of his MADMAX 1200hp Porsche 911 Turbo – successfully reaching 210.332mph upon the famous Pendine Beach in Wales on Saturday, May 18.

This is the fastest recorded speed ever achieved by a wheel-powered vehicle on sand, eclipsing actor Idris Elba's 'flying mile' speed record (180.361mph) set at Pendine in 2015, and emulating Eisenberg’s hero – Sir Malcolm Campbell.

Campbell first set the record at Pendine Sands in 1927 (174.8mph) in his iconic Blue Bird; a feat that went unrivalled for nearly 90 years.

Better known for his motorbike exploits, Eisenberg had his road-legal Porsche specially prepared by ES Motors and his MADMAX Race Team for the ‘sand’ speed attempt, which smashed three other records.

View in gallery

Besides taking the ‘sand speed record’, the Porsche 911 also cracked the fastest flying quarter (one way), the fastest flying mile one-way, and the fastest flying mile two-way record. The latter was clocked at 187.962mph, the very same measurement as Sir Malcolm Campbell.

Further to these accomplishments, Eisenberg is now the only person in history to have achieved over 200mph with both bike and car at Pendine Sands, the United Kingdom’s hallowed speed-record strip.

View in gallery

A jubilant Eisenberg said: “A huge thank you to ES Motors and my own MADMAX Race Team for working tirelessly on the extensive Porsche preparation, engine build and tune, to ensure we had the engineering and power to achieve this very challenging record.”

“An additional thanks to the event organisers; Straightliners and Speed Record Club for finding and setting a 2-mile course with difficult sand conditions.”

View in gallery

Zef's Porsche started out as a factory standard, 550 horsepower 2014 model year 911. The MADMAX Race Team then crafted a bespoke 4.1-liter race engine with new internals, gearbox, clutch and drive shafts, along with an upgraded E85 fuel system and sophisticated charge cooling set-up to prevent engine detonation.

Endless testing was undertaken to ensure that the new 1200hp unit could cope with the tricky surface, and limit wheelspin on the sand. To handle such an extreme output, the PDK transmission had to be upgraded, and the suspension lifted to allow adequate ground clearance for the beach.

View in gallery

“Apart from a full FIA roll cage, competition seats and safety harness, the Porsche’s interior is completely standard, as weight is actually your friend on the sand. It’s about stability – putting enough weight on the tyres to increase traction,” Eisenberg explained.
 
“The Porsche behaves very differently on sand than tarmac. The sand creates a lot of resistance and tire slip. In the end we could only use 850hp (1000hp at the engine) to avoid too much wheel spin, compared to just 550hp (engine) from a factory car.”
 
“Pendine has such an illustrious history,” Eisenberg continued. “Racers have been flocking here since the 1900s trying to set speed records. The world land speed record heroes of yesteryear like Malcolm Campbell and J.G. Parry-Thomas in the air have all raced here. It really is the holy grail of land speed”.

Last month Eisenberg also established a Flying Mile record at Pendine, racing his MADMAX 400bhp supercharged Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycle. The records come less than two years since surviving Britain’s fastest-ever (230mph) motorcycle crash. A true successor to the gentleman racers of yesteryear, Eisenberg will be attempting more speed records soon…