International ACU MADMAX Team Rider Zef Eisenberg returns to Pendine Sands, Carmarthenshire, this weekend (22-23 September 2018) to contest his World Sand Record title.

On 13 May 2018 Eisenberg raced into the record books, when he secured the outright sand record at Pendine Sands, hitting 201.572mph (324.3 km/h) at the Straightliners Top Speed event. At the time no one in history, car or bike had ever exceeded 200mph at Pendine.

This weekend Eisenberg will be racing his famous 350bhp super-charged Suzuki Hayabusa dubbed ‘The Green Monster’ and will be supported by the MADMAX engineering team, who have precision designed and engineered the bike to command high speeds on sand.

Eisenberg said “Its notoriously difficult to race on sand, and the bike behaves so differently than on tarmac. At higher speeds you risk bike losing grip or the front wheel digging into the sand which throws riders. You also can’t prepare for what the surface is like until the tide goes out. . . you often dodge giant washed-up jellyfish or being an MOD beach - bullet shells! There’s also a short time frame to do the runs before the tide rolls back in, or the thick sea mist - it certainly is real challenge, but makes record breaking all the more glorious”.

With several top riders vying to beat Zef's record, competition is fierce. In preparation for this weekend his Hayabusa now boasts a more powerful engine and he feels more prepared than ever to defend his Sand Racing title. Last weekend he successfully set 4 news records at Elvington including the flying start quarter mile, flying start kilometer and flying start mile, plus he broke a UKTA British record and set a new personal best top speed of 229.8mph.

Eisenberg continued “Pendine Sands has such an illustrious history of land speed racing, it’s always a privilege to race in the footsteps of land speed legends in the hope of securing records”.

Pendine is considered the holy grail of land speed, where the best racers in the world have tried to set records. The beach has hosted record-breaking attempts since 1900s. The firm, flat surface of the beach created a race track that was straighter and smoother than many major roads of the time. Motor Cycle magazine described the sands as "the finest natural speedway imaginable".

The first person to use Pendine Sands for a world land speed record attempt was Malcolm Campbell. On 25 September 1924 he set a world land speed record of 146.16 mph (235.22 km/h) on Pendine Sands in his Sunbeam 350HP car ‘Blue Bird’.

Each year throngs of racers and spectators continue to swarm to the beach in the hope of record breaking, and the speeds have been creeping up each year.

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As IAM RoadSmart, the UK’s biggest independent road safety charity, relaunches its commercial website, the charity has highlighted the lack of driving-for-work prosecutions under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act (CMCHA) - nobody has ever been sent to jail, or even prosecuted, for contributing to an avoidable death under the legislation.

This fact was included in a new whitepaper commissioned by IAM RoadSmart’s commercial division called ‘The Corporate Manslaughter Act, Ten Years On.’

This is the first of several whitepapers commissioned by IAM RoadSmart, and is aimed at the business driver community that will be featured on the new site at ww.iamroadsmart.com/business

Tony Greenidge, IAM RoadSmart business development director, commented: “Many in the transport and driver risk management arena welcomed the Corporate Manslaughter Act legislation when it was introduced, believing it would make it easier to hold organisations more closely to account for the wellbeing and safety of those engaged in driving for work, with safety benefits for other road-users. A few years ago the fleet industry was buzzing with experts warning companies that if they didn’t implement proper, robust workplace driving policies to safeguard the public and the workforce, they would all be going to jail. It was going to be transformational for road safety. Yet no company car driver or senior manager involved in an avoidable death has been anywhere near a prosecution. It seems the legislation has proved difficult to apply.”

The whitepaper also summarises some of the early convictions under the act – none of which relate to driving-at-work.

The IAM RoadSmart analysis concludes that, despite estimates that “more than a quarter” of “all road incidents” involve someone driving, riding or using the road for work, making it the UK’s most dangerous work-related activity, “The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which should be taking a lead with CMCHA, is not fully engaged with it. We want to see the driving seat seen much more firmly as a place of work, with all that would entail under health and safety legislation.”

Professor Steve Tombs of the Open University said in the whitepaper that corporate manslaughter is “too far down the pecking order” and has no dedicated team at the HSE.
“It has not done what it was designed to do; bring to account large companies. Where the law falls down is in its ability to identify fault in one central headquarters location or with the senior executive. You can always pin it down to the individual man or woman driving. But showing ‘he or she was failing to operate in a way that was required by the company’ is much harder.”

Neil Greig, director of policy and research of IAM RoadSmart added: “If a company director forced someone to drive too many hours in the day, or employed someone who had been banned (from driving) and there was a crash resulting in a fatality, a prosecution would help send a message to businesses that a lot more care needs to be taken in this area.”

To download IAM RoadSmart’s whitepaper ‘The Corporate Manslaughter Act, Ten Years On’ click here

Ride To Save Lives - Lincs & Notts Air Ambulance  
Dubs of Anarchy Yr3
Cheshire Candles Charity Classic Car and Bike Show
6th Annual Haggs Horizons Unlimited Adventure Meet
Yer Tiz Rally
HISS - Aragon off-road event
Churchill Arms Autumn Bike Jumble
Leighton Hall Motorcycle Hill Climb
Wombwell Custom and Classic Motorcycle Event
All Day Bike Day @ Ace Cafe

See more details and events on THE BIKER GUIDE