Bonneville, Utah – September 11, 2009 – British racing journalist Alan Cathcart has set four officially-recognized FIM World Land Speed Records at the 2009 BUB Bonneville Speed Trials held on the Utah Salt Flats in the United States from August 30th-September 3rd. The four speed records were set at Bonneville on Triumph Bonneville machines fitted with PIRELLI racing tyres, one naturally-aspirated and the other turbo charged, in a year celebrating the iconic model’s 50th anniversary. Riding a street-legal Thruxton Bonneville prepared by Matt Capri, owner of South Bay Triumph in Lomita, CA a leading North American tuning house for the British motorcycles Cathcart broke the 150 mph barrier to set a new two-way FIM World Record for the flying mile at 152.678 mph (245.711 kmh), and another for the flying kilometre at 152.770 mph (245.859 kmh). These speeds set new marks for the FIM’s 1000cc Normally-Aspirated Twin-Cylinder Unstreamlined category. In addition to this, aboard the turbocharged South Bay Triumph Bonneville also built by Capri, Cathcart established two more new FIM World Records for the 1000cc Forced Induction Twin-Cylinder Unstreamlined class, with a two-way speed for the flying mile of 165.405 mph (266.194 kph), and for the flying kilometre of 165.672 mph (266.623 kph). The mile speed qualifies as a new AMA record, too, with all records subject to ratification by the relevant authorities. The South Bay Triumphs were shod with PIRELLI rain tyres supplied by the Italian tyre manufacturer’s racing division. “The PIRELLI [Diablo] tyres gave us great traction, especially in the first two days, which many teams sat out due to slippery conditions after rain the week before,” said Cathcart. “This allowed us to get in several setup runs which put us ahead of the Buell, Ducati, Norton, Honda and Harley bikes we were up against, and after the salt dried out in the Speed Week sunshine, we had great grip and good stability from the Pirellis, even with the violent pickup of the Turbo through the gears when it comes on full boost. The PIRELLI tyres were a key contributor to our record-breaking speeds.” In the Production 1000cc class, the MV Agusta / Fine Art Models F4 1000R was piloted by land-speed expert Rosey Lackey whose best run was a speed of 193.06 mph (310.7 kph), but with his return run averaged just 0.1 mph short of the World Record set last year by Texan Leslie Porterfield on a CBR1000RR, an amazing feat for veteran rider of 72-years old. Pirelli Diablo ROSSO tyres in a 120/70ZR17 and 190/50ZR17 were fitted to this high-speed production bike, Pirelli’s supersport tyres featuring Enhanced Contact Patch, a technology giving the team additional contact area for grip as they approach maximum speeds. The efforts of previous world record holder MV Agusta in this stock-production land-speed effort has attracted much attention from the competition as there were three times as many bikes in our class this year than ever before. For more information, please visit our homepage on the web: www.pirellimoto.com. In addition, MV Agusta has created a blog to recall their experience of the event: www.mvagusta.it/bonneville.