The world’s fastest Porsche . . . on sand?
Zef Eisenberg holds several land speed records, but now he wants to go faster than anyone else on sand in a Porsche 911, writes Damien O’Carroll.
Zef Eisenberg has a dream. It’s probably not a dream that many other people share, but it is a goal he is striving for nonetheless; he wants to set a land speed record in a road legal car. On sand.
Not only that, he also wants to become the first person to achieve a British land speed record on a bike and in a car within a year and his goal is to go beyond 200mph (322kmh) in his thoroughly mad 895kW purpose-built, yet road legal, Porsche 911 Turbo S.
In May, 2018, Eisenberg became the first person to exceed 200mph on sand with a wheeldriven vehicle at Pendine Sands in South Wales when he reached 201.572mph (324.399kmh) on his supercharged Suzuki Hayabusa.
This happened just 20 months after he survived what he says is ‘‘Britain’s fastest-ever motorcycle crash’’ when, after coming off at 370kmh during another record attempt, Eisenberg spent three months in hospital, followed by three months in a wheelchair, but defied the odds to race again less than a year later.
Since the crash, Eisenberg has set numerous records – including an ACU sanctioned flying quarter-mile, flying kilometre and flying mile – on his heavily modified road legal supercharged Suzuki Hayabusa, but says this ‘‘twin’’ record attempt is something very different.
‘‘I’m well known for setting records on bikes,’’ said Eisenberg, ‘‘so people started asking me why not cars?’’
After researching what would be needed to top 200mph on sand, Eisenberg settled on a 2015 Porsche 911 Turbo S.
But there was just one problem: although the 911 is very fast, it would ‘‘only’’ do 175mph (282kmh) in a mile on tarmac.
To achieve 200mph on tarmac within a mile, the car would need 560kW at the wheels, but because sand creates a lot of resistance and tyre slip Eisenberg worked out that he would need at least 745kW at the rear wheels, which equated to 895kW at the engine, compared to just 410kW from the factory.
To achieve this, Eisenberg’s Madmax race team built a bespoke 4.2-litre Porsche motorsport engine with stronger internals, upgraded turbos, a new E85 fuel system and an advanced cooling setup among other modifications.
A lot of work was done to ensure that the monstrous power would come in as smoothly as possible in order to limit wheelspin on the loose surface and to cope with such an extreme output, the gearbox and clutch needed to be extensively upgraded, while the brakes and suspension were also modified.
Apart from a full FIA roll cage, competition seats and safety harness, the Porsche’s interior is completely standard.
‘‘Weight is actually your friend on sand,’’ he said.
‘‘It’s about stability – putting enough weight on the tyres to increase traction.
‘‘Even though we have accidentally made the car 140kg lighter than standard, we had no need to strip weight out. The car is actually road legal, so we will drive it from the hotel onto the beach and to the restaurant after, hopefully to celebrate.’’
Pendine Sands is considered the holy grail of land speed record attempts and the beach has hosted record-breaking attempts since the early 1900s.
When the weather is good the beach delivers a firm, flat sand surface creating the longest straight line race track in the United Kingdom and magazine once 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 in 1924, when he set the land speed record there in his 1715kW Bluebird Railton, with an average flying mile of 174.224mph (280.386kmh).
Eisenberg’s attempt on the dual record will take place on the weekend of April 6-7.