Cleared for Flight to a Land Speed Record.

Thursday, January 24, 1907. Ormond Beach, Fla. Glenn H. Curtiss, age 29, sits astride the test bench for his new V-8, 269-cubic-inch aircraft engine—a beefed-up bicycle frame with stretched handlebars. Helpers push-start the motorcycle toward the four-mile stretch of sand where Curtiss will make history or die trying. While he’ll be best remembered for his contributions to aviation, on this day Curtiss is shooting for the land speed record. 

Because the bike is shaft-driven, with no clutch and but one tall gear, it is an all-or-nothing proposition. Curtiss keeps twisting the throttle and lets the speed build, while the screaming unmuffled pipes scatter the seagulls for miles in all directions. “It must have sounded like the wrath of God!” comments Trafford Doherty, director of the Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport, New York.

When all was said and done, Curtiss was clocked at 136.3 mph in the timed section of the course, a feat of mechanical design and personal courage that earned him the title of “The Fastest Man in the World.”

Although the record was considered unofficial (a mechanical problem prevented the machine from running the course again under official observation), it is one that would not be bested by an automobile for 11 years...or by another motorcycle until 1930.