Crane set for lift off

Owner, rider and builder of Europe’s quickest Funny Bike, Stuart Crane has been busy dealing with a lot of work going through his Warpspeed Racing base for his customers (including other FIM-E teams) as well as working on upgrades to his own setup.

For the 2023 FIM-E Top Fuel Bike season, Warpspeed will be represented by Mark Smith and Crane himself. “Mark is hoping for 6.6’s this season. He has updated the motor with some current updates including a brand new crankshaft. I’ve done some major upgrades to my own bike including a new crankshaft and will be testing some new con rod designs as well as trying out a different clutch set up.”

We asked Stuart if he had any particular targets in mind “I’m hoping that towards the end of the season to try and improve on my European Funny Bike best [currently 6.331 seconds] by a tenth or maybe more…” Flying Funny Bikes looked to be a dying breed a decade or so ago on both sides of the Atlantic, but the likes of Crane and others are very much taking over from the benchmark set by current FIM-E Top Fuel champion Rikard Gustafsson when he jumped onto his five second nitro fuelled ride in 2016, and they pushing further at the turbo/methanol performance envelope.

Text and photos: Ivan Sansom & Rose Hughes