Kenan Sofuoğlu, a professional Turkish motorcycle racer, who holds the highest number of Supersport World Championship titles, broke a new land speed motorcycle record on Thursday, by reaching 400 kilometers per hour on the newly constructed Osman Gazi Bridge, prior to its opening ceremony.
According to reports, Sofuoğlu made the crossing by special permission from authorities in early in the morning, when weather conditions were favorable.
''I reached 390 km in my previous attempts, and today I reached 400 km,'' Sofuoğlu told the Anadolu Agency, and continued by saying that he had initially planned to break the land speed record during the official opening of the bridge, but weather conditions were not favorable to do so.
He also thanked President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Minister of Transportation Ahmet Arslan, the engineers working at the bridge's construction and everyone else for giving him the opportunity to break such record.
Sofuoğlu noted that he fulfilled his dream and now wants to claim the fifth World Champion title.
The Osman Gazi Bridge is the biggest part of the Gebze-Orhangazi-İzmir Highway Project and will shorten the distance between Istanbul and İzmir by roughly 140 kilometers, bypassing the Gulf of İzmit.
Constructed under the build-operate-transfer model, the Gebze-Orhangazi-İzmir Highway, including the İzmit Bay Bridge, will include 384 kilometers of highway and 49 kilometers of access roads.
