Both were riders, Josh had some LSR Mile experience, Marcus was just a street rider friend of my son. The others had ridden on the salt before. This was not the bikes first outing, it set its first record in 03 PP class. It set multiple PS class records, we learned a lot over the 5 years it took to reach our goal of being the first NA gas 1000 to set a record over 200 and put my oldest in the 200 MPH club, setting the APS-G record at 208.959, the last year before they allowed the longer streamlined tails...
My other son wanted to run in open class without a fairing, he is a pretty big boy, managed to set the record in 2009, then raised his record in 10 before the others in the group got on. Josh and Marcus took turns doing license passes, until Josh qualified on his 175 to 200 pass, he was the next largest person in the group. After Josh set the record the next morning, Marcus qualified against his record on his 175 to 200 license pass. The next morning headwinds got him and he fell a couple of hundredths short. Then Todd Dross (Narider) took his turn (Todd had ridden the bike faired to 200 a couple of years before) he also qualified, but same result, morning headwinds kept him short of the number. Finally Deb Dross took her turn, she was the smallest of the group, and qualified in the same headwind that killed Todd's record pass (8 MPH). That was the last day of racing and the back up runs were about 4 hours later... she fell short by less than a hundredth, in a 14-15 MPH headwind. Smaller riders stop less air...
The take away here is have some patience, have some fun, enjoy the experience. If you just want to set a record, find an open class and run in it... there are lots of them. If you have a goal to go 200, pick a class with a record under that number and put in the work to get it there, it will not be easy, but the end result it quire rewarding.
Lots of folks run Hayabusas, it is easy to go fast, but pretty hard to set a record, check the books for the class.