Kim Krebs holds the fastest ratified speed ever recorded by a woman on a sit-on motorcycle — and she spends her day job managing community engagement for the South Australian Environment Department. The salt flats apparently don’t care about your nine-to-five.

EARLY YEARS

Born 11 July 1969, Kim Krebs grew up in Yackandandah, a small former gold-mining town in north-east Victoria near the Albury–Wodonga region [14]. She has been riding motorcycles since the age of four [14] — an early start that speaks less to formal motorsport infrastructure and more to the kind of rural upbringing where powered two-wheelers are simply part of the landscape. Her extended family included at least one motorcycling uncle whose Harley-Davidson she recalls with enough specificity to cite its approximate fuel range, suggesting that bikes registered as objects of genuine fascination rather than mere transport [27].

Her academic path led her to a Master of Science in geomorphology — the study of landforms and the processes that shape them [56]. It is a field that demands rigorous quantitative thinking, extensive fieldwork, and a close reading of sediments, erosion patterns, and dry lake surfaces. That last detail is not incidental: the same geology she studied scientifically would eventually become the surface on which she chased world records. After completing her studies, she moved from regional Victoria to Stirling in the Adelaide Hills, where she has since worked as Manager for community engagement programs for the South Australian Environment Department [56][29].

The pivot toward competitive land speed racing appears to have been triggered by a university race meeting at Winton Motor Raceway in north-east Victoria, where she entered on her road bike and began seriously asking herself how fast she could go while still managing braking distances and her own fear [27]. That question, once posed, evidently didn’t go away. By 2006 — when ABC News described her as “a 36-year-old woman from Yackandandah” — she was already preparing for a land speed record attempt at Lake Gairdner in South Australia, with her sights set on 330 km/h, approximately 50 km/h above her personal best at the time [14].

OTHER INTERESTS

Between land speed events, Kim Krebs cycles in the Adelaide Hills — not leisurely, given the region’s reputation for demanding climbs — and runs each morning during race meets as part of her fitness preparation [10]. The physical regimen is deliberate: land speed racing places enormous demands on concentration and composure in a very short window, and cardiovascular fitness feeds directly into mental clarity under pressure.

Her connection to the outdoors runs deeper than cross-training. In a South Australian “nature voices” piece, she describes knowing “the exact rise and fall of the hills” along a 160 km outback road through repeated experience, closing with the rhetorical question, “How fortunate are we?” [20]. That kind of language — attentive, grateful, geographically specific — surfaces consistently in her interviews. She has described one of her great pleasures as “anything that gets me outdoors and keeps me under that huge sky of ours” [10]. For someone whose world records are set on ephemeral salt surfaces that depend on weather, season, and the slow work of geological processes, this is more than a throwaway line.

She has maintained social ties to Yackandandah long after relocating to South Australia, and her name appears in connection with local trail and cycling communities in the north-east Victorian region [45][51]. The town has celebrated her achievements as those of a neighbour rather than a distant celebrity, which tells you something about both her and the town.

EARLY SUCCESS

Kim Krebs began competing at Lake Gairdner — the vast South Australian salt lake that hosts Speed Week Australia — in 2006, and first raced at the Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trials in Utah in 2009 [29][56]. Her competition number with the Dry Lakes Racers Australia is #495 [29]. She races as part of Black Art Racing, a three-person team she forms with Greg Watters and Jim Higgins, who build and campaign their own machines [12][56]. The absence of major corporate backing is deliberate context here: this is a self-funded, small-team operation running on expertise, annual leave, and commitment rather than factory support.

The milestone that marked her arrival as a serious force came in 2012, when she joined the 200 mph club — entering at 229 mph on a 750cc machine [15]. For reference, the 200 mph club on a motorcycle is not a casual credential. The “Chasing 200” community noted her fastest pass on the 750 as 238 mph [43], and from there the trajectory was clear. Within a few years she had become the fastest Australian woman on a motorcycle, a title that appears in every major profile and organizational listing [10][11][29].

NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENTS

• 2006: First competition at Lake Gairdner Speed Week Australia with the Dry Lakes Racers Australia [29][56].
• 2009: First competition at the Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trials, Utah [29][56].
• 2011: Named Australian Riders Division Woman of the Year [18].
• 2012: Joined the 200 mph club at Lake Gairdner with a speed of 229 mph on a 750cc motorcycle [15].
• 2016: Set a FIM World Land Speed Record of 241 mph at the Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trials — the highest ratified speed ever recorded by a woman on a sit-on motorcycle [11][29][30][35][58][59].
• 2016: Achieved a peak run of approximately 244.5 mph (approximately 393 km/h) at Bonneville, the fastest speed recorded by any woman on a sit-on motorcycle [11][29][35][58][59].
• Ongoing: Recognised as Australia’s fastest woman on a motorcycle [10][11][29][56].

INSPIRATIONS

The earliest documented influences are familial and environmental. An uncle with a Harley-Davidson planted an early seed [27]; growing up riding from age four in a region of rural Victoria where motorcycles were unremarkable transport embedded the habit [14]. The Winton university race meet provided the first organized competitive context, but the deeper draw seems to have come from discovering the land speed community and the specific character of racing on salt lakes — venues that are as much landscape experience as motorsport venue [10][27].

Her scientific background in geomorphology is not merely incidental to her racing. Dry lake beds like Gairdner and Bonneville are exactly the kinds of environments a geomorphologist studies — ephemeral, weather-dependent, shaped by sediment and evaporation. There is something coherent about a person trained to read landscapes choosing to race on the ones most people never see [56][11]. She has also spoken about the importance of protecting the salt surface itself, framing land speed racing within a broader concern for the fragile environments that make it possible [11].

In interviews, she describes land speed racing as a “unique sport” with no prize money and a community built around records, personal challenge, and the satisfaction of small-group recognition [38][56]. That framing — competitive but not commercially driven, ambitious but grounded in place and community — seems to be as much a statement of values as a description of the sport.

REPUTATION

The descriptor that attaches to Kim Krebs most consistently across Australian and international motorcycling media is straightforward: Australia’s fastest woman on a motorcycle, and the fastest woman in the world on a sit-on bike [10][11][29][56]. The FIM World Record ratified at 241 mph at Bonneville in 2016 is the credential that underpins both claims, with a peak run of approximately 244.5 mph placing the achievement beyond reasonable dispute [11][29][35][58][59].

Within the land speed community — a small world with a long memory — she is recognized through Dry Lakes Racers Australia and the Black Art Racing team’s presence at both major Australasian and American venues [29][36][56]. DLRA social media posts and race-day coverage from Lake Gairdner’s Speed Week and the Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trials reference her as a consistent presence and a record-holder of standing [6][7][30][37]. The FIM announcement of her world record time at the end of a return run at Bonneville was documented and shared across the global land speed community [8].

Her profile extends beyond specialist circles. ABC Adelaide featured her in connection with International Women’s Day, and AMCN has run long-form coverage of her career [1][11][56]. Motorcycling Australia’s “International Spotlight” series singled her out as a representative of what Australian women are achieving in international competition [10]. She has spoken publicly at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) event “Why I Ride / The Motorcycle: Design, Art, Desire,” situating her experience of speed within a broader cultural conversation about motorcycling [27]. The picture that emerges is of someone who has earned credibility in the sport on purely technical terms — by going faster than anyone else — while also being articulate enough to represent it well in rooms that aren’t salt-encrusted.

Her dual identity as a world-record holder and a senior public sector environmental professional is, by any measure, an unusual combination. It appears to generate genuine curiosity rather than cognitive dissonance in those who encounter it, and she does not seem to play one identity down in favour of the other. Both require precision, risk management, and a serious relationship with landscape. In that respect, the two lives are less contradictory than they first appear.

FUTURE GOALS/PLANS

FIM land speed world records are scheduled to be contested at the Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trials in 2025, with Cycle News confirming the event’s return to the salt [35]. Black Art Racing’s ongoing presence at both Lake Gairdner and Bonneville suggests that Kim Krebs remains an active competitor with records still in her sights. Given that her peak run of 244.5 mph has not yet been formally ratified as a record at that precise figure, the margin between personal best and official record represents unfinished business [11][29][35].

References:

ABC Adelaide Breakfast: Kim Krebs Speed Racer
Full Tank Moto: Kim Krebs Video
Instagram Post: Kim Krebs
Australian Women in Motorcycling: Kim Krebs Interview
Facebook Public Profile: Kim Krebs
Dry Lakes Racers Australia: Kim Krebs Competition History
AAA Land Speed Racing: Speed Week Australia Day 3
FIM Live: Kim Krebs World Record Time
LegiStorm: Kimberly A. Krebs (excluded — unrelated individual)
Motorcycling Australia: International Spotlight with Kim Krebs
Australian Motorcycle News: Kim Krebs Profile
Black Art Racing YouTube Channel
ABC Adelaide: International Women’s Day — Kim Krebs
ABC News 2006: Female Motorcyclist Gears Up for World Record
Chasing 200: Kim Krebs Joins the 200 Club
Bonneville MST: LSR Pioneer Marcia Holley
Instagram Post: Kim Krebs Bonneville
Full Noise: Kim Krebs Named Australian Riders Division Woman of the Year
Instagram Post: Kim Krebs (English)
Instagram Post: Kim Krebs Nature Voices
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