"beat a record" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
You could use it to mean breaking a previously set record or goal. For example, "The runner finished the race in record-breaking time, beating the previous record by several seconds."
I didn't go there to beat a record.
The social network site beat a record set by Google for the speed with which it joined the elite list.
Night Of Thunder beat a record field of 15 rivals here to win the Lockinge Stakes, the first Group One for older horses of the British season.
The competition is now open to any artist aged over 18, and Chapin beat a record entry of more than 2,100 entries from 74 countries, including almost 1,500 submissions from the UK.
It reached 779,295 retweets in approximately half an hour, and so beat a record previously held by the US president, when he tweeted an image titled "Four more years" at the point of his re-election in November 2012.
The carbon already emitted by burning fossil fuels has driven significant global warming, with 2016 near certain to succeed 2015 as the hottest year ever recorded, which itself beat a record year in 2014.
In 1999, Combs was charged with beating a record executive with a chair, a telephone, and a champagne bottle (hip-hop has a weakness for leaden symbolism).
Zayn Malik's debut single "Pillowtalk" has gone straight to the top of the Billboard Hot 100, beating a record held by One Direction in the process.
Bieber has become the first artist ever to log four weeks at Numbers 1 and 2 consecutively, beating a record previously set by The Beatles.
Eminem has broken the UK chart record for consecutive No 1 albums, beating a record held jointly for 36 years by Abba and Led Zeppelin.
The fire complex burning in north-central Washington is now the largest in state history, beating a record set just last year in the same county.
