gear, to get a hustle out of the bend. It worked. I
think you'd only get about 140 mph out of the bike
if you're lucky, but it gets there really quickly!"
The chassis side was where Toye spent the
most time, firstly transforming Aprilia's naked
hot-rod into a racer by fitting Attack Performance
rear sets, and a SharkSkinz replica RSV4 seat
and fairing, which was then painted and wrapped
in a fetching Italian tricolore color scheme by
Syndicate Racing in Denver, Colorado. Toye then
rotated the handlebar 10 degrees downward to
compliment the RSV4 fairing.
Toye then fitted the 5mm longer fully adjustable
43mm Öhlins NIX30 fork from the RSV4 1100 Factory
street bike, and its 10mm longer TTX35 rear shock.
"My biggest concern was the Aprilia not having
enough ground clearance," says Rennie, "espe-
cially with the belly pan that we run on it. When
you're leaned over, especially in Boulder Park,
there's a number of big undulations that crunch
the bottom of the bike when you go over them, so
you really need to stand it upright and lean off it as
much as you can, to minimize damage."
RSV4 RF forged aluminum wheels were in-
stalled, with the 6.00-inch rear housing a 200/60-
17-inch Pirelli Diablo Superbike tire.
The longer suspension resolved the ground
clearance problem, mainly derived from the fact
that Rennie had opted to run such soft suspension
settings on the Aprilia. I discovered this for myself
a couple of months after his winning exploits,
when he and Shane Pacillo brought the victorious
Aprilia to Buttonwillow Raceway for me to sample.
From riding the Tuono in Italy I could already well
imagine that Scaysbrook & Co. didn't need to
worry about tuning up the motor, just on putting
its broad spread of torque and appetite for revs to
best advantage. This had initially proved difficult at
Pikes Peak, as Rennie explains: "Even on 'race'
mode the throttle valves basically weren't open-
ing up as fast as I wanted them to," he says. "I'd
get on the throttle, and it just wouldn't accelerate
at anything as fast as I was asking it to, and it was
killing us, especially in the mid-section, because
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