Happening s in Motor cy c ling
AReal Shinva-dig
Shinya Nakano got something of a surprise when he returned
to the pit box after morni ng warmup the weekend of the
Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang.
The Fuchs Kawasaki rider celebrated his 27th birthday in
Malaysia. He ar rived back in the box to find a huge birthday
cake fil ling the space where he normally parks his Ninja ZX-RR
MotoGP machine.
But even a birthday co uldn't distract Nakano from thinking
about the afternoons 21-lap Malaysian Grand Prix; the Fuchs
Kawasaki rider insisted on debriefing his crew chief on the
warmup session before getting down to the task of blowing
out candles and slicing up the cake for his crew.
"We had a few prob lems with one of the bikes in warmup,
so I was thinking about that as I turned into the pit box,"
Nakano commented. ':.\5 you can imagine, I wasn't expecting
to come face to face with a giant birthday cake!"
"It was a nice surprise after a warmup session that was
interrupted by a minor e lectrical problem w ith the bike,"
Nakano added. ''This afternoon's race is sure to be tough, but
I'll be trying as hard as I can to repeat the success we had in
Motegi, because champagne is easily the best drink to have
with birt hday cake!"
The Kawasaki Racing Team also presented Nakano with a
souvenir of his Motegi podium, in the form of a framed photograph of Nakano spraying the ent husiastic Japanese crowd
with champagne.
If Pig§ [ould Fly
Have you ever heard t he joke, "If Harley-Davidson made an airplane, would yo u fiy in it?"
Well Harley-Davidso n doesn't make t his brand-new Cessna Citation XL , but this plane was
just custom painte d for Daytona Harley-Davidso n by Wes tStar Aviation out of Grand Junction ,
Co lorado . The fuselage is painted w ith a screamin' eagle w hile the Harley -Davids o n
cre st ado rns the rear wing.
/
100 NOVEMBER 3, 2004 • CYCLE NEWS
40th Anniversary
