Kawasaki ZRX11aJ
race . My d a d k new Mike Hailwood,
and we us ed to go the Is le of Ma n
every year from the time that I was a
yea r old till the time that I was 10. I
even got to have lunch with Giacomo
Agostini once. Motorcycles are just in
my blood."
Such an affliction has c re a te d a
fair amount of tension in the Wood
household , as his wife Mary Lee
doesn't exactly share his v is ion.
Over the years , she has patiently tolerated her husband 's obsession with
br inging home various toasted
motorcycles - dirt bikes mostly repairing them , riding them and then
selling them . But when Wood
dragged home this ZRX 1100 , which
had clearly come out on the losing
end of a battle with an automobi le,
she wa nted to have him committed.
All that Wood saw th rough the twisted rubble , however, was an opportuni ty to own a motorcyc le that was
no t likely to be seen - at least in any
la rge quantity - in California. We sort
of bough t into that dream , offering to
adopt the bike and assist as much as
we could with the coordination of the
STORY By SCOTT R OUSSEA U
PH OTOS By B LA KE CONNER
. ra ke a look at the "before" picture
-.1. of this Kawasaki ZRX 1100 and
you're likely to wonder who in his or
her right mind would ever have
attempted to resurrect such a highly
damaged motorcycle from the dead .
Th e answer in this particular case is a
gu y named Chris Wood, but there may
be a little of him in all of us.
As passionate mo torcycle fans ,
we're sure that several Cycle News
rea ders have, at one time or another,
dre am ed of taking an old , obsolete or
junked motorcycle and turning it into a
dream ride . Some people just can't let
sleeping dogs lie.
Enter Wood, a 32-year-old Englishman living in Sa n Cle m e nte , Ca lifo rnia . He ' s one of t hose people with a
love for motorcycles that goes all the
wa y bac k to his days as a lad in Yorks h ire. Here again, his personal story
m a y be similar to others like him .
"I grew u p around motorcycles ,"
Wood says. "My dad was a speedway
mechanic, and my uncle used to drag
20
N OVEMB ER 29 , 2000'
cue
I
e
n
e
vv
s
(Above) Looking at
It now, It Is
to
believe that this
KawasakI
ZRX1100 was once
completely wiped
out In
accident.
(Left) This rebul
ZRX rep' esents a
I
ride
the
motorcycle wortcL..
at least until the
ZRX1200starts
hitting the stnlets.
Than... to the
nd pipe and jet
kit, power and
throttle response
are greater than a
stocker.
