VOLUME 58 ISSUE 24 JUNE 15, 2021 P89
I
f you have even a passing interest in
WorldSBK, you will have seen the podi-
ums sprayed with green for the better part
of the previous decade. Since 2012, Kawa-
saki has taken seven rider's titles (one for
Tom Sykes and six for Jonathan Rea) and six
straight manufacturer's crowns, proving the
company's gamble of ditching MotoGP for
the production-based WorldSBK series was
the right one all those years ago.
Kawasaki races WorldSBK on the ZX-10R
because that's the bike we can buy. We
aren't buying a MotoGP bike for the street,
plus to race in WorldSBK requires about a
10th of the budget compared to MotoGP.
The $16,399 Ninja ZX-10R has thus
become the superbike of the 2010-2020
decade. It's gone through three major up-
dates since 2010, the last of which was back
in 2016 with the arrival of the redesigned,
over-square motor. That motor is internally
the same for 2021 although Kawasaki has
fitted a new oil cooler, throttle valves, a new
exhaust system, shorter gear ratios in the
first three gears, and reduced the final-drive
ratio to help get the ZX-10R off the corner in
low rpm situations.
Take the ABS fuse out and the
10R will let you do this kind of
silly stuff. However, no ABS
showed how friendly the chassis
was as Rennie and Zack kept
doing this lap after lap.
Never
THAT THOROUGHLY DOMINATED WORLDSBK FOR THE LAST HALF DECADE
GETTING A PROPER FACELIFT FOR 2021. THIS IS THE 2021 KAWASAKI NINJA ZX-10R,
HEADED TO FONTANA TO SMOKE UP SOME BRIDGESTONES ON IT
BY RENNIE SCAYSBROOK
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN J. NELSON
