VOL. 53 ISSUE 48 DECEMBER 6, 2016 P69
mount in the superstock class,
although the real purpose of the
build is for it to be a club racer.
"For this bike, we wanted to
showcase our race kit parts and
how effective they are," says
Kawasaki USA's Media Rela-
tions Supervisor, Brad Puetz.
"We create a bike that a club
racer could build on his own
with our Kawasaki kit parts
and a few aftermarket parts,
and that racer can then go out
and win our industry-leading
contingency money! We also
wanted to show the adjustability
of the bike through mapping of
kit ECU, chassis adjustments,
engine braking, launch control,
etc. Also, it was a great way to
show how the ZX-10R makes
competitive power without
having to spend thousands of
dollars on building a superbike
motor. The build could serve
as a blueprint on how to build
a competitive Kawasaki road
race bike from parts available to
every racer."
The build was thus left to Joey
Lombado, long-time Kawasaki
employee and former me-
chanic to AMA legends like Eric
Bostrom, Miguel Duhamel and
Tommy Hayden. As Joey ex-
plains, there's really not a lot re-
quired to take the standard street
bike and make it competitive.
"It was basically a strip-and-fit
project," says Lombado. "We
didn't want to spend a ton of
money on something unattain-
able, so we didn't touch the
cylinder head or even fit the
race cams that you can get out
of the Kawasaki catalog.
We had some great partners
in building this bike, and the
end result was about 187 horse-
power at the wheel. That kind of
power from a near stock engine
is super impressive, and also
hints that there's a lot more in
there if we chose to build a full
race motor.
"We spent a day working
with Jeremy Toye at Laguna
Seca earlier in the year to work
out what traction and wheelie
control maps we wanted, as
well as the engine braking,
launch control and auto blip for
the downshift, as well as some
geometry changes via the OEM
swingarm pivot locations. That
gave us a nice, neutral-handling
machine.
"We also tested out some
different clutch plates to work
with the launch control settings.
I think we got the setting exactly
right because when Rennie had
that clutch he holeshoted twice,
but when we had to go back
to a standard clutch on the
final race weekend, his starts
weren't nearly as good!"
Kawasaki USA's wrenchman
Joey Lombado (left) was tasked
with building this green weapon.
Jason Pridmore (right) had the
task of getting Rennie up to
speed. Rennie (center) just had
to not crash it!
