FEATURE
KAWASAKI RIDER PROJECT
P66
I've been riding motorcycles
since I was three and racing
since eight, although the last
couple of years have been pretty
sporadic on the racing front. I've
done some WERA stuff this year
and the Pikes Peak International
Hill Climb, but most of my track
riding has been machine testing
of late. Track testing motorcycles
for Cycle News is one thing—the
idea behind testing is you take
the motorcycle to a consistent
and relatively quick pace that's
repeatable, and then you can
write an objective review of the
machine—but racing at the sharp
end of even a club Superbike
race requires more speed, more
bravery and yes, more precision,
if you want to win.
The Baseline
The idea for this story is to set
a baseline time at round one of
CVMA, then come to the school,
get faster, and beat it for round
two. My first time back on a su-
perbike after six months off was
a bit of an eye opener, to say the
least. I was circulating about 10
seconds off the pace during first
practice and wondering what the
hell I was doing out there.
The ZX-10R had been set up
by Jason Pridmore, basically giv-
ing me a setting that enabled for
a pretty neutral chassis, one that
would just let me concentrate on
riding rather than having to play
around with suspension clickers
too much.
