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This is a FZR1000 that I built in 8 days and finished at the track on the 8th day. It finished 11th in the 1 hour Super Teams race in '95 at Road America, 6th at Brainerd and DNF'd at Road Atlanta with a broken rod, possibly from down shifting when it was against the rev limiter.

The two riders that rode this bike at Road America and Brainerd in 1995 were Jed Kimla and Cory Ruppelt. Cory is a former road racer from the days of the TZ750 F1 bikes of the early 80s. He retired from racing after a rather severe get off.

Jed Kimla is an Expert level rider in CCS racing and is very fast and smooth. Jed had stopped racing too for basically the same reason that Cory did.

What was so unique about the combination of Cory and Jed is that Cory was close to 250 LB with his gear on if not more (his friends teased him that it took 2 cows to get enough leather to cover him) and Jed was lucky to make 150 LB with his gear on soaking wet. When the bike was done and both riders had ridden the bike for the first time they both complained of the same thing, a patter from the front while leaned over hard in turns 1, 6, 7 and the carousel. Jed was about a half second quicker than Cory.

I changed two things on the bike (2 psi more in the front tire and one notch on the preload adjuster for the forks) and they both said it was perfect. I changed the gearing because both guys said it was only revving 10K (about 165 mph) at the end of the front straight. Those changes lopped 1.5 seconds off their laps times at Road America. And put the rpm right against the rev limiter at the end of the straight. They used the same gearing for Brainerd and it was hitting the rev limiter just before turn one. With the gearing that was used it was supposed to run 174 mph with the tire that we used and the radar gun proved it to be right. Not bad for a totally stock engine with a jet kit and good valve job.

At Brainerd both riders ran nearly identical times as Cory was getting his confidence back and liked Brainerd anyway, Jed hated turn one there and didn't run it in there as hard as Cory would. Can't say that I blame him, scares the hell out of me at just the thought.