You Ninja 650R riders, along with the Versys and ER6N riders, now are riding a winner!

Seems that "lowly" engine in the eyes of the sportbike snobs has some serious potential. (Bill) Werner - (Jay) Springsteen Racing, with rider Bryan Smith, has broken into the Harley iron-hand rule of flat track! They WON the Indy Mile August 28! Werner bought a wrecked 650R off ebay to try building a competitive flat track alternative to the Harley-Davidson XR750 that made both Springsteen and Werner famous. Springsteen as a champion and Werner as the winningest tuner. He's been working the project originally with a stock frame for about 3 years now. He saw potential for a budget bike to be built for probably about the cost of a built XR750 engine alone. Now he's proven the potential.



Werner is a dyed in the wool motorcyclist, not prejudiced in any way shape or form from what I've found. I saw him at the AMA Hall of Fame motorcycle show and asked him if he rode bikes still and, if so, what was he riding. He laughed a bit and said that, as hard as it was to believe, he rode a Honda scooter! I believe it was the Silver Wing, he'd had a Helix. He told me a story of riding in a parade with Chris Carr and I think it was Joe Kopp, who were riding H-Ds. As is normal for many air cooled manual clutch bikes in parades, those two had to occasionally pull out and move out a bit to keep the bike and clutch cool. Werner kind of got a kick out of the fact that here he was cruising along on his scooter the whole way and they had to keep pulling off the route. The guy is really cool and very approachable. He was great as a tuner with Harley Davidson and he is even greater as a motorcyclist!

If you happen to see this man at an event, take some time, if he's not preoccupied, and say hello - and thank him for putting a Kawasaki in the winner's circle in the AMA Grand National Flattrack Series.

This is no fluke - Jake Wiles won the Springfield Mile yesterday on another Kawasaki 650R for Jones Bros. Racing! Seems this might be the serious contender to the well established Harley XR - FINALLY. Now lets see if the AMA leaves it alone to force Harley to compete.

No more crap about your bike being "only a twin" and "slow". It's now a winner in the most American series in racing and in my opinion one of the most exciting forms of racing. Go out and support your bikes like the Harley guys do (and I give them credit for attending virtually ALL sorts of racing, this is in NO way a Harley bash, just props for competition) - attend AMA Pro Racing Grand National Flattrack Racing.

 

good to see. Didn't Honda try the same thing in the 80's?

 

They didn't just try, they won a few #1s until the AMA loaded the Honda RS 750 down with weight to the point of not being competitive with the XR. So Honda said adios. No sense in racing when the deck's stacked... as it was. Same could be said for the TZ when it won the first Pro National it was entered in by a rider that never straddled it until that day. Seems they could have allowed some development time or have just outlawed it before it ever made an appearance. Who knows what could have been done with timing and possible staggering of the crank throws ala the big boom two strokes of later years in 500 GP. But it was never given a chance. Imagine if they tossed out the original YZF400 when Doug Henry started winning.

That's why my comment on the AMA leaving it alone. One guy who saw the race said the Kaw wasn't at any great advantage, so there's no reason to screw with it. I will say the RS 750 Honda was way stronger than the XR. Had the AMA done a better job of "balancing the scales" who knows what we might have seen. Even with the weight added, Ricky Graham won another title on a Honda setting a record for wins back in 1992 with Johnny Goad and Team Undo privateers. Of course a huge part of that was rider talent - the most talented rider on the circuit to my understanding.