Hey all~
I am still alive and kicking, just sitting in my room at 5:30 in the morning in Iraq. It looks like I have my shore duty orders back to Yokosuka when I am done with this tour. I should be getting to Japan around July or August of next year.
I am curious about something. The two classes to race in are the ST600(minor mods) and the open class correct (almost anything goes)? I cant remember if that was all of them. I am debating with myself on what to get once I get there. The big problem is that I would like to stay away from the ST600 (or meatgrinder class) if at all possible but I dont really want to get into racing a 1000cc beast again. I would like to build up a SV650 and turn it into a fun racer but it all depends on what class it would fit into and what mods could be done.
I am hopefully going to do a few track days in 08 just to get back into the swing and then try to race the 09 season. An SV would be a great bike for the Motegi 7 hour as it is small, light, and gets great gas milage. Plus they are so much cheaper to race than a GSXR, tires last longer, gas lasts longer, everything.
Another option would to be to use a SV1000, bolt GSXR front and rear suspension on it (bolts right up and I have many sets of those avalible). Then I could play around with the engine as I saw fit, dont have to worry about the crazy power of the IL4's. The SV650 would be good for Tsukuba and ebisu but defianatly suffer at tracks like motegi, fuji, and suzuka where the SV1000 would fare better.
I have done some reading on both of them and they both make great, cheap, fun race bikes. The 650 would teach me more I think as I can only get 75hp max out of it with engine mods so I would have to learn to corner better.
Opinions?
No I dont want a BMW or any other Euro trash bike. Trying to stay away from honda and yamaha if possible.
Can someone post up some yahoo japan auctions of the SV650/1000 I would appriciate it. For some reason I cant get the babel fish translator on alta-vista to work here and I cant find another one.
Thanks guys!!! Looking forward to getting back there and see all of you again.