Concerned at the rising costs of maintaining the legendary Harley-Davidson XR750s in American Flat Track racing, in 2009 the American Motorcyclist Association( AMA) asked former long-time Harley engineer and tuner Bill Werner to find a cheap but competitive( and reliable) XR alternative. Werner opted for the Kawasaki EX650 parallel twin. He had some experience with that model, having prepared a road-racing version for a 300- mile endurance race at Daytona in March 2007. With 49-year-old Jay Springsteen and 45-yearold Jim Felice riding the Kawasaki entered by the Pair of Nines team managed by Gary Nixon, the 650 twin won its class in the Moto-ST endurance race— by a lap. So, for the flat track racing‘ proof of concept’, Werner bought an EX650 off eBay for $ 1500, removed all the fittings needed for road use and with this stripped-down machine, Bryan Smith scored Kawasaki’ s first AMA Grand National win at the August 28, 2010 Indianapolis Mile, run the same weekend as the MotoGP at Indianapolis. Werner says that in addition to $ 1500 for the
eBay purchase“ my total investment to build the bike was $ 6000, for suspension, wheels, motor modifications, etc., as opposed to $ 25,000 plus for the XR750 Harley.” He had backing from Monster Energy and Kawasaki Motors Corp. USA but adds“ it was my way to give back to the sport that did so much for me. I loved the challenge!” Of the 19 finishers at the 2010 Indy Mile, only two other riders were not racing Harley-Davidson XR750s: 12th placed Larry Pegram( Ducati) and 16th placegetter Shawn Baer( Triumph). Proving the Indy win was no fluke, Smith again beat Harley’ s Chris Carr the following weekend at the Springfield Mile on September 5. This time there was one other Kawasaki 650 twin in the results: Johnny Lewis finishing tenth. The seed had been planted. A year later there were six Kawasaki twins among the 54 entries at the September Springfield Mile, with four making it to the 26-lap main event. Of those, Lewis was the best finisher, less than threetenths of a second behind the winning XR750 Harley, with Australian Luke Gough finishing 15th.
The third-generation Howerton Kawasaki 650 was nick-named the“ Skinny Bike” for obvious reasons. Ducati Monster designer Miguel Galluzzi said that this Kawasaki“ is what a pure motorcycle should be”. This picture was taken at the 2017 Radnor Hunt Concours d’ Elegance.( Photo courtesy Michael Lawless)
58 KIWI RIDER