Date: August 19th

Dan's business, Zlock Racing, manufactures and distributes engine kits for a variety of makes and models, however, his SV kits have become quite a hit nationally with sales all over the US and even worldwide. With these kits able to consistently produce ninety-five horsepower from a 650cc SV, Dan, the mad scientist that he is, decided that he wanted to find out just how much power he could coax from the ninety degree Suzuki mill. With Dan's schedule the way it is, mostly thanks to me, it's taken him about a year to get to a point where he had something that could turn a wheel on a track. Now I've been fortunate enough to know Dan since 2001, and even more fortunate to ride for him and his team since that time, but to be honest I have yet to see him so excited about a project. Essentially I think this SV project has rejuvenated his sprit with motorcycles because it's allowed him to utilize his thirty-five plus years of engine building and racing knowledge. With the racing we've done over the last few years, Dan has had to stay well within the limits of his engine building prowess in order to stay within the specified rules for the classes we have been contesting. Naturally, I was quite excited to get on his bike and ride it as hard as I know how. Now you might be wondering what Dan has actually done to this SV, and I would love to tell you, except I don't really know. When he starts to tell me it quickly becomes evident that his thought process is at such a high level, he literally becomes Charlie Brown's teacher…MWAA MWAA MWAA… I just get that deer in the headlight glazed look in my eyes as he spouts off compression ratios, piston designs, cam timing and throttle body size. Eventually he just gives up and says "On bike - go fast - take chances". :o)

So we headed down to Portland to test out the bike and hopefully race it the following day. As you might imagine a project like this involves so many different variables, and with the relatively short time Dan and the team had to put the final touches on the bike, we had several gremlins and issues that plagued us during the practice runs. Unfortunately, with those issues Dan made the decision that he didn't want me to race the bike the following day despite the fact that we were already turning class leading lap times. Simply put, Dan didn't want to showcase the bike's talent until everything was 100%. However, for the bike being so early in its development, it has shown a tremendous amount of potential. Once things get tuned and sorted, it will definitely be at the sharp end of SV performance.

I can't wait to race it later this year.

From here I actually have a weekend off at home, and then it's off to the final round of the Thunder series in Ontario.

Stay tuned

Oliver