Travis Anderson has made the step up to the newest category in the 400 Thunder Sportsman Series – Extreme Bike.
Anderson is no stranger to drag racing, the long time Sydney Dragway official ran a Hayabusa successfully in the venue’s Street Bike class for some time at track championship events, but this new Hayabusa is a whole new animal.
“She’s called ‘The Berzerker’,” said Anderson. “A ’99 Gen 1 Hayabusa, standard bore and stroke, GTX35R turbo on it, JE pistons, Carrillo rods, head work by Darren at RAMS, engine assembled and tuned by Leonard Azzopardi, running on methanol and controlled by a Haltech Elite 1500.
“The clutch is an MTC Gen 2 multi-stage lock up, still use a lever like a man!”
Anderson has no illusion of the steep learning curve there will be coming off the street bike.
“The plan to start is run on wastegate pressure to get the hang of it and when I’m ready we will be winding the boost up. My aim for this current build is mid to low 7s,” he said.
“To put more boost in than we have the final tune for I need to add an upstream injector or two in the plenum to get more fuel. That will be later in the year, probably with a turbo re-core at the same time.”
The bike saw its first track time at the first round of the Atura Championship at Sydney Dragway where Anderson donned the ‘L plates’ and had a ‘wheelie’ good time – literally, on both accounts.
Wheelstands aside, Anderson dropped into the 8 second zone and had a successful first outing.
“I have to thank Haltech for their amazing support, Azzopardi Racing for all their help, Walter at OZTek performance for his help, ACE Towing for their support and my partner Eva for her understanding doing long hours in the shed and her support with helping me build the bike,” he said.
