I had a strong feeling that the machine could be made better with some chassis tweaking. Over the course of a few year's worth of ebaying, I picked up a set of Ducati 900ss cases, a steel rear swingarm, and a Monster 600 frame. The 600 frame had no title, so it was useless to anyone on the street -- a perfect project to begin cutting for a race bike. I actually got it for $25 bucks! I decided to cut the entire back end off the bike, and make a trellis shock mount and tail section out of 4130 chromoly, and utlize a superbike tank for the gas. This necessitated a pile of fabrication work, a decent shape SBK tank, and a crashed SS tank for anciliaries. The tank actually went together pretty well... I'd do it differently now, but with some help from an autobody shop, the tank looked pretty good. I made the mistake of assuming all Monster frames were based on 851/888 steering geometry. This is actually not the case. At some point (not everyone is sure when) they turned the bike into a bit of a chopper -- 27-28 degrees rake. This fact (it was a 2000 model year frame) would rear its ugly head when I took it to the track. The end result was a very distinct looking bike, which again taught me a lot about welding, fabrication, and motorcycle design. I was able to practice some painting as well (note the Red Bull livery), and made a bunch of bodywork from different bikes fit. Unfortunately, it handled like crap (wouldn't steer), and the Arc Underengine exhaust, while a tourque MONSTER and very light, lost me the top end advantage I had against Ninja 650s. The first race in May of 2007 left me pretty uncomfortable on the bike, with no speed through the all-important turn 1. Unable to exploit the new Michelins (which gripped amazingly), I couldn't get past Billy and his new SV650... this was a bike that I could catch and pass along Gimli's main straight in 2006. Ooops.
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