One year ago... multi-time Pro Stock champion Paul Gast had a vision to take the all-new (at that time) Suzuki Hayabusa to a league of it's own. After hearing about the buying frenzy that created massive back orders throughout the U.S., a few calls to local dealerships found the shortest possible wait list, and he went down to place his deposit for his first (in a long time) factory direct race bike. Last February he took delivery, and the bikes break-in miles were done one quarter mile at a time.

"This bike is an incredible piece of engineering" Gast explained when Ray Metzger's stock Hayabusa earned the prestigious Best Engineered Bike award at the AMA/Prostar FBG Nationals, "I can not believe how much homework the OEM's are doing these days". [The Hayabusa became the first stock/production bike to ever earn the award, in the 10+ year history of the AMA/Prostar series]

Since the bike was already capable nine second quarter mile runs without doing one thing to the bike, Gast figured the 160 RWHP of the bike had enough power to go the distance with proper chassis setup, so R.E. Racing, a local chassis and fabrication shop, was chosen to do some race prep to the rolling chassis.

They started by knocking several inches from the bike's ride height. Using front end tie-down straps did look like a possibility... because the minimum travel safety requirements of the sanctioning bodies could not be met, plus it was not the best way to approach it in Gast's mind.

R.E. disassembled the forks, and the internals were modified to provide a lower ride height. Afterwards, the rear swingarm was cut in half, and six inch extensions were added. Because of the high torque the bike was capable of producing, additional gusseting was also added for rigidity. A Pro Stock "megaphone" style exhaust system was also fabricated... to finish off the drag race look.

The first time out, the new chassis configuration yielded impressive times, however the bike did not run as quick as they had hoped to go. So Gast's team decided to add a wheelie bar and rear drag slick - and back to R.E. Racing it went. Using lightweight aluminum tubing, they fabricated a custom wheelie bar and mounts, and then a 7" x 17" Mickey Thompson slick was applied to the stock rear wheel. Because the bike was geared from the factory to run over 180 MPH in a long straight away... quarter mile re-gearing was added, with an twelve teeth being added to the rear sprocket.

The next return to the track, the slick and bar proved to be too much for the stock engine's output. Every time riders Kevin Gillham and Bill Vose left the starting line, the bike would bog shortly afterwards. So, returning to "no wheelie bar riding style", they began slipping the clutch off the line, and several 9.3-second runs were produced without ever touching the bar to the ground.

Returning to FBG's shop again, discussion began as to what the next step would be. At first, they thought about bolting the stock rear tire back onto the bike... but Gast decided that they would not go much quicker then the others out there running similar bikes... and he wanted to head for the seven-second zone eventually.

So... the search went on for what parts would best suit the bike's hop-up. They wanted to keep the engine as stock as possible, for as long as they could, to see just how far it could go. So, they decided to add just a few basic parts from Gast's vast catalog. Since FBG is a major distributor for Dynatek Electronics, and manufactures the most used in drag racing carburetor, the Lectron, obviously they wanted to showcase their own parts.

Adding the 44mm Megatron carbs was the easiest and first step. This type of system did not use rack mounted carbs as other brands, they are four individual carburetors, joined together with a 4 into 1 throttle cable. The installation was almost as simple as unbolting the stock EFI, and bolting on the 'Trons. After a little dyno tuning... not much else would have to be done.

The Dyna 4000 ignition would not to be as easy, since Dynatek had nothing that would be a bolt-on for this application. After many hours of planning, even more hours of machining aluminum chunks into a bunch of chips and shavings... an ignition rotor and pickup plate were mounted to the bike.

To further the bike towards the seven-second goal, an off-the-shelf nitrous system from NOS, featuring four direct port "fogger" nozzles, was selected for step three.

Shortly after getting the bike ready... the focus of the race shop shifted, and Gast's defense of his AMA/Prostar Pro Stock Championship became the top priority of development time.

After a several month wait "in moth balls", they brought the bike out to the last event of 1999, the AMA/Prostar World Finals. Since the bike had not even made a dyno run with the nitrous system, the entire FBG crew was a bit nervous about the bikes first run.

"I just threw the bottle on it" explained Gillham, "and after everybody filled me with horror stories that people had experienced by using nitrous on these bikes, I had become quite nervous."

"Those stories ended up being related to the use of Nitrous with stock electronic fuel injection systems and stock airboxes" he continued, "so we put a real light setting on the thing."

Top Gas rider, and FBG customer, Shawn Rainey volunteered to be the "guinea pig" rider, and Prostar officials made time in the show for the bike to run. Ironically, eight months after the bike's debut, no Hayabusa had yet been into the eight's, and the FBG guys wanted to be the first. Gillham told Rainey to leave soft off of the starting line, and hit the nitrous system well out of the hole.

He did, and the at about the 100' mark he pushed the "go fast button". The rest is history... as a few thousand race fans got to witness the first run of a Hayabusa into the eight's; an 8.70-second run.

Rainey explained that the bike easily could have ran much quicker so the 2000 season (and winter thaw) is being eagerly awaited.

That day may never be seen by Gast however, because he has decided to focus every available moment of race shop time on the development and maintenance of his Pro Stock operation. The bike is now for sale, and the lucky buyer will be the owner of the worlds quickest Hayabusa. If you are interested, check out FBG's website at www.fastbygast.com for more information!

:MK

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