Top Dead Center

Today, 59 teams of gladiators duke it out for bragging rights. It's ice racing in Wisconsin,

then Suzuki Swift new middleweight, the potent Gsxr 600

plus Tommy G Strokes, a two stroke in our project of the week.

Hey guys, welcome to T DC and some subzero racing action.

I'm Alan neighbors. And today we are heading to Wisconsin where the term stud applies to the riders

and their tires.

It's 100 miles an hour on the ice

and it rocks uh Wisconsin in the winter time home of snowy farms where cows are revered.

But

once a year, the picturesque lake

Kashan

is transformed into a sadistic racers paradise.

This is now assembled to be the greatest ice race competition in this country. Today. 59 teams came to race this three hour epic and subhuman condition.

The windshield follows here. Ok.

It was 32 yesterday and that would feel real good right about now. It doesn't matter, it don't matter if it's 20 below. We'd all still be out here. How are you feeling a little chilly? It's like a race in Florida or something,

same thing, but we're in Wisconsin and we're on the ice.

That's how I look at it. It's freezing cold,

bitter cold, icy, deep breeze, cold, it tears across the frozen surface of lake

kno bikes Burling 100 100 and 20 miles an hour,

chips of ice pieces of screws hurtling through the sky.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a gladiator sport.

You don't get out alive

to get out alive. These racers meet the mentality and conditioning of a fighter pilot and the crux of war.

It is a long race. It's not a typical race. You gotta have a lot of stamina. You gotta be in shape

and uh

gotta have drive motivation. You gotta have tenacity and perseverance to push yourself. That's what makes it only two kinds of riders. Those that have been down and those that are going down,

unless these ice warriors want to eat snow, their tires better be up for the challenge

last year. We were in contention and the tire came part. It's all tires out there. I mean, you could take somebody that,

that's a, you know, mediocre rider with great tires and somebody that doesn't, you know, it can ride really good with tres. Ain't quite as good. It don't matter. It's all in the tires. The studs are kind of kind of interesting. They are inch long. Uh And now we're doing some experiment with inch and a quarter long.

Uh which I mean, by the time you're done building a tire, there's a lot of work involved because you gotta, you gotta stuff the tire with another tire inside. A street bike tire wore out one

and, uh, you just screw it from the outside in and

put a whole bunch of them in there. Actually.

What the hell are you doing? Tightening screws

drawn out process?

Very tedious, tedious. It is. But necessary if you want the grip,

you can

almost drag the bar. There's so much trash, there's more traction than a dirt and asphalt. So it's a lot of fun. It is crazy. Think about it, getting a handlebar down on the ground while your wheels have still got traction. But

there's something amazing about whipping for

gear down the ice and just grabbing a bunch of rear brake and putting a bike sideways and just

giving a good roost of snow in somebody's face.

Rhiannon Lucetti is a newbie when it comes to roosting snow and she loves it. I'm a road racer

but it is totally different and it is way, way, way more fun,

way better to get the bike down and sideways. Just get a foot out,

it's secure even though you're breaking it loose while this race was only her fourth on ice. She wasn't intimidated by having to run with the boys. These guys are fast.

They're dangerous. F

you can't survive in Wisconsin without being a tough girl. There's no way

you just can't do it. You gotta brave the cold, you gotta brave the boys, you gotta brave it all. She was taking on the boys aboard the old school at K.

The A

K is a good bike. It's a big thumper that just,

it rips. It's big, it's heavy. You gotta muscle it around. Talk about tough guys out here.

That's a tough guy bike. A race strategy was just as tough.

But when you go out sail, just go and you're gonna warm up right away. It keeps the elbows out, whack anybody that comes by and it

gives you a good jolt of warm fuzzies inside

with all the proceeds going to the steel shoe fund. These racers don't do it for the money.

They do it for that warm fuzzy feeling.

It doesn't matter. It don't matter if it's only below, we'd all still be out here.

We'll get out there after about 20 minutes today and be sweating,

smiling, eerie ears.

There's nothing like riding on the ice.

You're gonna be a writer.

This is it, this is gonna teach you everything

there. Last year, I rode

everything but a half an hour of it by myself.

I was just cold tired,

but at the end of the night it was so worth it, you know, just to come home and

look back on it. It was the greatest thing I've ever done.

And you thought those hockey guys were tough,

more deep freeze racing from Wisconsin coming up.

A classified ad says looking for Ryder to race wide open on Frozen Lake for three hours at 10 degrees above zero. Wimps need not apply.

Damn,

this is what ice race is all about today.

This race is about pushing body and machine to their absolute limits and this would prove to be the toughest ever. A lot rougher than normal. No, we can drop a blake and get it down to bare ice.

But, uh, these dress are so hard that these guys are gonna have it rough and it's cold. So it's gonna be hard to hang on over there

off to start. The lake claimed its first victim and she never let up.

That goes with my leg scrape right there.

If it wasn't the far bank and doing the damage, it was the Arctic weather for these racers. The word quit doesn't come easy.

You don't know when to fall out and just keep on going and going and going and it's, it's, it,

it's just amazing

during the more temperate month. Jr Schnabel runs the pro flat track series.

However, Wisconsin is home, so bike set up wasn't a problem.

They will be running a YZF 450.

Some of the difference between this and what you might have in your garage for

a standard 450. Pick up your dealership. First thing we've got a big fuel tank on it. We're running an endurance race today. We're going to make one pit stop an hour and a half

another hour and a half be done.

Another difference on this particular bike is, I've got a 19 inch front wheel on the front. A

lot of the guys running today do have 21 s on.

I like the 19

just gives me a little better feel when I leaned over in the corner being a third tracker. I'm kind of a custom of the 19 inch wheel.

The suspension on this bike compared to a stock bike, it's been lower two inches,

a little bit stiffer springs in it.

You can come out here with the stock suspension, it'll work just fine. But again, being a custom of the dirt track bike, I'd like it to be a little lower. We've got a special exhaust system on it. A little bit of head work.

Other than that,

this is the bike to pick up from the dealership and come out here and be competitive. We want a good show to stay fresh. Most riders chose to team up with that partner and hand off the bike,

his black frostbite on his face,

defending super moto champ be Carlson diced out front with Schnabel before him

off this machine at the halfway point. We're going real good. We were leaving the thing for a little bit and I think we're about dead even for first place. So we've got a couple of seconds on our pit stop. So

I just wanted to stay out there as long as I could. And uh

not as hard as I could.

Carlson. Now, Jr opened up a huge leap, but when he took a breather at the two hour mark, he wasn't ready to sell.

The snow has gotten,

you know, up to four inches deep in some spots.

Our tires don't work at all. Then it's just hydro planning and some of the ruts are about

six inches.

So

they'll be cutting through, everything will be going good, sliding a little bit,

they'll catch them

out of the six inch rot and they'll just stand the bike right up. And if you don't want to, it's gonna go. So

right now, like I said, just

catch the right rots and aim the bike good and keep the thing up right.

His teammate, Jessi Janis kept it wide open, then handed the Yamaha back to Jr to finish shot.

You're going wide open on a 450. They're heavy, they're fast

and you're going wide open down straight away with 1 ft deep, rots bumps everywhere, breaking bumps everywhere. It's amazing. It's fun. You know,

after three bone numbing hours and the brutal cold Jr did let the snowy lakes slow him down as he crossed the line with a couple of laps to spare.

I didn't want to crash because, you know, I was surprised to fall down.

Just take forever to get back up and get going. We get in a good rhythm again. So

I just keep it out there. Keep it smooth at one pace. So we had a lot of fun and it's good for a good thing. Still so fun and,

you know, a lot of good races

helped out by it.

Glad to come out here and have fun and be able to help something like that out.

Uh Look up tough in the dictionary. You'll find Jr Schneibel. Nobody goes on the ice like Jr

up next. We'll ring out Suzuki's New Jigser 600.

All right. Now, we all know that the Gsxr 1000 is one of the best super sport bikes on the market.

But can they do the same with the 600

if you're looking for a new middle weight to blister your buddies on the street or at track days, this is the piece Suzuki's all new, lighter and faster Gsxr 600.

After three years, it gets a complete makeover.

Our engineers back in Japan all worked hard

and uh came out with a package that we think is

uh the best 600 out there. The GSXR changed dramatically this year and a lot of it had to do with the chassis.

Um The one place that, that the Gsxr had fallen behind

was in the handling category. Well, this year, the Suzuki

just turns really, really well.

The reason a new aluminum frame with a steeper head angle, less trail and a heavily braced, differ, swing arm,

steering is light, neutral and quick.

They changed the front end

and made the thing turn like the R six turns which

as far as pure handling has been, the class leader,

front suspension is fully adjustable upside down sho

was carrying the same four piston calipers and 300 millimeter rotors used on the Gsxr 1000.

This bike has new radio mount Takiko

brakes

and the brakes are really good.

The brakes are powered.

It not only stops but with a claim dry weight of 354.9 pounds. It's the lightest 600

that plus a new high torque engine gives it the best power to weight ratio in the class.

Its 599 CC in line four features dual throttle bodies, a faster computer and Titanium valves generating 100 and 3.9 horsepower at 13,200 RPM.

Maximum torque occurs at 10,008. Red line is 15 5.

The GSX is a high tech package that translates into pure bliss on the street and fast lap times at the track.

One thing that, that some people like that I'm not necessarily crazy about is that the Suzuki just has this, this

really loud intake noise and then at, at times when you're just at full throttle RPM, it it starts to wear on you.

Now, what won't wear on you is the MS RP

$8099.

Bottom line don't buy a 600 until you try out the all new GSXR

after the break. Tommy G and our project of the week.

Welcome back to T DC. I'm Tommy G.

We know you guys just love getting more power out of your stock bike,

which is why we're coming to you from Honda of Cool Springs in Franklin, Tennessee.

Today,

these guys are gonna let me take this new cr 250 R and see how much we can pump it up after a few simple and expensive boltons.

The other reason we're here,

they've got a trick new

dyno

that will provide some accurate numbers on just how much power and torque will gain.

Let's get the bike inside and I'll show you what parts we're going to put on it

first. The latest race pipe from FMF, the SST

combined with the power core two silencer,

we should easily pick up a few horsepower.

Then we'll get into this two stroke a bit with this trick V force three performance relo

and to make the Honda breathe a bit more

this uni air filter, we picked up all this stuff from motorsport.com.

Before we add anything to the Honda, we'll baseline it to get the stock rear wheel horsepower

and we're using a brand new

dyno Jet 250 I, their latest motorcycle dyno.

You can see we mounted a street tire on the rear to get an accurate reading. Plus we didn't want to ruin a perfectly good knobby.

Well, Jim, how did our baseline turn out? I think it came out really good timing. We got three runs laying right on top of each other. We're hitting 42 horsepower at 8000 RPM. Torque is right around 28 ft pounds of torque of 7600. So I think we're in good shape. Sounds like a great place to start. Excellent.

Changing the header and silence on the 250 is pretty simple. So I'll leave it on the

dyno

to save some time,

check it out. This is the latest two stroke race pipe from FMF. This huge expansion chamber is designed to alter sonic waves back, pressure

and exhaust gasses which will improve performance throughout the power band.

Plus the plating looks great. You won't have to repaint it after each race. Either

their tricks

is lightweight and is fully repack

claims. No other two stroke pipe on the market can match this package.

Well, we don't know about that, but we do know the

dyno is gonna tell us exactly how much gain we do get

and the

dyno doesn't lie.

We picked up a little over three horsepower on this thing

thing that impresses me the most, Tommy is we, we broaden that power band by 500 RPM here before we're hitting our peak horsepower at 8000. We're up to 8500 now.

Well, that's more than 5% gain. I think it sure is.

With the bike back in the shop, I'll tear down the Subra and install additional bolt ons that will hopefully improve our 5% power gain.

Here's our new re block the V Force three.

As you can see, there's a big difference between the stock unit and the V force. This unit is designed to give you increased velocity for more power by providing more air fuel mixture into the engine

with the carburetor back on

and the Subra assembled, let's see if we can add another horsepower. With this two stage air filter from uni these filters are used by top race teams and top freestylers from all over the world.

Uh huh. On the moment of truth check this out,

we started at 41 5,

ended up at 46 4, almost five horsepower, which is great.

We gained three full foot pounds of torque.

Now, when I start jetting this thing, I guarantee we'll get more horsepower.

Ok, guys. Now it's time to check out some new riding gear.

Now this bad boy ride here is a GVS new high tech Xr two helmet inspired by world champion Valentino Rossi. It's Kevlar shell is wind tunnel designed with an adjustable front inlet, two large air intakes, a vented rear spoiler and cool tri

color paint.

Ok. Now the Xr two will keep you cool style

and safe for about $450. Well, now from head to toe C D's new vertebra two air offers comfort and protection designed for sport bike riders. They have cooling ports in the front, adjustable and replaceable hard toe pads, ankle and heel armor and velcro covers over the zipper.

Now, at $255 a pair, they're great protection at a great price. Now to complete the package, check out the new Phoenix riding glove from Joe Rocket.

They close with velcro and feature a rigid knuckle cover with soft pads on the fingers. The palms have suede inserts, a heel protector and rubber wrist pad.

They're well worth the $50 asking price. Well, guys, that's about all the time for this week. Bye. Join us again next week,

we'll get crazy with America's newest breed of wild men. The extreme stunt riders.

Well, guys, thanks for watching. Ride safe. We'll see you then.