When I booked my flight from Los Angles International Airport to Daytona Beach for Bike Week 2006, I made sure to schedule my departure for 5:00 p.m. Thursday night with a layover in Las Vegas. Sure, half of the free world would be waiting in the security lines at LAX, but the long waits would be worth it: As frequent LAX flyers know, the Thursday evening flights from L.A. to Vegas are packed with the hottest babes in SoCal all headed to Sin City for weekend work, earning that route the nickname "Stripper Express." I figured that an hour aboard the Stripper Express would be the perfect warm-up to a weekend at Bike Week. What better than a planeload of fast, gorgeously accessorized women to get me in the mood for Daytona, where I hoped to find the streets filled with fast, gorgeously accessorized sportbikes?
The flight certainly put me in the proper mindset, and as soon as I arrived in Daytona Beach I found what I was looking for. I deplaned, dialed a cab and told the driver to take me to the local watering hole for some wine (read: beer), women and song (read: more beer). He dropped me at a joint named Wings, where I downed a plate of prematurely killed yardbird and met up with Randy McCoy from McCoy Motorsports to get the lowdown on the shop's latest creation, the '05 Yamaha YZF-R1 pictured here. I was looking for fast and gorgeously accessorized sportbikes, and I definitely found one.
McCoy Motorsports is not an unfamiliar name to long-time Super Streetbike readers--this is the fourth radical R1 from that shop we've featured in the past three years. The McCoys run a thriving aftermarket performance business (www.tobefast.com) and are obsessed with exactly two things: Yamaha's top-dog R1 sportbike and nitrous oxide. The McCoys made their name with a brace of record-setting nitrous-fueled drag cars in the mid-'90s and applied all that tuning knowledge to their two-wheeled projects after they discovered sportbikes in the latter part of that decade. We love the McCoy bikes: Not only do they look gorgeous, with every little detailed tricked out, but they also go like stink--the very definition of a Super Streetbike.
This latest version is no exception, from the dragstrip-ready chassis to the nitrous-huffing powerplant to the classic Yamaha racing paint scheme, inspired by the Roberts/Rainey/Lawson-era roadracing machines. During our impromptu meet-up at Wings, I made arrangements to meet McCoy early the next morning on the beach to photograph his bike. As I arrived on the beach just before dawn the next day, exactly two thoughts crossed my mind: 1) Wow, doesn't the pearl white paint on the bike really pop off against the blue water in the background?; and 2) Why did I have that last shot of Jgermeister at the bar last night? `Cause I'm paying for it now! The pearlescent white paint with blue strobe graphics was laid down by the folks at Gator Customs in Crestwood, Illinois, using a custom blend of a House of Kolor and Standox paints to exactly match the McCoy Motorsports signature blue hue. And of course, the bodywork couldn't make it out of the Gator Customs shop without a few pieces of their proprietary Gator Glass illuminated graphics that light up after dark. On this bike, McCoy Motorsports' flamed "M" logos on the fairing, tail and windscreen are all light-up Gator Glass pieces. Underneath the paint and graphics is a full set of super-light race bodywork from Catalyst Composites, with a custom, endurance racing-style single headlight to give the bike a different look up front. Out back there's a custom-molded taillight mount with a programmable flasher relay to integrate the turn signals. Finishing off this part of the bike is a custom saddle with another flamed M logo, this one embroidered on by Lois Dixon.
Moving along to the chassis, the R1 frame and subframe, along with the six-inch-over extended swingarm from Trac Dynamics, have all been powdercoated translucent blue by Action Powdercoat. The slammed stance is the result of adjustable Speedlink lowering links out back and a fork that has been cut down two inches and raised another inch in the triples for a total three-inch drop in front. To help the bike hook up even better, a custom-tuned hlins shock from Brock's Performance was installed in the rear.
Helping to get the R1 down the road faster is, of course, an extra-stout shot of the giggle juice delivered by a Nitrous Express nitrous oxide injection system. Featuring a progressive nitrous controller that sprays highly modified throttle bodies equipped with RC Engineering injectors, as well as a purge system to insure a pure shot, the bike has been tuned by the folks at Performance Caf to produce approximately 170 hp on the motor and 270 hp when it's juiced. Helping to produce those impressive numbers is a Niagra ported head, stainless valves, JE pistons and a Brock's/Hindle Sidewinder exhaust to exit spent gases, plus a McCoy-built oil-cooler located under the tail for extra cooling. A stand-alone BPD-2 engine management system handles all the math, helped along by a series of MoTeC sensors, and all this data is fed into an AIM Sport digital data logger that replaces the stock dash. A serious go-fast setup, indeed.
On the outside, a good selection of Graves Motorsports bolt-ons help keep this R1 looking cooler than a mortician's table, including engine case covers, bar ends, adjustable rear sets, swingarm spools, a tag bracket, a sprocket cover, a smog block-off kit and velocity stacks. While many custom bike builders favor the single front brakes to show more wheel, McCoy wisely left both front calipers in place on this high-speed machine and even increased braking performance with Galfer Wave rotors and steel braided lines front and back. Behind those rotors you'll find lightweight, high-style Cyko Racing wheels wrapped in Mickey Thompson rear drag rubber in the back. Finishing touches on the bike include clutch levers and a CRG bar-end mirror and shorty brake. A HyperPro steering damper keeps the ride going in the right direction, and a push-button MPS air-shifter jams the trans into gear.
The McCoy Motorsports team prides themselves on building bikes that exhibit the highest show quality possible but still pack a serious punch. Anything but a trailer queen, McCoy's R1 was spotted cruising the Daytona Beach boulevards every day (and night) during this year's Bike Week--and more often than not, blasting away from stop signs almost as fast as a stack of dollar bills leaves my wallet at a strip club in Vegas. Thank goodness I didn't stay in Vegas after getting off the Stripper Express but came all the way to Daytona Beach to meet up with Randy McCoy instead.