Pit Stop Motorsports mastermind Dennis Vazquez attempts to one-up the Orange County Chopper chumps with his own arachnid-inspired 2003 Suzuki GSX-R750.
Pit Stop Motorsports' old shop in North Bergen, New Jersey, is like a spider hole--tiny, dark and crowded with the dusty remains of past projects--so it is appropriate the latest (and by far wildest) custom sportbike to come out of Pit Stop is a spider-themed ride. However, this particular project wasn't inspired by its immediate surroundings, but rather by the famous "Black Widow" bike built by TV stars Orange County Choppers and subsequently purchased by another TV personality, "Ride With Funk Master Flex" host Funk Master Flex.
"I saw the Black Widow chopper at the Javits Center motorcycle show a couple of years back, and I knew immediately that I wanted to build a bike like that," says Pit Stop owner Dennis "D-Man" Vazquez. "It had such a dark, aggressive look that I wanted to apply to a sportbike." Though his final creation loosely resembles the Black Widow, Vazquez calls his bike the Widow Maker. "Get on it, and it will kill you," he says, smiling.
When it came time to select a donor bike to base this project on, Vazquez went back to an old, familiar friend--a 2003 Suzuki GSX-R750--to which he mated the entire back half of a 2004 Honda CBR600RR (including the subframe and tailsection, swingarm, rear brakes and undertray). Why the new rear end? Aesthetics and economics, Vazquez explains. "I really like the sleek look of that CBR model," he says, "and combining the two really sets this bike apart from other GSX-Rs. Plus, the Honda subframe is designed to accept an undertail exhaust like I wanted to use, which made that part of the project cheaper than designing and building my own subframe and undertail system."
As seamless as it looks now that it's finished, Vazquez says that grafting on the Honda rear end wasn't nearly as easy as just bolting up the new parts. The biggest challenge was mounting the swingarm--the CBR600RR uses Honda's unique Unit Pro-Link rear suspension design that mounts the swingarm directly to the engine cases instead of the frame. To mate the Honda swingarm to the GSX-R frame required Vazquez to do plenty of cutting, grinding and welding, as well as reconfiguring both the swingarm bearing location and suspension linkage.
Once the back end was buttoned up Vazquez turned his attention to the front of the bike, which features something that is becoming a Pit Stop Motorsports signature: molded-in facial features, similar to Vazquez's famous "Hayabeasta" featured in the March '05 issue of Super Streetbike. The front fairing on this bike is actually Vazquez's second attempt--the first was binned when he wasn't happy with the shape. "I see the bikes in my mind before I build them," he says, "but as it starts to come together that vision changes. You might see something that changes your perspective. If you are locked in and not open to new influences, you don't leave room for growth. I like to let the process happen, even if it means I have to throw lots of hours of work away."
The second version of the nose has smaller, tighter eyes, Vazquez tells us, narrowed down to better balance the front of the bike with the slimmed-down Honda rear end. The finished piece was fitted with lights taken from an Acerbis flyscreen and positioned to resemble "eyes." The end result is an utterly original-looking visage.
Of course, given such an imaginative fairing and tail, Vazquez couldn't leave the stock fuel tank untouched. The reworked tank now features another Pit Stop trademark--twin molded nitrous bottles, which requires the top half of the tank be cut off and reconstructed with thicker-gauge sheet metal. Topping the tank off is a flush mount, pop-up gas cap taken from the V-twin aftermarket. The final stylistic touch is the stainless steel webbing that wraps over the tank, fenders and kickstand--all fabricated painstakingly by hand by Vazquez. "I don't have any bending tools in my shop," he tells us. "All the webbing is either hammered into shape or bent with my bare hands." Frequent Pit Stop partner, Globe Plating in Newark, New Jersey, handled the chrome platting on the webbing along with other components on the bike.
Carrying on the webbed theme, the wheels are a set of custom-fabricated spiderweb spinners from RC Components featuring candy apple red powder coating on the spinner portions and carrying Braking Wave-style rotors and Avon tires. The front wheel is pinched by a beefier GSX-R1000 inverted fork held in place by chromed Pro-Tek triple clamps. The blinged-out cockpit features a custom diamond plate dashboard cut with the Pit-Stop logo and housing an SPA digital combination speedometer/tachometer/shift light unit, Daytona temperature gauge and a nitrous arming switch which allows the horn button to activate the NOS dry system. The LCD screen located in the center of the dash is the monitor for the MotoCam rear-view camera that Vazquez has hidden under the tail, negating the need for mirrors. The handgrips are modified V-Twin custom accessories, and the controls consist of stock Suzuki levers that have had the blades cut off and skull levers butt-welded on. The steering damper is from Hyperpro.
Save for the aforementioned dry nitrous system, the GSX-R750 engine remains mostly stock--though the exhaust system Vazquez created is worth special mention. Combining a Hindle header, a custom mid-pipe and a Hot Bodies underseat muffler, the exhaust gasses actually exit through a trick, Maltese cross-shaped exhaust tip that originally was intended as a carburetor intake scoop for a V-twin before Vazquez cut it up and mated it to his muffler.
The mile-deep House of Kolor candy-red basecoat was applied by Geejo at Maaco of North Bergen, and covered with airbrushing by Neso Graphics in nearby Passiac before the bodywork was shipped back to Geejo for countless coats of protective clear. Vazquez's attention to detail is unmatched. To give the bike even more impact on the show floor he wired in more than 100 individual LED lights behind the bodywork and underneath the chassis, and topped the bike with a one-off seat cover from Second Look covered in faux ostrich skin with spiderweb stitching. And check out the skulls on the sides of the frame, right above the swingarm pivot points. Vazquez took a skull points cover for a V-Twin, cut it apart, reshaped it and then welded it to the frame before polishing for some extra dimension.
When you look at this bike in the context of Vazquez's previous creations, you can see clearly how his style and technique is evolving and getting even wilder. The obvious question is: Where does Vazquez go from here?
"The first custom sportbike I built is nothing by today's standards," Vazquez says. "We always push it forward. A project like this allows me to explore my own talents, to build something better and even wilder than before." Obviously, chopper culture is a huge influence for Vazquez, even though he has no intention of branching out into the V-twin world. "The V-Twin guys do phenomenal work, but I like to merge the two worlds," Vazquez says. "I would like to be seen as the Billy Lane of the rice rocket world. Right now it's a matter of time, money and space. I have some ideas, and they are pretty wild. They will surprise some people."
Fortunately, space is no longer an issue; just before press time Pit Stop moved out of their old spider hole in North Bergen and into a bigger facility on Summit Avenue in Union City, New Jersey (phone them at 201/974-1000), a space over twice the size of the old location. Still, new digs aside, there's sure to be at least one dark, dank corner where Vazquez can retreat to cut, hammer, weld and otherwise bring his next evil sportbike creation to life.