Upon spotting the new ZX-10R parked in front of our hotel outside Road Atlanta my first thought was: "Wow, Kawi finally got the styling right." The Ninja sits low and mean, personifying the tired old cliché of "a racebike with lights," but that's precisely what the ZX-10R looks like. Kawi exacerbated my initial reaction the following day when a tech rolled out a piped and tuned ZX-10R and jacked it on a rearstand in the pit lane; I mistook the stock plastics for race bodywork with decal headlights stuck on. Maybe the copious amount of Georgia sweet tea was getting to my head, but at a glance it looked like a racebike. I was wrong, of course, but in a cool way.
The new styling package is critical to the ZX-10R's success because we all know it has always been a monstrously fast literbike, just inexcusably ugly. The introductory model in 2004 looked something like a coy fish, the second generation more like a clumsy wheelbarrow and the third version was buggier than a cicada. It always went like stink on a monkey but you still had to fight to keep your lunch down when you looked at the thing.
Wide bars echo the low-slung mirrors while the windscreen seems to hang unsuspended above the angular upper fairing. Work your way to the rear and you're rewarded with a tidy LED taillight and narrow tail section that's got an easily removable license plate hanger assembly-no hacksaw required.
So the styling was obviously sorted at a glance, but we knew little about what lay beneath the stylish new plastic. Kawasaki had mercy on us and held its press conference the night before we rode the bike (instead of the morning of) during a cocktail hour. The small group of media reps initially figured Team Green was just trying to lube us up so we'd absorb everything we were told without much fuss, but the readily available adult beverages actually stirred us into a curious frenzy, and rightfully so.
Kawasaki gave a technically intense presentation, but it was a welcome approach and critical to understanding the symbiosis of the new engine and electronic components. Kawasaki's proficient tech expert, Rob Taylor, led us through the extensive revisions, but he uttered some dirty catch phrases along the way that caused some commotion between the ears. "The engine was designed to not offer any more midrange torque than necessary," was one baffling expression, followed by "...peak torque has been moved to a higher RPM range."
The new bike was starting to sound like a rolling declaration of government restrictions and racetrack-only focus, but soon that notion was tossed out the window.