Who was it that raced a VTR professionally for a year or so a couple years back? And were they american?

 

Kiyo Watanabe built the bike, but I think it was only club raced. And if it was raced in a major series it was probably JSB.

 

Who was the major sponsor?

 

http://www.acidfast.com/1999.html

 

you are probably thinking of the moriwaki bike.
that was raced in japan.

 

Seeing as how we're adding to the list, I believe that Revolution Racing (Roger Ditchfield's team, British Moriwaki distributor) raced one in the UK Superbike series and I seem to re-call someone doing so in Australia too.

 

Kiyo was telling me that pushed to limits, he was never able to really get the chassis to work properly (i.e. unstable around Daytona ). More recently he has frankensteined SV650/1000 and Superhawk parts together, and continues to race his old and fairly trusty Hawks.

 

Pic of Frankenstein:

 

Hard to tell what that is! Superhawk plastics from the look of the side vents, but I've never seen those before. Suzuki tank. Not a stock swingarm for a VTR. Inverted forks from ???. Yeah, that's interesting....

 

Yep, Kiyo's nuckin' futs!