Daytona Weapon: Reloaded and back for more

Zak Shibazaki, the owner of custom motorcycle shop Sundance Enterprises in Tokyo, knows two things very well: Harley V-twin engines and racing at Daytona.

Shibazaki first brought a team to the high banks in 1998 and has been a staple in the paddock in years since. A popular fixture in the pits, Shibazaki has built his reputation on his exotic racebike: the Daytona Weapon.

The motorcycle, which is being ridden in 2006 by Sadandri Hikita but has been raced by Jay Springsteen in years past, is best described as a highly evolved 1997 Harley-Davidson Twin Cam.

Nearly every part of the bike is hand-built by Shibazaki, and what isn’t has been designed specifically for performance. For example, the high-compression pistons were cast by Wiseco just for this bike, and the rods they ride on were fabricated by Shibazaki himself.

However, while pressing the boundaries of engine design is good for development, it does tempt reliability, and that has haunted Shibazaki. The motorcycle has DNF’ed several races at Daytona over the years, but each time something breaks, he merely sees it as an opportunity to improve the machine.

“There’s no course like this in Japan. I have a responsibility to my customers. I try to work at a very high level here to make my customer bikes very reliable,” Shibazaki says. “I’m here for development.”

This year, however, Shibazaki got more out of Daytona than a reliability run. Hikita rode the Daytona Weapon to first place in Monday’s Battle of Twins Formula 2 event. Although Tuesday’s race would end win another DNF—and a victory got Suzuki SV rider Kiyo Watanabe from Burbank, California—Shibazaki is already working on some new ideas.

Shibazaki says that future areas of development for the Daytona Weapon will be fuel injection, which he will design himself, and water cooling.

“It hasn’t been easy. Daytona is a cruel track to all motorcycles, and it has been especially cruel to mine over the years,” Shibazaki says. “However, it’s one of my favorite places to be in the world. Next year, I’ll be back.”

© 2006, American Motorcyclist Association