What a Drag | MC M.C.

Photo: Kevin Wing

Before unleashing editors on Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s drag strip aboard the nearly-200-bhp ZX-14R for this month’s cover story, Kawasaki arranged for its staff strip savant, 9-times World Champion Rickey Gadson, to give the keyboard jockeys expert instruction. Even with Gadson’s one-on-one coaching—“Clutch out! Clutch out! CLUTCH-ALL-THE-WAY-OUT, then gas!”—Aaron Frank couldn’t crack into the nines, much less come close to matching Gadson’s assembly line 9.60s, on the hard-to-launch Mega-Ninja.