Yea...we've been discussing that and believe me, I'm not all about power w/o control or how to maximize it. I can TOTALLY understand where you come from, Lizard! Racing cars from the past 7 years have humbled and taught me many lessons and of course, I have my negative opinion toward people who concern about appearance/mods without tracking their high-hp cars. If I could humbly share my experience, on the first 4 years, I've raced from front to mid-engine, RWD, FWD, AWD, turboed, supercharged, and twincharged cars. Not only as a driving instructor on autox tracks, but also programming on how many turbo/supercharger boost per rpm are my specialty. Now, you know where I come from and why I mention the 'kit' for the bike in our pm's. Tracking a bike is a foreign land for me, especially R1 is my first bike. After many many nights (about 2 years) of research and discussions with few experts, the final day (abt 6 months ago) came to decide which bike to purchase...for the ultimate purpose: track. I've done enough research on almost all of 1 liter bikes out there and their weaknesses. It comes in as a top performer for handling, reliability, bullet-proof 5 valves/cylinder overbuilt Yamaha engine, and weight/hp/tq ratio. R1 weakness is the dip on 7K but few mods can be done to cure that....cheap mods! This dip have to be taken care first before tracking. Tracking with the 'dip' has frustrated racers and I don't want to find it out first hand. I don't think you're guilty for the rant...I understand where you came from! I only wish you knew me a lot more and how much I push my bike to my limit so harsh opinion/assumption doesn't need to come out in the first place. No need to say sorry and I owe you a beer when we hang out!!