MPS/Thyen Racing
Pro Mod Race Report
4.06 run
4.072@172.74mph Video
4.08 "World's Quickest Hayabusa" Video
4.11 Pass Video
Check out our Holley Commercial
About the bike: This bike is a totally unique combination for Pro Comp. It starts with a highly modified Suzuki Hayabusa powerplant with an MPS billet block, CP Pistons, Crower rods, Cooper Performance cylinder head with Kibblewhite valves, APE springs and cylinder studs in an Innovative Performance Racing chassis. It features what we call “MPS Lethal Injection,” a combination of MPS Spyder Dry Nitrous system and the new Holley Dominator ECU. This custom EFI/nitrous system controls all motorcycle functions including data logging.
We would also like to thank all our other parts suppliers without whom we could not race. Thanks to Kevin at Lectron Fuel Systems for the awesome new “Injectrons”, Tim at Holley EFI, Ray at MSD Ignition, Jay at APE, Snake & RC at CP-Carrillo, Bill at Robinson Industries, Kerry at Crower, Lori, Debbie, and Melissa at Web Cam, Mike at Cometic, Go Go at Nitrous Express, Kurt at Millennium Technology, Will at Kibblewhite Precision Machining, Carl at ARC, Eric at MTC Engineering, Dave at Worldwide Bearings, Dawn at Bates Leathers, Hot Rod Chrissy for her awesome photos, and last but not least Brandi at Dragbike.com for the great coverage of our sport.
11/30/2014 - MPS/Thyen Racing Wins Manufacturers Cup Pro Comp Championship: Turn the clock back to 2008. Mike Thyen takes on the task of building a competitive Pro Comp/Pro Extreme Motorcycle with a Hayabusa powerplant. Most Pro Comp/Pro Extreme Motorcycle racers scoffed and told him it couldn’t be done. In true Thyen fashion, he decided to do it anyway. By the World Finals in 2010 the bike had gone a best of 4.23 with Lectron carbs, Schnitz ignition, and Billy Vose riding. I had been helping with the bike on a very small scale. Mike and I discussed MPS getting more involved with the bike at the 2010 World Finals. I told him I would if he went with the 
Holley Electronic Fuel Injection instead of carbs. Mike sold the original rolling chassis January 2011 and contracted Terry Stemper of Innovative Performance to build a new chassis. We finished all the mounts, tabs, and wiring at MPS in the spring. We were finally ready by June for our first outing. We qualified #8 and ran a 4.36 with Mike aboard at Bristol Dragway. At the Manufacturers Cup World Finals in 2011, Mike ran a 4.23. This equaled the best the old carbureted bike had gone with Billy riding the year before. We were encouraged to be back where we were, if not slightly ahead, in just half of a season.
For 2012 we decided that we needed Billy in the seat full time. After all, he is the best Pro Comp/Pro Extreme Motorcycle rider out there. We were working hard on all kinds of new ideas. We would run a 4.11 to eclipse the HTP bikes and become the “World’s Quickest Hayabusa.” Billy won the first race for the team that year. We were finally becoming competitive!
Our 2012 successes made us even more optimistic about the new year. We had larger engines and a few other goodies to help us this year. We came out swinging in April with a number one qualifier and a win at the first Manufacturers Cup race of the year in Bradenton, FL. We ran our first 4.0 pass at Maryland International Raceway at a MIROCK event in October. We were in a tight points race with Brunson Grothus for the Manufacturers Cup championship. The title would go to who went the furthest in eliminations. We met in the semi finals where we came out on the losing end of a .008 second margin of victory race, giving Brunson the championship for 2013. We ran a team best of 4.07 at that race and were even more determined for next year.
2014 would start well with a number five qualifying spot and a runner up finish at the first Manufacturers Cup race at SGMP in Valdosta, GA. The second Manufacturers Cup race at Virginia Motorsports Park we were #1 qualifier with a new team best of 4.06, but could only get to the second round. The next race was a PDRA race back at Virginia Motorsports Park. We qualified sixth and would run a best of 4.08 in route to a win over 2013 champ Eric McKinney. This was the first PDRA win for our team. The next weekend was the 3rd Man Cup race, moved from Atlanta Dragway back to SGMP in Valdosta. We had visions of back to back victories. We worked our way to the final round against Brunson Grothus only to have a cam pin loosen and come out and tear up our cam position sensor. We watched our back to back chances die with the bike, 40 feet off the starting line. PDRA Dragstock at Rockingham would be a giant race with 22 fast Pro Extreme Motorcycle entries. We qualified #1 with another team best 4.045 @ 175.76 just .009 seconds off the PDRA national record of 4.036. We won round one, but weather issues would postpone the second round until the PDRA Finals back at Virginia Motorsports Park. The weather in Virginia was terrible and would cause the Friday-Saturday race to be run on Sunday night and Monday. This wouldn’t have been so bad except Billy had a flight to Bahrain to catch at 6:00 PM Sunday that couldn’t be changed. This was very disappointing for everyone on our team to have to forfeit both of these races. Leading the Manufacturers Cup Pro Comp points by less than a round over Paul Gast and by 2 rounds over Travis Davis we knew the World Finals would be a dog fight for the championship. I believe for the first time ever, Paul Gast would not qualify. Billy went out in the second round in a close race to Mark Paquette’s turbo. Travis Davis joined us in exiting the race in the second round to make Billy the 2014 Manufacturers Pro Comp Champion! The first ever Hayabusa and the first electronic fuel injected bike to win the Pro Comp title!
10/19/2014: The weather in Virginia on Thursday was absolutely gorgeous. If only it could have stayed that way! Friday morning we woke to cloudy skies, cooler temperatures, and big chances of rain. Just after noon we made our first lap, a 4.10, good enough for 7th qualifier. The clutch was slipping on our run. Not wanting to take chances, we replaced the whole clutch with a known good assembly and were ready to go fast. Remember, the 2nd round of 
Virginia qualifying would also be our second round from the rain postponed Rockingham race. Then came the rain and the first of many track drying sessions ensued. Just as the track was close to dry the rain would come again. This kept up until Friday night when racing was called for the day.
Saturday the weather wasn’t any better. We were actually in the lanes paired up at one point when it rained. Saturday turns out to be a wash out also.
We woke up to a cold, dismal, and rainy Sunday. This was supposed to be a Friday/Saturday race. Now the extra day has our backs against the wall because Billy has to leave at 2:00 in the afternoon. He is flying out to Bahrain to race for Drag 965. It was still raining at noon so we all packed everything up and headed home. We would have to forfeit both races. The pretty pink MPS logo for breast cancer awareness would only go down the track once this weekend. Giant kudos to PDRA for their monumental effort to run this race. They brought in a jet dryer and vowed to finish both races! PDRA could not have done any more to get these races in. Mike said “I have never seen a racing organization stay two extra days to finish a race with that poor of a weather outlook! I know they said they would, but very unusual for them to take that chance. They were there till almost midnight Monday night to finish!”
We are looking ahead to the Manufacturers Cup World Finals at South Georgia Motorsports Park on November 14-16, 2014. We are currently leading the Man Cup points chase and are prepared to throw the kitchen sink at it to win this championship! We will also have a bit of a celebrity crew member at the World Finals. Stop by and say hi to Flying Fil from Greece, the amazing Top Fuel racer that traded bikes at 170 MPH at Santa Pod Raceway.
09/17/2014: We had been to back to back final rounds and won the last PDRA event we attended. So naturally, we planned to continue our winning ways at PDRA Dragstock XI held at Rockingham Dragway.
The first round of qualifying was a disappointing 4.19 putting us in the 8th position. After looking at our data we saw a problem in our nitrous system, but weren’t sure what the cause was. We changed a couple of things and ran a 4.25 for Q2 resulting in the 12th qualifying spot. Needless to say we were not very happy with our performance and still had our nitrous issue. Deeper investigation finally revealed our problem. With the nitrous issue fixed we rolled up for the final qualifying round with a do or die tune up. I think Mike called it a “Haymaker”! 
With 22 motorcycles here we knew we could easily be bumped out of the show if we didn’t improve. It was déjà vous from last year where we were qualified badly going into the final session and went to #3 on the final qualifier. Billy left hard drifting right and had to hang off the left side to keep it straight! A great job of riding from Mr. Vose as usual. 4.045 @ 175.78 flashes on the scoreboard, we have gone from 12th to #1 qualifier! What an awesome run, only .009 off the PDRA Pro Extreme Motorcycle record! 
First round we ran Brad McCoy, the only other Hayabusa powered entry in the field. Billy left first and never looked back running a tire spinning 4.091 @ 174.44 to McCoy’s 4.339 @ 164.81. We were just called to the lanes for 2nd round Sunday when the drizzle started. It quit and the track drying started only to have it rain again prompting PDRA to pull the plug for the weekend and resume eliminations at the Finals in Richmond Virginia on October 10-12. So stay tuned boys and girls and watch the live feeds on: http://motormaniatv.com/ . We would like to send a big time thank you to the Drag 965 team for feeding us this weekend. Awesome food for lunch and dinner
08/05/14: The team had been on a week long high after winning the PDRA race at Virginia Motorsports Park. We had no time to rest on our laurels with only a few days to prepare for the Manufacturers Cup’s DME Racing Summer Nationals at South Georgia Motorsports Park. We arrived on Friday with hopes of back to back wins.
In Q1 Billy ran a 4.17 @ 168 MPH, good enough for the #2 spot. For Q2 we added power and lost our grip of the track, running a disappointing 4.210 @ 170 MPH. A few adjustments to help the first 60 feet would net a 4.145 @ 172 MPH in Q3 putting us in the in the #2 spot. With a handle on the 60 foot, we were ready for eliminations on Sunday.
Our first round opponent is Nick Corley. Billy leaves first with a .007 reaction time to Nick’s respectable .043. Turns out we needed every bit of the .036 second starting line advantage when the bike did not want to shift 3rd gear. After rolling out of the throttle Billy was able to finally get it into 3rd gear. Billy’s lead at the stripe was a scant .012 running a 4.36 to Corley’s quicker 4.33.
Since we had a tranny issue in the first round, we made the decision to install another bullet. We had an earned bye in the second round that would let us get a run to get data from the new engine on this racetrack. We ran a 4.161 @ 169 on our bye run.
In the semi final we would race the wicked fast turbo of Mark Paquette. He had just beat #1 qualifier Paul Gast the round before with a 4.11 @ 182 MPH run. This would be a critical lap for us. We poured over all our data to make the best tuning decision possible for this run. Billy’s quick reactions would pay off once again with a .011 light to Paquette’s painful .115. With over a tenth of a second in the bank our 4.136 @ 170 would be enough to get by Mark’s quicker 4.078 @ 195 MPH.
Brunson Grothus had quietly dispatched all the opponents on his side of the ladder to reach the finals. Mike and I put our best final round tune up in our bike and turned Billy loose. The tree flashed, Brunson was off first when our bike abruptly quit running ending our chances against Brunson’s troubled 4.36 @ 163 MPH. We would later find a pin came out of the camshaft destroying the cam sensor and stopping the engine.
We couldn’t be more pleased with the progress of this motorcycle and our team. One win, two runner ups, and a number 1 qualifier in 4 race starts this year!
7/26/2014: We were scheduled to run 5 PDRA events this year, with the Virginia event to be our third. I guess we aren’t going to win any attendance awards, but when we are present we do make them count! Winning the only PDRA race we have entered was a great win for our team!
We had a slow start to qualifying due to a new rear tire. These Mickey Thompson tires need multiple burnouts and a couple of runs to start working. In Q1 the bike spun really hard and only went a disappointing 4.21. For Q2 Mike made the appropriate changes to the tune up and the bike left better but shut off mysteriously in 2nd gear. Now we have a gremlin to worry about, along with being on the bump spot. With only one more qualifying run left Saturday morning it was crunch time. After much discussion, we were pretty confident we knew the origin of our electrical issue. In Q3 Billy ran straight and true and under power the whole track to a 4.153 @ 171.69, good enough for the #6 final qualifying spot. 
Winning the first round, we ran a 4.162 @ 172.17 to the troubled 4.35 of Terry “Milk Man” Schweigert. For the semi final our opponent was Ronnie Procopio who had just ran a 4.12 and had lane choice. We were still struggling with the first part of the racetrack. We needed to straighten that out very quickly or our day could end in the semis. Mike decided to swing for the fence with the rationale that we had to get to the final to win it. Billy killed the tree with a .008 light and tore up the track with a 4.088 @172.94. Here we are going to our second final of the year against the McKinney team. This time the opponent would be Eric McKinney. We had lane choice with our .08 to his .09 in the semi. This was going to be an epic race. Billy left first by .018 and never looked back! Billy runs 4.11 @ 172.32 to McKinney’s 4.17 to take the win! We have been to two finals, and been #1 qualifier once in our first three races of the year. We feel we are still getting better every race and team morale is high. Watch us next weekend at the Manufacturers Cup race at SGMP in Valdosta, GA. We will definitely be looking to double up there! Special thanks go to Paul Reynolds and Cliff Johnson for the extra help this weekend!
06/22/2014: Mike and I were chomping at the bit to go racing. We had planned to race the PDRA event at SGMP but Billy was called away to the Middle East. Since that is a slightly better paying gig than ours we were left without a rider. The bright side was we had some extra (if there is such a thing) time to work on our program. We got all of our engines freshened up, added some new data acquisition, and did a little component testing. Dawn from Bates Leathers delivered some cool new leathers for Billy, which got lots of compliments this weekend.
The trip to Virginia was a little bit of an adventure going through a mere 4 tires. The plan was to install the new “Project X” powerplant in the frame rails Thursday night before Friday morning test session. The clouds were pouring rain for most of the evening to complicate our task. We finished up Friday morning and were ready for the test session. We made 2 normally aspirated runs to tune the new engine, netting a 7.87 quarter mile time, our quickest to date. Test time was cut short and we were forced to make our best guess on the nitrous tune up for the first round of qualifying. We ran a 4.14, the quickest of the round, making us the current #1qualifier.
Unfortunately our guess on the tune up was a slight bit lean and hurt the rings. We spent Saturday night swapping engines. Ready to go for the 2nd round of qualifying, we decided to be a little safer with the tuning. We ran a 4.23, a little safer than we thought. Meanwhile, Travis Davis had taken the #1 spot with a nice 4.08. We were the last bike in line for the last qualifying round, by the time we were ready to run we had been bumped back to 3rd. We tuned it back up and ran a team best 4.06 and jumped back to the #1 spot! Unfortunately, we killed another set of rings and were forced to miss our Italian dinner with the Stempers to change another engine. Special thanks go to Walt Timblin of Timblin Chassis for putting up the #1 Qualifier money! We definitely appreciate any extra prize money!
Link to the video of the 4.06 run
First run we had a bye run and decided to be a little conservative with the tune up with the new engine and get some data. We went 4.12. We had Dave Norris in the second round. Dave, an ADRL Battle of the Belts winner, can step up and run good numbers anytime so we stepped on it a little bit for the run. We made the correct adjustments, Billy cut a .006 light, ran a 1.02 60 footer ( .02 better than the 4.12 pass) and the bike started missing just after the 60 foot because of a leaking o-ring in the fuel system. Our 4.188 trailed by only .019 at the stripe to Norris’ .038 initiated 4.137.
All in all, it was a good weekend for the team. We made some big strides with things we are experimenting with and expect them to bear fruit very soon. Watch for us to do well in Valdosta!
04/13/2014: We worked hard over the winter to improve all facets of our race program, from making our pit area 
more user friendly to having all our bullets ready for use at the first race. We arrived at South Georgia Motorsports Park on Thursday to test some new fuel strategies with a new engine. After an unsuccessful first burnout and 3 hours we solved the ground lead issue that was keeping us off the track. The engine worked great and we were thinking had some promise until on the last lap of the test session we put the nitrous to it and it wouldn’t shift 3rd gear. We saw a few things we thought could cause the problem, so we worked on it Thursday night. Friday’s test session confirmed the worst and there was trouble in the transmission itself. After a motor swap we were ready for the first qualifying run. We ran a 4.20 with a soft initial tune up, good enough for #5 qualifying spot.
Saturday morning after tuning it up we ran a disappointing 4.19. Looking at the data we found that our more powerful tune up had caused clutch slippage. For the final qualifier we tightened up the clutch and ran 4.14 @ 172 putting us back in the 5th position.
First round we dispatched the #12 qualifier Richardo Knight 4.15 to 4.28. Second round would be the McKinney Motorsports entry of Eric McKinney, fresh off a PDRA win last week in Rockingham. Billy got the best of McKinney on the tree and on the track winning with a .014 initiated 4.134 to McKinney’s .023 and 4.166. The #1 qualifier Mark Paquette and the amazingly fast turbo bike would be our competition in the semi final. Our slightly off pace 4.17 would beat his even further off pace 4.37 and we are off to the final round. We hadn’t seen the last of the always tough McKinney Motorsports bikes as we had Ashley Owens in the final. Billy pushed the tree a little too hard posting a -.009 red light ending our day with a runner up finish. All in all a good first outing for 2014!
11/10/2013: With 33 countries represented at the final Manufacturers Cup race of the year in Bradenton, FL, the event had a decided international flavor. The race was highlighted by Eric Teboul on the “Rocket Bike” running a phenomenal, unbelievable, incredible, and every other expletive you can come up with 5.12 @ 264 MPH.
We were leading the Manufacturers Cup Pro Comp championship points by a scant 5 points ahead of C.D. Watson, and 6 ahead of Brunson Grothus. We had to go at least as far as either of them to win the championship.
We paced the field for the first round of qualifying on Friday with a 4.110@172.74 MPH. While doing routine between run maintenance we discovered the crank was extremely tight in “Problem Child”. This engine seems to be living up to its name. We had experimented with some new bearing technology and it had bitten us. We installed “Moe” on Friday night and we were ready for Q2. Billy blasted off a team best 4.072@ 173.94 MPH resetting the quickest run for a Hayabusa powered motorcycle. Because we had hurt one of our best engines in just one round of qualifying and we were already qualified #1, we elected not to run the third qualifier. A calculated decision that paid off, as no one was able to best our Q2 time and we would stay #1 qualifier.
Sunday first round was an earned bye run, so we decided to save wear and tear on our engine and just break the beam. Second round we had Kim Morrell, a former ADRL “Battle of the Belts” winner. She had problems in the burnout box and couldn’t make the run. We ran a 4.104@172.87 to advance to the Semis against Brunson Grothus who had just run a 4.08 in the previous round. C.D. Watson had been eliminated earlier. The championship coming down to a one race shootout is just the way we wanted it. We had detuned slightly for the 4.10 pass the second round, so we knew it was stand on it time for Grothus. Billy ran slightly quicker with a 4.110 to Brunson’s 4.114, but Brunson’s stellar .015 reaction to Billy’s good .027 was enough to get Brunson to the finish line .008 ahead of Billy. We had gone 1.02 sixty foot times every run this weekend except this one, a tire spinning 1.04. Seems we got after it a little too much.
All in all a great season for our team, we have qualified in the top 3 at the last three races of the year! We have the “World’s Quickest Hayabusa” and are #2 in Pro Comp points for Manufacturers Cup. In addition, we have the best rider in the class and 90+ years of combined drag race motorcycle experience. We will be back next year with a vengeance!
10/6/2013: We rolled into Maryland International Raceway on a mission to run 4.0s. We started with the tune up from last race as our baseline for the first round of qualifying Friday night and ran a 4.13 @ 174.73. The bike was way too aggressive and we smoked the tire like a Top Fueler; running a terrible 60 foot of 1.08. The bright side was this was our career best speed and we can calm down the initial launch to get our normal 1.01 or 1.02 60 foot times. We did a planned engine swap for Q2 and ran a clutch slipping 4.19.
The HTP Performance gang had run a 4.095 last year to take the “World’s Quickest Hayabusa” title from us. The next round we ran a 4.096, our first 4.0, but a thousandth of a second short! On the final qualifier we ran a 4.088 to finally become the “World’s Quickest Hayabusa” again! A leak down test revealed an issue with the new engine and the original engine was installed in the frame rails for eliminations. First round we defeated a red lighting Jeremy Teasley with a 4.11. Second round we met the familiar red FBG entry of Paul Gast. Paul had been no quicker than 4.12 all weekend, but ran a stellar 4.06 to beating Billy to the finish line by a scant 6 thousandths of a second ending our day early.
9/8/2013: Since this was to be our only appearance at an ADRL race this year we wanted to show the GS motored racers what our little Hayabusa powered Pro Mod could do. The first run was an unimpressive 4.29 caused by a 
clutch that slipped the whole 1/8 mile. We found what we thought was the problem for the second qualifying run only to run a 4.25 with the clutch still slipping just not as badly as the first run. We are now on the bump spot in danger of not being able to race on Sunday. With 21 bikes trying to get into a 16 bike field and weather conditions improving for the final round of qualifying, we knew that it would take more than a 4.25 to get in this field. With our back against the wall we installed a completely new clutch that we had run before. Waiting to run, we watched as the bump was lowered to a 4.21, bumping us out of the field. This was going to be a nail biter of a run. Billy ran straight and true to a 4.11 @ 173 MPH putting us in the #3 spot.
First round of eliminations we advanced past a red lighting John Collins with a 4.18 shut off pass. The second round we would meet Paul Gast. Billy had the light but the bike developed a glitch that would shut it off for a split second after the shift slowing us to a 4.15. We would finish just .018 behind the FBG entry. Next race will be the MIROCK series in Budds Creek, MD where we have a date with 4.0s!
8/18/2013 – We arrived at Indy with 2 fresh engines and high hopes they would be what we needed to get the bike in the 4.0 second range. Testing on Friday with small jets produced a 4.22 followed by a 4.21. The surprising thing was the quarter mile times of 6.69 @ 191and 6.62 @ 196 for those runs even with eighth mile gearing. The first qualifying run Friday was a 4.18. We made some changes on Saturday and ran 4.16 and 4.13. The 4.13 would qualify us fifth in the 16 bike field only .06 off the low ET of the race. This would pit us against C.D. Watson from Texas in round one. We had been working on getting the bike to react and apparently we did a good job. Billy went -.008 on the tree to turn on the red light, ending our day early. We ran a 4.15 on that run though. to C.D.’s 4.33. All in all a good outing for our team.
07/23/2013 - The decision to go to the Fast by Gast WPGC Bike Fest at Maryland International Raceway this last weekend was determined by how well testing at Farmington Dragway went earlier this month. Mike set the bar at a 4.15 or better or we would sit it out. Billy rode the Hayabusa powered Pro Comp to a 4.16 with a 1.00 sixty footer which Mike deemed close enough.
The first qualifying pass of 4.339, with the exact tune up that had went 4.16 the week before in Farmington was disappointing. In the second round we improved only slightly to a 4.30. Wholesale changes were in order now! The third round realized the improvement we were looking for on the second run. The 4.172 wound up good enough for the #4 spot.
First round Sunday eliminations had us paired with Casey Stemper. Stemper was off the line first and ran a 4.17 to our second place 4.20. All in all, not a bad outing for our team. Obviously we would have liked to have performed better in eliminations. However, learning and collecting data is so very important to our eventual success in Pro Comp.
Looking ahead to the Manufactures Cup at Indianapolis Raceway Park, we will arrive on August 16 with the points lead and a determination to keep it. Both of our larger motors will be in play for the first time. Could they be the key to our future success? Only time will tell.
6/14/2013 – We are expecting a larger and higher quality field of Pro Comp bikes at Virginia Motorsports Park on June 21-23, 2013 for the East Coast Cup. We have been working some long hour to prepare the MPS/Thyen racing Pro Comp Hayabusa for battle with the best Pro Comp bikes in the country.
Armed with some secret parts I can't discuss and some shiny new high tech 5 pound nitrous bottles from Nitrous Express we have never been more excited to get to the track. We feel like we can improve not only on our Bradenton numbers, but our career best numbers. We are very encouraged by the progress we are making as a team now. Everything is starting to fall into place for us to compete at the highest level.
04/07/13 - We have worked hard on our program all winter long adding things like traction control, Lectron EFI throttle bodies, and lots of sensors to monitor all that goes on in a 4 second run. We had the track all day Thursday for testing and we were planning to run the wheels off of it. We were greeted by buckets of rain when we arrived in Bradenton, FL for the Exoticycle Spring Cup event. So, we made the best of it and took in a Tampa Bay Rays baseball game instead of our badly needed test session. Friday the skies finally cleared in the afternoon and Billy got to sling a leg over it for the first time this season. The first round of qualifying would be our first lap so we had to guess on our tune up. We weren’t expecting the 4.18 @ 169 out of our little motor. To our surprise, that turned out to be good enough for #1 qualifier.
In the first round we met Rick Perry from Venice, FL, getting back into the sport after a little break. We got past Rick with a 4.25. Next round was an earned bye which set up a final round with C.D. Watson from Texas. Billy left first and never looked back running 4.21 @169 for the win! We are all ecstatic with the win and the Manufacturers Cup points lead, but won't be resting between races. We will work for more power before the Manufacturers Cup in Richmond, VA on June 21-23, 2013.
We would also like to thank all our other parts suppliers without whom we could not race. Thanks to Kevin at Lectron Fuel Systems for the awesome new “Electrons”, Tim at Holley EFI, Ray at MSD Ignition, Jay at APE, Snake & RC at CP-Carrillo, Bill at Robinson Industries, Kerry at Crower, Lori, Debbie, and Melissa at Web Cam, Mike at Cometic, Go Go at Nitrous Express, Kurt at Millennium Technology, Will at Kibblewhite Precision Machining, Eric at MTC Engineering, Dave at Worldwide Bearings, and last but not least Brandi at Dragbike.com for the great coverage of our sport.
9/30/2012 - Maryland International Raceway, the MPS/Thyen Racing becomes the world's quickest Hayabusa again. We have been in lock step with the HTP Hayabusa ridden by Ryan Schnitz for the last half of the season. Coming into this race we had both ran a best of 4.17. Billy Vose riding the MPS/Thyen Racing entry ran a great 4.123, but was second best to the HTP entry running a 4.121. Making the two Hayabusa powered entries #2 & #3 qualifiers in Pro Mod. Both runs were the quickest both these bikes had gone to date. Then on the Sunday morning shakedown run we ran a 4.111 with a stellar 1.007 60 foot. The track and air conditions got worse throughout the day and neither bike was able to improve on their best ETs. Both bikes are technologically far ahead of their GS based counterparts having EFI and dry nitrous systems. We use the Holley Dominator EFI to perform all functions on the motorcycle. It is an awesome system and the only box we have on our bike! Both these Hayabusa Pro Mod bikes also use our billet blocks as does the HTP 6 second Pro Street bike.
MPS/Thyen Racing Get First Win!
We had made several changes to the bike since the last time out and were hoping to run in the 4.20s at the Manufacturers Cup. This is the biggest all motorcycle drag race event in the world, so we wanted to do well. The first run on Friday’s test session was a 4.41. We had a gremlin that would wind up costing us 2 of the 3 qualifying runs. Our backs were against the wall for the final round of qualifying. We were the next to last pair out and needed to run a 4.237 or better to qualify. We ran a career best 4.235 to get in the show in the 16th spot. The last bike to run was Mac McAdams who wasn’t yet in the show either. Mac runs a nice 4.199 to bump us out! That was a big let down to not get to race the main event. But, because of the large number of competitors, the Manufacturers Cup runs a B race for non-qualifiers in Pro Comp and Pro Street. In the first round our competition left before the tree was activated then tossed a rod out the front of the engine. The debris from his engine explosion came across the track in front of Mike. Mike shut it off early, dodging the connecting rod, to get the win. The second round we ran a 4.32 to get the win. We ran 4.24 against Perry Hollie to be the winner of the Pro Comp side of the race. The final against the Pro Street winner was really cool. The unique format would be run ¼ mile on a handicapped Pro tree. The handicap was determined by each class national record. Pro Comp runs 1/8 mile and was converted to a ¼ mile time. We don’t run ¼ mile so our bike wasn’t geared to make it a ¼ mile. I told Mike to run it past the shift light a little in 6th and then shut it off. I wanted a complete engine to take home not a bunch of broken parts. The Pro Street index was set at 7.00 and the Pro Comp at 6.45. I figured we had a really good chance to win this thing because Mike is an past AMA Prostar Pro ET National Champ. In the final Mike had the tree by .055 and ran .a 425 off 6.875 to the Pro Street .552 off 7.552 to take the win. Mike had to womp the gas a few times at the end to get it to the finish line without engine damage, which made it sound just like a bracket race! All in all, a great weekend for our team. We made 3 good solid runs in the low 20s with no engine damage. Now we have good data to tune from for winter testing. We couldn’t be more excited about next season!
Disappointing Outing At ADRL Dragstock For MPS/Thyen Racing Pro Mod
9/12/2011 With the fire damage finally repaired, we loaded up for much needed testing before ADRL Dragstock in Rockingham. We headed to Carolina Dragway and made three 330 foot hits resulting in our best 330s ever and one hurt motor. Changing engines made for a late start on our trip to Rockingham. US 1 between Columbia, SC and Cheraw, SC now gets my nomination for the one of the world’s bumpiest roads. We arrived at Rockingham at 3:30 AM with parts tossed all over the inside of the trailer. After a few hours sleep we prepped the bike for the first lap. Optimistic we had a good tune up, we expected to run in the high 20s. The first pass netted a disappointing 4.40. We had softened the tune up because we weren’t sure what hurt the first motor. We quickly took apart the first motor to see if the damage was tune up related. We decided it was not tune up related and got more aggressive with the tune up for the second qualifying lap. This resulted in hurting our last motor and ending our weekend. This weekend was definitely a disappointment and not what we had envisioned. In spite of the disappointing weekend we learned a lot and will continue to work hard at making the little “Busa” faster.
MPS/Thyen Racing Pro Mod Suffers Fire Damage!
08/03/2011: “I’ve got really really bad news” then a pause. I’m thinking someone died by the tone of Mike’s voice. Multiple scenarios are playing out in my mind. “The bike caught on fire and burned.” This isn’t a good thing, but better than some of the things I was thinking. Mike was outside the garage talking with a neighbor when he noticed the dull orange glow through the window of his garage. The LiPo batteries we were using exploded while charging, sending flaming parts of battery all over the bike. Mike put out the fire with a garden hose, saving his garage and possibly his house.
I believe there is a lesson here that we all can learn from. When we got the batteries, we installed them the way the person we got them from told us to do it. We bought a specific fixed rate battery charger to charge them, but they never seemed to charge fully, so Mike bought a special LiPo battery charger. Without going into details, the directions for charging the LiPo batteries weren’t followed to the letter resulting in the batteries exploding. If we had done our due diligence and researched those batteries BEFORE we started using them we would have never made the mistakes we made. We made lots of mistakes with the care and handling of those batteries. There is nothing wrong with using this type of battery, however be sure to do the research and get the proper equipment to service them. This lesson applies to each part you put on your bike. Make sure you understand what it does and how it does it BEFORE you use it. Knowledge is power, the better you understand your equipment, the easier it will be to do well and stay safe.
We won’t be able to make the MIROCK Summer Sizzler event this weekend in Rockingham, NC. Look for our return in Rockingham, NC on September 9-10, 2011 for the ADRL Drag Stock VIII where the Phoenix will rise from the ashes!
Extreme Heat At MIROCK Bike Fest
07/24/2011: With temperatures in the 100s being the norm at the WPGC Bike Fest at Maryland International Raceway this past weekend, tuners were challenged to say the least. “That kind of heat makes it very hard on people and equipment. Our first qualifying lap on Saturday was at 1:00 in the afternoon and track temp was already 145 degrees. The bike had a little stumble off the starting line and went a 4.39. We made some changes to the fuel delivery for the last qualifier that got rid of the stumble and ran a 4.33. We had anticipated going at least in the .20s but the heat was throwing us a curve.” The Sunday morning shakedown run turned out to be exactly that as we shook the tire and ran 4.36. We were worried about the tire shake and made some changes for the first round that we thought would cure the shake. We were able to sneak past a breaking Mac McAdams in the first round with a less than stellar 4.46. We had gone the wrong way on the tune up and knew we would have to step up in a big way if we were going to get around the number one qualifier, Casey Stemper in the next round. Mike knew he needed to cut a killer light to have any chance against Stemper. When he relaxed his thumb to go for that .000 light the switch broke contact and the bike launched. The red bulb glowing in our lane meant the race was over for us.” Said Dan Rudd.
MPS/Thyen Racing Pro Mod Hayabusa Becomes Quickest EFI Nitrous Hayabusa First Time Out!
06/29/2011: The MPS/Thyen Racing Pro Mod Hayabusa made its maiden voyage at Thunder Valley Dragway in Bristol, TN last weekend. Testing on Friday gave encouraging results with a best of 4.45. Qualifying #8 with another 4.45 and a very conservative tune up. We decided to turn it up a little for our Sunday shakedown run, which netted a 4.39. A few chassis adjustments and we were ready to take on our first round opponent Rob Hunnicutt. Rob was superman on the tree and ended our day with a holeshot win 4.38 to our 4.36. “All in all, it was a great first outing for our team. I was impressed with Mike’s riding, making 8 straight as a string passes in a row. That gives us some good data to tune from. Low ET of eliminations was only a 4.24 because density altitude was at almost 4800 feet. That makes our 4.36 even more impressive.” said crew chief Dan Rudd.
