If a guy walked up and told you his Suzuki Bandit 1200 could whip your Hayabusa in a drag race, you'd probably laugh in his face. And why wouldn't you? Everyone knows the GSX1300R is the quickest production motorcycle ever made. In Cycle World's performance testing, the burly Busa ran the quarter-mile in 9.86 seconds at 145.80 mph, fully 1.3 seconds quicker and 26 mph faster than the Bandit's best-ever pass. So it'd be no contest, right?

Not if the guy's name is Dale Walker. An accomplished professional drag racer, Walker has spent the last few years fettling a Bandit 1200S to the point that he claimed it could seriously rival a Hayabusa.

To prove that he could walk the walk as well as talk the talk (and as his friends will tell you, he talks non-stop!), Walker invited us to Carlsbad Raceway to watch his Bandit run.

The results were astounding. Right out of the truck, the Bandit clocked a 10-flat at 134.91 mph — more than a second quicker than stock. Walker then further impressed us by running a dozen passes all within a tenth of a second! Talk about having your shtick together. And when he finally did blow a couple of runs, he knew right away, aborting by the 60-foot line. His best run ended up being a 9.93 at 136.41 mph. That's just .07 of a second and 9 mph slower than our record-setting Hayabusa!

So, how do you make a Bandit run that hard? To hear Walker tell it, it's surprisingly easy.

Forget about all the trick cosmetic parts on the bike in these photos. It is, by necessity, a rolling catalog for Walker's company (Holeshot Performance Products, 320 Babe Thompson Rd., La Selva, CA 95076; 831/761-2808; www.holeshot.com). Instead, focus on those parts that contribute to making this particular Bandit run sub-10-second quarter-miles.

Starting with the engine: The air/oil-cooled, GSX-R1100-derived lump has had its displacement bumped from 1157cc to 1216cc via JE forged pistons. Built to Walker's specifications, these feature a relatively conservative 11.0:1 compression ratio that lets the streetable engine run on pump gas.

Fuel/air mix enters through the stock bank of Mikuni 36mm carburetors, which have been rejetted and equipped with Walker's own needles (painstakingly developed over a period of two months) and exposed K&N filters. Spent gases exit through a four-into-one Holeshot Vortex High Pipe, which is unique in that the muffler section fits the stock header, so that budget-minded owners can purchase the slip-on first, then upgrade to a full system when money allows. In addition to boosting power, the exhaust shaves weight, tipping the scales at 16 pounds less than stock.

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