Our Personal Vehicles: Ninja 250R

Welcome to our first blog. We thought that a good place to start would be providing some insight into who we are and what we are about. What better way to do that than to cover our personal vehicles and what they mean to us. This is my 2012 Ninja 250r production 250 race bike.

I purchased this bike as a clean low km example in the spring of 2017 with the express goal of learning how to ride on track. After my first track day I was hooked. I spent 2017 going to as many track days as I could and getting as much seat time as possible.

At the conclusion of the season I decided to take my riding to the next level and try my hand at racing. Over the winter I replaced all the bodywork with fiberglass racing pieces, did some basic upgrades to the fork and front brake, installed some rearsets, and got to safety wiring everything. In the spring of 2018 I enrolled in the new racer school with the Westwood Motorcycle Racing Club (WMRC). That first season was very humbling to say the least and I found myself at the back and more often than not getting lapped. I had a lot to learn.

I set my focus on improving. Approaching each race weekend with the goal of bettering my previois results. My lap times gradually got faster, I stopped getting lapped by the front runners, my confidence grew, and I started to challenge the riders ahead of me. I made a few more upgrades to the bike: a rear shock, front brake rotor, full exhaust, and clip-ons.

in 2019 I was given the most improved rider award by WMRC and I kept that motivation up. Always improving with every race and learning all I could from my fellow racers. After a year off in 2020 for reasons we are all well aware of I was back to racing with WMRC in 2021. All my hard work paid off and I won the Production 250 championship with WMRC.

After that season I had to pull away from racing at the larger tracks to focus on other things. I continue to campaign this bike with the Pacific Coast Mini Racing Club (PCMRC). I am happy to see that the 250 production class is growing for the first time since I started racing. The grids are faster and larger every year, track records continue to be broken year after year, and it’s made for some of the most fun and most competitive racing I have ever had.

In 2023 I completely overhauled the bike with a reframe and fresh engine. I cleaned up the bodywork and gave it a new paint job. In 2024 I will be returning to WMRC to race the 600 Supersport class on my new to me zx6r. Fun fact: I adorned the bike with the “I’M DOWN” duck sticker (it might be a goose actually) before my first ever race. I also had the same sticker on my very first motorcycle. This sticker was the inspiration for the name Lucky Duck Racing.