Here's a picture from a magazine of Mike Penland on his orange 650. There was no other info with it, just the picture.

Orange_650

NICE!!!!

Mike is not racing the 650 as of yet. So far this season he has been on an old 400. He is hoping Kawi will let him run the 650 before the season ends. Kawi does not seem to want it raced before its release.

It is not that Kawasaki does not want to race it right now. The problem is that the 650's have not shipped to the Dealers yet. AMA Rules state that the vehicle has to be available for the public to be able to race it. That is not the exact statement but until they hit the dealers you will not see it on the track. I am a good friend of Mike's and I promise you he is itching to race it.

Kevin

I wonder if he'll be competing in the Utility Stock class, or will he switch back to the Utility Modified. Frankly, with the 500cc machine he has now, I wonder how he is competing in a stock class. It is certain that he WON'T be competing in the Utility Unlimited class.

Funny thing about the UU class, it seems that other riders (on other brands) were complaining that the Polaris machines (mostly stock) had an unfair advantage and they wanted to get them out of the Utility Modified class. The AMA bent over backwards to their wishes and made the Utility Unlimited class.

Yet when you read all of the ATV rags the Polaris Scramblers and the Yamaha Wolverine aren't that far apart in performance. I've even heard that some of the newer Sport/Ute machines are getting pretty sporty (especially the Rubicon). Kind of makes you think about the real world sometimes, instead of what the publish in the magazines, huh? It seems that racing and magazine articles just don't jive.

Well, just my two cents...