Winners sometimes start a race weekend deep down a dark hole of destruction, and that was the case for Terry “Milkman” Schweigert. The Canadian dairy farmer was recently riding at the familiar confines of Rockingham Dragway for the XDA Superbike Showdown, expecting a big weekend in the MaxxECU Pro Extreme class on the turbo Suzuki GSX1400 tuned and maintained by Schweigert’s longtime racing partner Dan “The Man” Wagner.

“It was a rough weekend,” said Schweigert. “We had catastrophic engine failure testing on Thursday night. With a lot of help from the Gosselin family, we swapped motors and left the track with the bike around 12:30 am.

“Our first stop was Ehen Litten’s shop to use his press to straighten out the support bearing plate. We got there at 3:30 and slept until 7:00 am. After straightening the plate, we had to go to Dan’s shop and work on the bike and clean up the trailer. Carter and myself worked on the trailer and changed the tire on the bike while Dan worked on the plate and bike.

“We left Dan’s shop at 6:00 pm Friday to try and make first round. We made it, but it started raining soon as we got there, so no qualifying but we did get some sleep. With a bad forecast on Saturday, XDA decided to have only one qualifying pass and then start eliminations.”

Schweigert qualified fifth with a 4.15 at 174 (eighth mile) in an eleven bike field. John Collins was number one with a 4.054 at 178.29, followed closely by Nikie Corley (4.056) and Jean Gosselin (4.083). Rob Garcia, Chris Cutsinger and Brunson Grothus were among the well-stocked field.

“We got one round of eliminations before the rain on Saturday, but we were able to finish the event on Sunday,” said Terry, who had the gods blessing his run through the field. He improved to a 4.06 against a redlighting Joe Smith in E1, and a 3.98 in E2 against Nikie Corley, who also redlit.

In the semis, Schweigert had the bye to the final. Collins beat Grothus in the other semi. Collins’ performance was going in the wrong direction while Schweigert kept improving, running a 3.96 in the final to Collins’ 4.00. It wouldn’t matter anyway, as Collins posted a scant  -.002 redlight.

“We were very lucky and sometimes you need it,” said Terry. “On Thursday night it really seemed impossible to me to finish the event, but Dan had other plans. He said to me ‘We are going to fix the bike and win this thing! Never give up!'”

The bike that Schweigert road to the win is the old Dale Leeks bike from the UK. “Dale sent it to me after the fire,” said Wagner, referring to the blaze that destroyed his shop a few years ago. “(Dale) raced it for two years, won the XDA championship the second year, then Terry won it last year.” Wagner is this very weekend overseas helping Leeks with his Funny Car.

“The bike was built by Stuart Crane with his billet 2-valve head,” continued Wagner.

Crane and his Warpspeed Racing are no-doubt the world’s foremost proponents of the Suzuki GSX1400 engine. Produced in the 2000s for the Japanese and European markets, the 1400’s plain bearing crankshaft made this engine highly touted (for a while) to replace the GS in Pro Stock Motorcycle. That momentum was derailed when White Alligator Racing and Competition Engine Services (now part of KB-Titan) and then Vance & Hines started developing plain bearing cranks and cases for GS motors.

According to Stuart, someone at Vance and Hines once told him “I feel embarrassed that I’ve never heard of the motor.” But he has almost single-handedly kept the 1400 (1692 cc as it sits in the Schweigert’s bike) relevant. “If a GSX is entered in an event, it stands a good chance of winning!” said Crane. “One thing I’d say though is my GSX has outrun Top Fuel Bikes and they made full pulls. I won Hockenheim and beat a Fuel Bike (the Sirpa bike)  in the final last year, and at Santa Pod (against) the triple of Jiri Luke’s.”

Which gives Schweigert hope of achieving his dream on this very bike. “Before I’m done with racing, I hope to join the 5 second quarter mile club.”

story by Tim Hailey, photo courtesy of XDA