A Breed Apart
Tom Swanson’s Maxed-Out Machine

Attention, all you metric maniacs: It’s that time again. You may remember this little game, the one where I ask you to identify whatever bike happens to be gracing these pages. If you answer correctly, congratulations — you’re welcome to send me a $50 bank-certified check. If you blow it, you must send me a $50 bank-certified check. Fair enough, right? So go ahead and take a good, long look at this blue beast. What is it that you see? Why, it’s an R-Max, of course. And you probably thought you had this one in the bag.

Now, before any of you start pouting, zoom in a bit closer on this radical machine. While it may resemble Yamaha’s legendary muscular brute, the V-Max, much of the bike was cannibalized from another Yamaha rocket ship, the YZF-R1. That’s why its owner, Tom Swanson, calls this hot rod an R-Max. And since Tom is the mad scientist behind its creation, he can call it whatever he wants.

Anyone who builds a motorcycle like this clearly isn’t interested in stopping to smell the roses. These sorts of people are hopeless junkies, and speed is their drug. That’s definitely the case with 32-year-old Tom, who got hooked on speed while experimenting with crotch rockets. Although he’d ridden dirt bikes since he was a kid growing up in Colorado, Tom’s parents yanked two-wheelers from the equation when Tom hit high school. “They figured I was a young hothead,” Tom says. “They were right.”

The day after Tom graduated, however, he went straight out and bought a Kawasaki Ninja ZX-9. “That was the bike Tom Cruise rode in Top Gun,” he notes. Not unlike the high-flying movie star with whom he shares a name, Tom really dug life in the danger zone. Coincidentally, he also ended up in the military, albeit the Marines, not the Navy. From 1993-97, Tom did his part serving his country. Along the way, he sold his Kaw and picked up a Yamaha FZR 1000, at the time a very fast bike.

1996 would prove to be a somewhat pivotal year for our budding speed freak. Until then, Tom never had much interest in anything other than sportbikes. However, his dad, Tom Sr., also an enthusiast, had begun to see the value in power cruisers. Having secured himself a brand-new V-Max from a dealer in Southern California, the old man asked Tom if he’d pick it up and truck it back to Colorado. Tom snapped at the chance to not only help his dad, but to also find out what the powerful new motorcycle was all about. It was an experience he wouldn’t soon forget.

“The thing scared me immediately,” Tom admits. “I was only riding it for five minutes to put it in the trailer, and I almost dumped it. First, the front end shook coming out of a corner, then the rear end got loose, and I was nearly tossed over the bars. I managed to keep my hand on the throttle and somehow roll out of it. I don’t think I could do that again. I had to pull over and check my pants. I mean, I’d almost crashed my dad’s brand-new bike.”

Tom eventually delivered the motorcycle to his dad unscathed, and the two went to work trying to right at least one of the V-Max’s notorious wrongs. “The first problem we tackled was the front end wobble,” Tom says, launching into a number of quick fixes that he claims don’t really work. One of these supposed remedies involves a spacer that goes on the steering head and tightens down the steering bearings. “You’re just overtightening bearings. What good is that?” He finally delivered a remarkably simple solution: “Wider bars helped a lot.”

In 1997, Tom left the Marines. A year later, he and his dad went into business together, opening Python Motorsports (303/279-1305, pythonmotorsports.com) in Golden, Colorado, a shop largely specializing in high-performance Japanese bikes. Though Tom’s addiction to speed had yet to become as total as it is today, there was still no denying his constant need for a fix. By this time, he’d moved on to a few other sportbikes, but there was always something about Dad’s V-Max that struck him. Tom wanted one — bad. He just didn’t have the scratch to buy it new. Instead, he found himself a V-Max frame and started from the ground up. It was the beginning of something huge.

To catalog the full evolution of Tom’s R-Max would require a literary and technical treatise of biblical proportions. “Almost everything on this bike has been modified and re-modified so many times that I…” Even Tom trails off when faced with the ever-changing reality of his monster.

Of the many things that deserve mention, let’s start with the power plant. “I blew apart a couple of V-Max motors before this one,” explains Tom. “These are [Yamaha] Venture cases, as I was told they were better and stronger. And, after all, the V-Max engine is based on the Venture’s. So far, they’ve worked well.”

Notably, Tom chose his carb while flipping through the pages of a Summit Racing catalog, the famous automotive-oriented rag. Tom went for a 390 Holley four-barrel sucker, normally found on late ’70s Ford trucks. He then had the 390 meticulously tuned by Greg Pick. Overkill? He’d probably tell you he should have gone with a 750 double-pumper, but that’s just Tom.

Jammed inside the motor are a number of custom hi-po components, some of which were created by Tom’s friends at Tuff Machine in Aurora, Colorado. Tom isn’t exactly forthcoming when questioned on the grinds of the cams. What could he possibly be hiding…?

By the way, have you noticed that massive rear tire? It’s a 330 Avon wrapped around a 17 x 12" Weld Racing spinner that was originally meant for a car. “I wanted Weld to convert it for a bike, but they didn’t, so I did it myself,” Tom says. Holding the whole arrangement out back is a single-sided cantilevered swingarm, another Python original.

Depending on which side you view Tom’s R-Max from, you’ll see one of two rip-roaring additions. On the left, behold a Magna supercharger that provides

20 pounds of boost. Flip to the right, and you’ll find two prominent NOS tanks that supply just a touch of excitement. “The nitrous is set up to spray at full throttle in 50-horsepower increments,” says Tom. “You definitely don’t want it on in any gear lower than fourth. Otherwise, you’ll spin the tire and go sideways like no tomorrow. It becomes a true nightmare.”

So what, exactly, is the car-carbureted, supercharged, nitrous-injected R-Max capable of? Tom won’t talk horsepower, because he has yet to challenge the renowned V-Max power god, Pete “Mad Max” Civitello to a shootout. (For the record, when informed of this, Pete replied, “Good luck to him. I wish I knew him, I’d shake his hand.”)

Tom will say that, mathematically speaking, his far-out slingshot should go 205 mph, though Tom himself has only taken it up to a mere 192. “I wore my full leathers that day, and I hoped the rear tire was severely underrated at 140-145 mph,” Tom says. “I did it on a closed circuit, and I ran out of road before I ran out of throttle.”

Tom still rides sportbikes, including a brand-new R1, but he says that nothing compares to this particular missile. He’s also gracious enough to heap praise (if you can call it that) on Yamaha’s civilian model. “Even stock, a V-Max is probably one of the few bikes that can scare you right off the bat. But this bike is a different game altogether. Nobody has a bike like this.”

Perhaps that’s why none of you knew this was an R-Max. I’ll tell you what — forget about those bank-certified checks. RB