Find of the Month: 2015 Kawasaki Ninja 300

Welcome to a new CMG feature, the Find of the Month, where we share some of the cool stuff we find on autoTRADER.ca: unique bikes for sale, smoking deals, or other interesting machines. We start this week with an in-house special — Managing Editor Jacob Black’s Ninja 300 racebike, a machine with a history of victory, sort of …

So you want to get into racing or track days, but you don’t want to spend a ton of money, but you also want to be competitive? If you’re in the Toronto area, you might want to check out this 2015 Kawasaki Ninja 300, which Jacob Black raced last summer in the Canadian Superbike Ninja 300 spec series. But CMG’s history with this bike goes even further back than that — this is the actual bike that our racing ringer roadracing stand-in JP Schroeder used to beat Mr. Black, back in 2016. No wonder Jacob was so anxious to buy the bike for the next season’s racing.

Sadly for our managing editor, he was unable to work his way to the top of the podium with this 300, so he’s upgrading to one of the new 400s and selling this one. He was impressed with the 400 and decided he needs to upgrade if he’s going to try to keep up with the really fast riders in the Ninja series. We tried to tell him that’s never going to happen, even if he upgrades to a Kawasaki H2R in the series, but he won’t listen.

But this bike should be lots of fun on the track, and is eligible for RACE, SOAR and CSBK’s Lightweight Sportbike series. It was one of the original lot of bikes Kawasaki Canada prepped to kickstart the Ninja 300 series, and it has a decent amount of upgrades. There’s an Elka shock and K-tech fork cartridges to improve suspension. A Hindle slip-on can and Power Commander fuel and ignition controller help improve the bike’s power, and a quickshifter (also by Power Commander) keeps you at speed. There’s also a set of Hindle rearset riser plates, to get you into that racebike stance, and a set of braided brake lines to help you slow down in a hurry (the bike also comes with ABS). Of course, there’s also a set of race plastics (new Hotbodies fairing). We don’t know about the tires, but we’re assuming there’s plenty of rubber left on the sides. Like, plenty of virgin, untouched rubber.

Jacob has had some issues keeping the bike upright on-track (all repaired, with brand-new parts, by Niagara Race Crafters), but considering the bike is literally race-ready (gas up and go; there’s even a paddock stand included), the asking price of $4,499 seems reasonable. Maybe it’s time you started your own track career and show him how the bike should be ridden?