With the yellow over-rev light staring me in the face I grab an upshift. I start to feel the front-end gently climbing skyward as I motor uphill towards Laguna's infamous corkscrew, I run the bike wide and to the outside, setting up for the famous turn. I close the throttle, snag a downshift and squeeze the tank with my legs as hard as I can while jamming on the front brake lever, then out of the corner of my eye last year's world champ and certified Laguna expert, Nick Hayden, snakes through, rear-wheel kicked out sideways, then in a instant he's gone... All on a bone-stock 2008 Honda CBR1000RR streetbike.

Honda defined the modern day open-class sportbike category with its ground breaking CBR900RR. When the first double-R hit the streets as an early release '93 model, it was the perfect blend of a nimble, lightweight chassis stuffed with a compact, high-performance engine-all wrapped in flashy race-replica plastics.
Borrowing design features from its RC212V MotoGP racer, Honda is betting its 2008 CBR1000RR will do to the Superbike class what its CBR600RR did to the Supersport field in 2007 - dominate.