The Extraordinary Ordinary Ultra

As we were pulling out of the Kawasaki compound last year with a couple of Ultra 310Rs for testing, Kawasaki media guru Jon Rall pointed at one of the skis and mentioned that it was the same ski that Kawasaki racing legend and former world champion Minoru Kanamori rode to a first in the manufacturers stock class and an incredible third overall in last years Long Beach to Catalina & Back Offshore National Championship. In addition to his impressive racing accomplishments, in his current position with Kawasaki R&D, Minoru has led the development of the Ultras from their inception and has more knowledge of this ski than perhaps any other human on the planet.

Ok, well that’s pretty cool, not only did we have a couple of very sweet supercharged Ultra 310Rs, we had THE Ultra 310R. With that in mind we drove away with not only an ear-to-ear grin but an itchy trigger finger as well. Over the course of the next month we put the Ultras through their paces in a VERY wide rage of riding conditions – from our home base on the Southern California coast our timing was perfect to experience the Ultras in the sizeable waves of a late summer swell in addition to some nasty wind blown late-afternoon cross chop allowing us to better understand why these skis dominate in off-shore racing. From the coast we traveled across the desert to our home-away-from-home of Lake Havasu where we enjoyed miles of pure glass on the Colorado River and came away with the knowledge that the 310R is far from a one trick pony (310 of them!). Check out the video for our report.