The US show circuit is booming. The One Show, the Outlier’s Guild show, Mama Tried and the Handbuilt show all happen within a couple of months of each other. And each one is curated with a stacked roster of jaw-dropping machines.
It?s great news for custom moto fans, but for builders, it makes it harder to stand out in the crowd. But walking around Mama Tried earlier this year, it was impossible to take my eyes off this track-inspired Honda CB400F.

It’s the work of Shawn Smith, and the first build out of his part-time shop, Innovative Motorsports in Ankeny, Iowa. Shawn spends his nine-to-five working in I.T., but after hours he runs Innovative as a one-man-show.
?This 1975 Honda CB400F started life as a roached-out roller, with a motor rotting away in the Arizona Sun,? he tells us. ?I always loved the 400Fs that Kaz Yoshima used to campaign, known as the Z1 beaters. So the motor was rebuilt around how he used to set them up.?
We give Shawn ten out of ten for stance, lines and proportions here. But it’s refreshing to see how much work’s gone into that motor. It’s been bored out to 466 cc, with a stage two ported head and Kibblewhite valve springs.
There’s also a Webco cam with an adjustable cam gear inside, the crank’s been lightened and balanced, and the rods have been shot peened. Other upgrades include a Dyna ignition and coils, and an oil cooler to keep temperatures down.

The stock carbs were bored out and jetted, and no...