KZ1000 Deep Sump Oil Pan Gasket

I'm completely new to the KZ1000, so i'll preface this with the fact that I'm a complete newb to the bike.

I recently bought a '73 Z1 with a '77 KZ1000 LTD motor in it. The guy I bought it from said he has drag raced bikes for 30 years, and it's apparent in the bike. It has a deep sump oil pan (maybe had a turbo at one point?), ported and polished head, dyna coils, hotter cam, a rear rim with screws through the rim into the tire. Anyway, onto the question.

I'm replacing the gasket on the oil pan and this is my first time with this bike. The gasket has a piece running through the middle of it, connecting the 2 sides together. Looking at the pan and the bottom of the motor, there is no "mating surface" where the gasket runs through the middle. What is it there for if there aren't 2 pieces of metal (between pan and bottom of motor) coming together in that spot? I could be missing something but it appears gasket material just around the entire outside edge would be sufficent? Won't this material in the middle just be "floating" free in oil?

Yes! That bit of the gasket will just sit there in the oil, most genuine and pattern gaskets don't have it depending on year/model.
Won't do any harm but just cut it out if it bugs you or it gets in the way of that oil pick-up.
After a very long time that piece of gasket can be affected by the heat and oil and break up which isn't good.
Personally i'd cut it out.

putting the oil pickup to the rear was a common practice for turbo and non turbo applications early on for drag racing .......to keep the oil pump from starving on hard acceleration :woohoo: an oil pan gate will do the same thing...... :lol: you can cut the gasket as zed 1015 wrote....still it should be okay if you left it in.... :S