They Called Them Superbikes...

A pic of Steve McLaughlin's B&S-prepped R90S. Took this at the Loudon AMA races in June 1976.

Still do'n it down here. Got the odd 'Quality' rider too!
This'd be Wayne Gardner.

"Wayne, what have you been feeding those fork tubes?" :dg


Ah, Wayne back in the day with the original "Starvin' Marvin" skinny forks





Then as now: beautiful bike...beautiful rider ​

Roberto before buying his ride with Honda on a Yosh Suzuki


Freddie also pre-Honda days, he didn't pay for his ride


Honda Endurance racers (note the fuel tank)

Kawasaki's didn't always handle too well. Can you see what's missing here?

Frame tubes, below the motor.

larry coleman mark bevins
chico crowd, john woo was from chico(actually orland) as well

They didn't seem to make that much difference

This thread should have been titled " When I was young and dumb".........

Classic example.



Great power, so-so brakes and bad handling. I used to hustle it around Willow in the Dinosaur class. GPZ1100 head with Lots of Yosh bits, gun drilled cams out of one of Eddies bikes. Smoothbores from same. Wiesco big bore, Falicon crank, Bassani pipe.

Had lots of frame re-enforcements, GPZ forks, GS1150 swing arm and the widest wire wheels they made at the time

I'm not sure why I'm still alive after racing that beast, Nothing like scattering the pack coming into a corner due to your bike swapping so bad from your over exuberant late breaking attempt............ Nobody could pass it on the strait and nobody wanted to get close to it in a corner.

LOVE the kick start...:eek1

Great photos. I'm sure this is Crosby, either at Bathurst or the Malboro series in NZ. One of the classic images of the era.

Bootlace, I know you have more tasty images tucked away!

AArrrrrgg!!!!!
Advert in a local paper today:

"Kawasaki HS 2E-750 3 Cyl 2 stroke, rare bike ......$1000"

He sold it $750..

However this is a small town, I will track down the new owner, and convince him that the bike needs to live with me! I'll get back to you on that...

Oh yeah. That'd be Crosby (Greatest rider to never win a GP??), exiting 'The Dipper', Bathurst about.......Nup. Probably REALLY WASTED. But I wuz there...

This blokes been doin it for a while too. An original 'Superbiker'. Robbie Phillis, Still doin' it. And doin it GOOD.



( And doing it here on the exact same bike he won the OZ champs on, back in the day.....He found it a few streets away from his house!)

His book is not bad either.

Yeah! Had a cupla beers with Croz last yeah at Assen. ( Sorry..) Good boy, lots of stories,

My first time at Daytona In about 83, first year of the v4 750 Hondas,
I peeked into the top secret Honda tent where they were working on Spencers bike. I took a picture and two Honda techs chased me about 1/2 mile across the infield before they gave up.

Then when I finally got back to the pits I had dropped my money stash in the chase. I didn't have enough money to pay for the Italion sausage I had just ordered so the guy behind me in line bought it for me. None other than Giacomo Agostini.

I found him later and paid him back and he signed my helmet.

Class!

BTW, could you post the pics of the Honda?

Things didn't go quite to plan.

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=698437

I'll get my H2 one day...

Cool story about Graeme Crosby. Thanks for posting that!

(there seem to be a few pages missing though... )

You were more likely too see a Lavarda on the grid than a Trident. I think they stopped producing Tridents before what we know as superbike in AMA started in ernest.

A real trip down memory lane for a very poor (read broke) WERA racer in the early 80's.