Just a few pix I took of some of our local hooligans having fun. Love to watch these guys and wish I had the money and talent to run with them! Canon S2IS in crappy fading light, long zoom and too much speed! MD state fair grounds in Timonium. The indoor short track guys are pretty crazy as well. They run those in the dead of winter. Can you say HORSEPOWER!!!
these flat-trakkers and street-trakkers are the real essense of motorcycling:lean,mean stripped down ...wicked...my old man saw races in OZ,[1950s]saw a guy run on the track and both rider and guy get killed..ive been into these bikes ever since that story he told me ...a DEATH MACHINE
I saw it first time out at a national - Indy 1975. It was one fast bike, but that unridable stuff was crap. Roberts won the first race where he stradled the bike. If you can, get the January 1976 issue of Cycle World where D. Randy Riggs not only writes an article on how the bike came to being, but also how the AMA screwed the pooch by banning it and then he test rides Steve Baker's TZ. For those that might wonder, Steve Baker won the FIM World 750 GP class around that time, so his motor was no slouch. Roberts just favored smaller motors in most all racing, including a reduction from the 750 GP class in the AMA to a 500 class. Never happened though, Superbikes came in instead.
The RS750 was based on the European 750 Honda motor which had chain drive where the U.S. Shadow 750 had shaft drive. I think the RS may have had a radiator on the right side, but maybe not. I can't remember. It was modified and had similar power delivery as an XR750. Unfortunately it had enough power to beat the Harley, so the AMA made it carry more weight to the point of being uncompetitive so Honda figured it wasn't worth racing if you can't win - they quit. Several years later Ricky Graham kicked everyone's ass on a privateer RS750, winning 13 races that season.
Ten to one that is one of the Champion frames built for Irv Kanemoto back in 1974-75. They ran at Indy too. Fast motors, but Castro, Nixon, and Brelsford didn't figure out the racing line needed. Roberts did. The two strokes needed to come in high, cut low, and exit high - squaring off the corner. The four strokes make a graceful giant oval of the whole track, running in a smooth transition to a low line.
This post was answered in several posts below sonic reducer's original post.The RS750 was homogulated by the XLV750,which was air cooled and shaft drive.The engine was used in no other bike.
I think the best looking motorcycle period!!!! Did I mention I do not like Harley's. The XR 750 is still my favorite motocycle. Jack Beaufort S.C. http://tinyurl.com/4dndf
Just the opposite. More like beating bigger bikes as in > 360 cc (or 250 cc in the case of the smaller version) including big singles and twins! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! Unfair displacement/weight/restrictor advantages mandated by the AMA are more the domain of a certain brand of Milwaukee-based iron...while the same sanctioning organizing laments over the lack of brand particpation in flat track! I can't imagine why they're all not lining up to enter!
I'm a big fan of the XR750 but that whole episode (and similar history before that) kind of disgusts me. Harley was getting beat. Of course, rather then they have to (god forbid!) competitively develop the bike...just have the AMA add twenty pounds and restrictor plates to the Honda and voila! I just can't imagine why all the manufacturers aren't lined up to go AMA flat track racing!
A buddy of mine owns a bike shop in a town not far from me and invited me to go to the Powersports Dealer Expo in Indianapolis yesterday and I snapped a bunch of photos of bikes here are some that are street tracker wanna be's Here is one that is a streeter I've seen before and was kind of suprised not to see it in this thread it's a demo bike of street tracker parts from Storz engineering Yours truly (the tall geek) and Steve Storz
I'd have to go with what xlcr says. There was no one around for me to quiz and at that point in the day I was on beer # 6