I’m sure everybody here has pictures of themselves from back in the day on their ride. I just found this picture of me on my '72 Suzuki GT380 cafe racer when I was about 17. My dad took this picture with a crappy polaroid colour camera which was cool in the 70’s. This was my first real road bike and as you can see I always had this thing for road racers. I rode the tar out of this thing, siezed it once and broke a crank. It had a dunstall seat, CR750 fairing and clip-ons. Notice the Bell Star helmet and very protective riding gear . Nobody back then road bikes with full fairings on the road so I was looked at as some sort of social misfit…oh how some things never change .
Cool pics guys…I think we need a section on our website for pictures of members back when our bikes were’nt vintage ! I’ll work on that one… There must be more pictures out there, don’t be shy!
I’ll try and post a couple every day…til I run out
As someone told me today…it’s hard not to have fun with motorcycles.
17 Ken Modl, 87 Steve Nelson, 109 James Pletch, and…
Knee sliders? In the 1970s? Sort of like asking where the fuel injection was - not happening.
If you look at the first pic of my 400, there’s a patch sewn onto my right knee - I actually touched it down a few times and that’s all I could come up with to cover the hole.
As for passenger pegs, Production Rules said the only things that could be changed were the bars, tires (to a better street type which meant K81 Dunlops) and chain and sprocket. That was it! In 1972, Ernie White, the CMA Chief Tech Guy took a stand that the 4.10 K81 we were using on the front wasn’t stock and therefore, couldn’t be used. Dunlop didn’t make a 3.60 at that time so he actually wanted us to run with a good rear and crappy front. I know a couple of guys stuck on an Avon ribbed front and promptly ate the guardrail in Turn 1 at Mosport.
The rest of us said, “no way” so Ernie made the Executive decision that, seeing as we were flaunting The Rules, then we’d have to run in the racing class because obviously, the motorcycles were no longer stock. I dragged out a rule book and at the rider’s meeting confronted him. “Ernie, the rulebook doesn’t say anything about using a rear tire on the front and that’s what we’ve done.” We had him and the CMA backed into a corner that they didn’t like so we got overruled and they actually sent us out in the 500 racing class.
Jim Allen on a TR500 Suzuki was engaged in a dogfight for the Number One plate with Yvon Duhamel on a Kawasaki H1R and in their wisdom, the CMA plugged up the track with a bunch of 350 Kawi triples and R5 Yamahas because they were using the wrong tires. The H1R and TR500 were doing about 150 mph at Mosport and our production bikes were lucky to hit 100 going into turn 8.
Imagine how pleasant that was for Jim and Yvon.
By the end of the year, they mad an “announcement” all by themselves that a 4.10 tire could be used in production racing.
And some people wonder why racers from that era absolutely detest the CMA. Well, that’s just one instance in a whole logbook full of stupidity.
. Nobody back then road bikes with full fairings on the road so I was looked at as some sort of social misfit…oh how some things never change 
.
