Yamaha OW48

Kenny Roberts' 1980 Yamaha OW48

For a lot of us, he was King Kenny. This was his throne.

Kenny Roberts wasted no time proving that he was something special by winning the AMA's Grand National Championship in 1973, only his second year on the circuit, then repeating that feat in '74. And even though he lost the title to Gary Scott in '75, he showed unprecedented versatility, winning at least one race from every one of the five types of competition that made up the series — mile, half-mile, short-track, TT and road race — in a single season.

But that was just the start. In 1978, Roberts went grand prix racing in Europe. The upstart rookie entered three of the most competitive classes — 250cc, 500cc and 750cc — and a third of the way through the season, he led two series and was second in the other.

Eventually, Roberts consolidated his efforts to focus on the premier 500cc class. He won it that year and repeated in 1979, overcoming a broken back suffered in a high-speed, pre-season crash.

The next year, 1980, would prove to be his last world-championship season. And this is the bike he rode that year.

By then, Roberts was the favorite. But that season would be no victory march. Suzuki wanted the title bad, sending waves of riders after Roberts, including American Randy Mamola.

Yamaha built a number of new tricks into Roberts' machine. The engine was derived from the same inline four-cylinder two-stroke that had carried him to his first two titles. But the frame, painted black to avoid attention, was made of square-section aluminum tubing, a first for Yamaha.

The fork options included a set with hydraulic anti-dive, but Roberts favored the type on this machine, with externally adjustable rebound and compression damping and no anti-dive.

The engine in this machine features the standard cylinder arrangement of the previous two years, but midway through the season, the team tried reversing the outside two cylinders -- placing the intake in front and the exhaust at the rear — with two silencers on each side of the bike instead of three and one.

Roberts rode this machine to victory in the first three races of the 1980 season, then hung on as Suzuki swept four of the last five rounds. In the end, he held off Mamola to win his final championship.

1975 Yamaha TZ750

1975 Yamaha TZ750

Kenny Roberts' dirt-tracker

This may be one of the most awe-inspiring motorcycles ever built. In fact, even now, 26 years later, it is legendary as the bike that caused King Kenny Roberts to say: "They don’t pay me enough to ride that thing." Here’s the story: Roberts had won the 1973 and ’74 AMA Grand National Championships using twin-cylinder, four-stroke Yamahas on the dirt. But by ’75, Harley-Davidson’s XR750 had left the Yamaha behind in performance.

So Yamaha tuners pulled the TZ750 two-stroke, four-cylinder motor out of the road-racer that Roberts used to win Laguna Seca that year, and stuffed it into a dirt-track frame. The engine pumped out 125 horsepower, 50 more than a Yamaha twin. But the question was whether anyone would be able to control the beast.

Roberts tried it for the first time at the Indianapolis Mile, where he quickly discovered that brute power led to a bit of wheel spin. "Finding grip was a problem,’’ is the understated way Roberts explains it today.

The TZ could hit about 150 mph at the end of each straight. But balancing throttle and traction in the corners wasn’t easy.

Somehow, Roberts qualified for the 25-lap final. And off the line, he put himself in sixth place. But he admits that keeping the bike on the track took every bit of skill he possessed.

"In the main," Roberts recalls, "the cushion went right up to the hay bales. After the race, I had baling wire on the bike" from bouncing off the bales.

In spite of all that, Roberts closed on the leaders: Harley riders Rex Beauchamp, Corky Keener and Jay Springsteen. Then, on the last lap, "I got a terrific drive off turn three. I have no idea why. The tire was almost gone, three-quarters chunked.

"Coming off the last corner, I definitely had third, and I thought I could get second. I hit fifth gear and it was less than a quarter mile at 145, so everything happened quickly."

Somehow, Roberts got the TZ hooked up, and in the final feet of the race, blew past the Harley trio for the win.

It was a spectacular debut, but it was also the bike’s only moment of glory. Roberts tried to ride it at two more races, but reverted to his twin both times. At the end of the season, the AMA wrote new safety rules outlawing such machines in the future.

Eventually, this incredible motorcycle came into the hands of historian Steve Wright. It was previously on display at the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum at AMA headquarters in Pickerington, Ohio.

1972 Yamaha TR3

1972 Yamaha TR3

The little two-stroke that could

Bigger is not always better, even on the high banks of Daytona International Speedway.

In 1972, Don Emde proved that by winning America’s biggest motorcycle race, the Daytona 200, riding this 350cc two-stroke Yamaha TR3 against a field of bikes as big as 750cc.

Emde’s Daytona 200 win was the first for a two-stroke, and it was accomplished on the smallest bike ever to win the race. The victory was also Yamaha’s first in the 200, the first for a son of a Daytona 200 winner (Emde’s father, Floyd, won in 1948), and the first in Yamaha’s record streak of 13 consecutive Daytona wins.

For Emde, it also was the pinnacle of his road-racing career. An up-and-coming racer from Southern California, Emde earned a ride on the BSA team for 1971. But despite good results, he was a victim of budget cuts after just one season.

For the ’72 season, Emde found support from Team Motorcycle Weekly and Yamaha dealer Mel Dinesen. Dinesen had backed Emde before the BSA ride, and owned the TR3 Emde raced that year.

The bike, a production model, was fairly close to stock for a racebike. It had an extended swingarm, an aftermarket seat, a more aerodynamic fairing, Koni shocks, and some porting work.

Emde says that despite having little time to shake down the bike, he had high expectations.

“I actually was very confident—maybe in a naive way,” Emde says. “I expected to be competitive with the 750cc Kawasakis and Suzukis, which were having early season reliability problems.”

And that’s exactly what happened.

With attrition hitting the race’s early front-runners—Kel Carruthers crashed and Kenny Roberts got a flat tire—Emde kept a steady pace, moving into the lead for good with five laps to go.

You can see this piece of pre-mix-burning history in the Hall of Legends at the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum in Pickerington, Ohio.

1967 Yamaha 250 Racer

1967 Yamaha 250 Racer
Gary Nixon’s Daytona winner

Imagine Mat Mladin winning this year’s Daytona 200 on a Suzuki two days after winning the Superstock race on a Honda.
Unthinkable, right?

Today, it would be. But back in 1967, two-time Grand National Champion Gary Nixon did the equivalent of that, winning the two biggest road races of Daytona Bike Week riding for two different factories.

Nixon won the Daytona 200 for Triumph the day after riding this factory-spec Yamaha to victory in the 100-mile “lightweight” race at the same track.

“Things were just different back then,” he explains. “Both Yamaha and Triumph wanted a rider for Daytona. I think I got $1,000 to ride the Yamaha, and $300 to ride the Triumph.”

Nixon notes that he rode this Yamaha two-stroke 250cc machine for the first time in practice sessions at Daytona. And, he says, it was a certified screamer.

“It was a great little 250,” he says. “That thing ran 148 mph.”

The bike was the product of two worlds. It combined the frame of Yamaha’s RD56 grand-prix bike with an AMA-legal motor from a TD1C production racer. And Nixon says the combination worked perfectly at Daytona—except for one part.

“I think my clutch cable broke on the first lap,” he says, adding that the bike was so good he could still run at the front, holding off Dick Hammer, riding a factory Suzuki, for the win.

The next morning, Nixon and Hammer were teammates on the Triumph squad, riding 500cc Triumph T100/Rs. The two again battled for the lead until a pit-stop mistake caused Hammer’s bike to slow, and he crashed trying to make up ground.

That left Nixon to cruise to victory in what he still recalls as his favorite Daytona.

“Man, that was a great two races—the highlight of my career, really,” he says. “After the race, I celebrated by counting all the money. And then I think I gathered it all up and took a picture of it.”

The bike that took him to the first half of that Daytona double, now owned by Rick Soles, is on display in the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum at AMA headquarters in Pickerington, Ohio.