Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1200048
CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE I t's been a long-held notion by motorcycle-racing pundits that Suzuki was the first of the Japa- nese motorcycle manufacturers to win an AMA Grand National, with Art Baumann's road race national victory at Sears Point in 1969 aboard a Suzuki TR500. But is that really true? Well, as they say on Facebook, it's complicated. While it's true that Baumann's 1969 Suzuki win at Sears was the first "big-bike" win for a Japanese motorcycle, technically speaking, the credit for the first Japanese maker to win an AMA National goes to Yamaha and this goes back to Dick Mann's win at the 1965 Nel- son Ledges Road Race National. It was a rarity, but for a few years in the early-to-mid 1960s, the AMA held full points-paying Nationals for the Lightweight P106 JAPAN'S FIRST AMA NATIONAL WIN enthusiasts could only dream. Gradually some racers began to see potential for Hondas, Yama- has, Kawasakis, Suzukis (and even Bridgestones) on the track, and by the early 1960s some Japanese-made motorcycles were being contested at the high- est level of American motorcycle racing—AMA Grand Nationals. Looking back in the AMA record books you can see the influence of Japanese makers becoming ever greater with their record sales in this country. Entry of Japanese-made motorcycles into AMA national-level competi- tion began as a trickle in the early 1960s turning into a flood by the end of the decade. Going back to the 1963 AMA racing rulebook change, the Lightweight class (a full points- (250cc) motorcycles. This only happened during a three-year period from 1963 to 1965 and it all began with a rule change in 1963. So called "Lightweight" Nation- als were not a completely new thing. For years the Peoria TT featured a 45 c.i. (750cc) and an 80 c.i. (1300cc) national. In '63 the AMA changed the definition of Lightweights to mean 250cc motorcycles and that's where the story begins in this country for Japanese-made machines being raced in national competition. Japanese-made motorcycles changed the landscape of motor- cycling in America starting in the 1950s. With low cost and reliabil- ity, the new little machines made in Japan opened up the sport to the Baby Boomers in a way previ- ous generations of motorcycle Dick Mann takes the checkered flag to win the AMA National road race on his Yamaha at Nelson Ledges in 1965. Mann's Nelson Ledges victory was big enough that it landed him on the cover of American Motorcycling.