CN
III ARCHIVES
BY SCOTT ROUSSEAU
W
hat do the factory-backed
Team Suzuki Flat Track
DL1000s ridden by Kevin Var-
nes and 2005 team recruit Jake
Johnson have in common with
the Yamaha TZ700 that Kenny
Roberts rode to victory on the
Indy Mile? Well, in actuality, very
little, except that neither the DL
1000 Suzukis nor the Roberts TZ
were the first of their kind. The
bike you see here, a 1972 Suzuki
GT750 Water Buffalo, serves as
that magical degree of separation
between the Roberts TZ and the
Grand National Suzukis of today.
Prior to 1972, there had been
efforts to utilize the Suzuki X-6
Hustler two-stroke twin in com-
petition. The little 250's been
raced, and raced well, in short
tracks and in small-bore class
competition on larger tracks,
but they were no match for the
all-conquering Harley-Davidson
XRs or the British twins, which
were rapidly being phased out of
competition as the British motor-
cycle market headed the way of
the Titanic. Thus, there was no
Suzuki "big bike."
But the advent of a wave of
big-bore, multi-cylinder two-
strokes in the early '70s pre-
sented Ohio motorcycle dealer
Gary Stolzenburg, proprietor of
F&S Harley-Davidson and F&S
Suzuki in Dayton, Ohio, a chance
to be different. Suzuki had plans
P102
BUFFALO HUNTING
for a dirt tracker, so he went right
to work on it.
"What we did was take a pro-
totype frame, modified it and
beefed it up and turned it into a dirt
tracker," Stolzenburg says.
Stolzenburg recalls that the
machine was not the hit that he
thought it would be, as the bike
to sell a new two-stroke triple
street bike, known as the Su-
zuki GT750, and wheeler-dealer
Stolzenburg managed to get hold
of an engine before the new bikes
were even available.
"It was a 1972 Suzuki GT750
prototype engine that I got from
Japan," Stolzenburg, now 66,
says. "I had it on the parts coun-
ter at my Suzuki store in Dayton
a month before the 750s ever hit
the West Coast."
Looking over the engine, Stol-
zenburg got the crazy idea that it
might make a hell of a powerplant
Grand National hero Ronnie Rall
wrestles with the Gary Stolzenburg-
built Suzuki GT750 Water Buffalo
in 1972. The 750cc multi-cylinder
two-stroke predated Kenny Roberts'
legendary Indy Mile-winning TZ750
by three years.
