Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Supervising the complexities of Yamaha's professional racing effort. stop watches and clipboard always at hand, Clark observes a Skip Aksland Daytona pit stop, 22 Skip Aksland or Gary Scott or somebody doesn't get one. "T he first year I moved hell . and high water to get Gary a motorcycle. He called up after everything was sold because those had been handled well before I came to work here by Peter Schick on a first-come-first-served basis. So Gary called up _after I got here in January , and said , 'Hey, we need a new road racer, is there anything you can do? ' And I said, 'Ga ry , they were allocated three months ago. You know, everybody who is going to get one has been promised one.' And he said, 'Well, we really need one bad.' And I said, 'Ga ry, I'll see what I can do .' I spent a week on the telephone calling dealers all over the country, and I finally found a dealer that had gotten one, and the guy that was going to buy it from him didn't have the money. The bike was brand new and had never been sold. I gave Gary the dealer's name, told the dealer that Gary would call him and I arranged for Gary to get the bike. Gary bought the motorcycle brand new in 1977 . The following . year, during '77 , Gary claimed one of our motors. Tried to claim it , I should say, it didn't work . "Du ring that year, I also arranged for Gary to have air-expressed parts for a race; the race previous to where he tried to claim the bike. Gary said, 'I didn't get the parts in time,' and he came to me at Indianapolis and said, 'The only reason I tried to cla im the bike was because I couldn't get any parts for the one I had.' And I said, 'Gary, I air freighted you those parts.' He 'd wait until three days before the race, I'd rush the order through for him . then I'd have them air freighted to him , and he just didn't have the time to go down and pick them up . So then he tried to cla im my motorcycle. At that particular point, I said. 'Well, OK, you've got two motorcycles and three engines:' And the '78 season comes along and Gary's on th e ph one and wants an other on e. W ell , I had 40 motorcycles comi ng, 75 orders fo r them , a nd I figured t ha t a nyone that had go tten on e th a t previous year, unless he tota led it . wasn 't go ing to get a new on e, bec ause there was just a whole flock of new gu ys. There were gu ys. that were rid ing th e old "A" modelswith the shock absorbers that wo uldn ' t be able to bu y new motorcycles. That was the reason tha t Ga ry d idn't ge t one. Because he had gotten on e the year before, and he had two, and a sp are motor. And I figured that an ybody tha t had two of the lat est ones and a spare m ot or j ust really d idn't qualify to get a fresh one every year, because nobody else did. And that's th e truth be hind that ." A few yea rs ago there were rumors, and pictures, of a four-stroke Yamaha V·4 endurance racer. " It's still under development in Japan , they've been running it . I would imagine that t hey're no t entirely happy with the performance or they would hav e it out by now . But, I'm quite sure that the bike will come. It 's a development bed for severa l different , varying displacemen t models, and I'm sure that the bike wil. be run . It 's designed primarily for 24 hour endurance ra cing and I knov th ey have one section of the factorR&D that's working solely on tha: 'motorcycle, Yamaha is much like Honda ; I don't think they'd bring it out before it's ready to win. It won t come out just to thrash around an. watch it explode. I bel ieve they will b. 1000cc and they 'll eventually build • street bike based on that, which would be the logical configurarion. I don't know that for a fact , but it's just a logical gu ess. The four cylinder in lines ·have got about as big as they can go , because now you 're into the Honda sixes and the Kawasakis. They're so wide that t hey' r e getting really awkward , so, if you could build a V· 4 or a V·G, they'll be back down to three cylinder width and you can tuck the gearbox in under the back Vee. And with water cool ing, you don't have to worry about the back cylinder running hot. So, that should be a very logical way to go for a big street bike of the future ." The rest of the world races 500cc bikes . Is there a YZRSOO in our future? "Yesl I've got on order for 1980 , 20 of those motorcycles and those will include the rotating exhaust valve . At least I've been informed that they will. I don't have a price on them, yet, because that will be based on the rate of the dollar/yen at that time, but, they'll be expensive . .. and very few 7505 for 1980 because there will be no 750cc world class . The 750cc has just about reached the end of its line. The 500cc is a much nicer motorcycle to race. Power is a little softer, it's lighter, and it's much easier to ride, according to Kenny. I've never ridden that particular one. " I'm also getting the 125cc single road racers brought into this country, too, for the club level racers, From the last prices thad got from the Honda people, it will be just a little more mOl)ey. Bur the bike is supposedly considerably faster from the results I've seen in Indonesia and places like that, where they've raced against each other. We've never had one here, but I understand that it is competitively priced, maybe 12% more money. But it was designed as a racer from the ground up and not a modified motocross motor. And it is warercooled as opposed to air-cooled. so,

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