Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

the road racing sho p, and the bike was compressed into a neat little cube wh er e it couldn' t hurt anyone . Or so the story goes. "We ' d co m pl e te ly re b uilt the bike afte r it was banned ," Carru thers recalls. "Bu t we sent it to Europe without an engine becau se it had one of our road race engines in it that we still needed. It was going there for a sho w and they were going to put an en gine in it once it arrived . I was waiting for it to come back and it nev er did . I was told it was destroyed." A little chicanery a p pa rently occurred in this period, as th e b ik e never really we nt to its intended execution. Perhaps another bik e tagged as this on e went in its place, or so me one mistakenl y checked the bike off the roster, but the m ach in e ne ver w ent to its demise . For a lon g while it sat in th e back of the Yamaha race shop in Am sterd am with other race bikes put out to p a s ture . Wit h mos t of its co sm eti cs rem ov ed, except the tank, it looked like just ano the r R&D exercise gone horribly wrong. Which really it was. It sat in that cond ition for a number of years until former Yamaha team manage r Ke n ny C la rk, w hile lo o kin g throug h the mechanical cadavers at the Rob erts used the h igh line to mak e his charge, essen tially bouncing off the bales while making the comer trans itions, shap ing a crude rectangle out of the oval. With that Ca rruthers horsepower, he came for Springer and Keener, a n d on the la st la p all three held throttles WFO d own the straig ht. In a fla sh, Rob erts clawed b y the Harl ey boys and onto the podium, his margin of victory about two feet at the line . From nearly a dead-last start, he had spun and slid his way to the win. On the victo ry la p s the fron t whee l of the Yamaha touched the gro und abo ut three tim es. The re a re th ose who say thi s is the bike and the race that made Kenny Roberts an icon. To put th is m achine' s h orsepo wer in to persp ective for a yo unger en th usi as t, piloting it wo u ld not be unl ike racing a modern b ig -b ore Su zu ki fi tted w ith ni trous - in six inc hes of water. Even tod ay th e Ch a m p io n Yamaha TZ700 is the definitive unbrid led motorcycle, so mu ch so that Roberts, when he go t off the bike after narrowly winning In dy, s pewed th e im mortal q uote, "They don 't pay me enough to rid e that thing." With the King in it s sa d dle, the Champion Yamaha never really tracked t ru e , spinning and h oppi n g on the straights . It tried very hard t o to ss Roberts over the top , and Roberts, truth be known, ha ted the bike with a passion he would only again ha ve " Freddie for Spencer. He raced it twice more after winning Indy, with less than spectacular res ul ts, yet h e lived to tell the tale nonetheless. Then the AMA - with the help of a level- headed Carruthers banned the bike and the formula that bro ug ht it into existence . The argumen t tha t if the m a ch in e was a llo we d to breed, it wo u ld eventually dominate or kill someone, won the sanctioning bod y over. Ba ck to Roberts, modern day. All obvious signs of susp icion on his part disappeared upon learning that the person who claimed to have his bike (Opposite page) The legend and the legend: Kenny Roberts grabs a handfu l on the beastly Yamaha TZ700 that propelled him to a s tun ning victory at the 1975 Indy Mile. (Above) '" think you're gonna need this ": Builder Kel Carruthers (right) hands Roberts a helmet. Ironica lly, " Carruthers was later instrumental In having the bike banned from competition. (Right) Roberts (far right) was reunited with the bike at Laguna Seca in 1994 alter it was miraculously spared from the crus her and rest ored by owner Steven Wright to Its original cond ition. was none other than Stephen Wr ight. In the realm of motorcycle restoration experts there are only a few true craftsmen, and among them, Wright is considered one of the best. His expertise in the area of board track racers from the early 1900s is unequaled, and he is a celebrated author as well, writing both of the American Race r books, volumes that are considered the pinnacle historical record of motorcycle raci ng from its infa ncy . If that pe dig ree wasn 't en ough, W ri gh t worke d as late racer and sometime actor Steve McQueen' s personal motorcycle res to re r for six years, assemb ling McQ ueen's vast collection of ma chine s to show q uali ty . Therefore, when Wright says he's got a bike you used to race, you don't doubt him. Even if th e b ike w as put in to th e cru sher. . Ye s, the crushe r. Once th e AMA banned the bike from competition sever- . al persons wanted to get their mitts on it for histori cal purposes, in cluding Carru thers, w ho as the build er probably had more claim to ownership than an yone save Rob erts. But Yam aha Motor Corp. U.s.A . wo uld have nothing to d o with it and sent the bike to Europe for a promotional campaign. It was seen in lat e 1976 a t a d e al e r show, and one brave soul actually rode it at an English grass track. But the machine failed to bite former World Speedway Champion Peter Collins, who wasn't able to shift beyond se con d on a very s lick track . "From there, the engine was removed from the chassis, the wheels sent back to graveyard, began to study this pa rticular machine. Although it was faded by constant exp osure to the elements an d su n, the phrase "Pre pared by Kel Carruthers, EI Cajon" in 70s hippie scrip t on the fuel tank raised the ha irs on the back of his neck . It di dn't take a rocket scien tist to determine that this w as a machine th at belonged in a mu seum not a graveyard. He packed the bike up and sent it back to the States whe re he in te nd ed to restore it h imself. Up on leaving Yamaha, Clark sold the machine in its dilapidated condi tion to Wright, who wa s d etermin ed to m ake the machine right again. Much damage had b e en done though. The ground -up restora tion would be the relati vely easy part of the process. The difficulty lay in finding the

• Cover