Outside the Box
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I
'II tell you something," 1960s
and '70s AMA Grand National
stalwart Chuck Palmgren says
flatly, "in motorcycle racing, it's
like things are written in stone
and you can't change them. When things
don't work, people would rather try to live
with them the way they are than figure them
out. All people know is the Harleys, but you
can't take one of them Suzukis and make it
work like a Harley. It isn't going to happen."
Palmgren should know. Self-described
as "older than Christ," it wasn't that long
ago that he, fashioning Grand National-caliber Harley beaters out of production
Yamaha XS650 twins. Prior to 1970,
Palmgren was a Triumph man, but when
the chance to do something different with
the Yamahas presented itself, Palmgren
committed to making them work.
"It wasn't a factory deal, but I got paid
for it," Palmgren says, "and I did all the
development myself."
Outward appearances being what they
were, most folks looked upon the XS650
as little more than an updated Japanese
copy of the Triumph. After all, both were
vertical twins. Palmgren says he wishes it
was that easy.
"They were night and day different,"
Palmgren recalls. "It was an ungodly amount
of work. Idon't think my head was real clear
when I started on it [laughs]. It was a large
challenge to make it come together."
Mirroring the current difficulty that the
Suzukis are having with the Harleys today,
Palmgren says that the trick to getting the
Yamahas to work against the competition
was not in making power but rather in getting it to the ground.
"I can't remember the numbers now, but
the Triumph had a large diameter crankshaft
with more peripheral speed," Palmgren says.
"The Yamaha had four individual flywheels
that were pressed together. They weighed
more, but the peripheral speed was way
down, so to get it hooked up on the ground
was totally different than the Triumph. You
had to be very careful on the throttle to
Yamaha man Chuck Palmgren,
shown here at Loul.ville,
Kentucky, circa 1972.
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JANUARY 12, 2005 •
keep it from spinning. With the Yamaha, you
couldn't open it up until you could see the
other end of the racetrack. I don't remember how many different chassis I made, but I
know we went through at least four before
we got one that worked. [Trackmaster
founder] Ray Hensley was a lot of help."
Things were coming together late in the
season when the National circuit stopped
at the big I liB-mile track at Nazareth,
Pennsylvania, on September 6, 1970.
"I remember that the racetrack went
downhill off the start, but then as you went
through turn three, it started going uphill
to the finish line. In those days it was legal
to shift, and it was one of those days where
it just so happened that the split between
fourth and fifth fit the racetrack, which was
a benefit for me."
After George Roeder crashed in
Palmgren's heat race, Palmgren made the
main, but he would have to start on the
second row, behind the typical On Any
Sunday crew, Jim Rice, David Aldana, Gary
Nixon, Cal Rayborn and Mert Lawwill.
Rice started on the outside pole, but
Lawwill took the early lead, followed by
Rayborn, the two factory Harleys setting
sail on the field. The Cycle News account of
the race states that Aldana then inexplicably crashed on lap I I, and Palmgren was
able to move past Rice and Rayborn to take
second place. Palmgren then caught and
passed Lawwill, who would retire shortly
thereafter with a shagged rear tire.
"There's a mistake there," Palmgren
says. "Rice actually dropped oil on the track,
and David crashed in it - at least that's what
I remember. I do remember that David and
I were actually trying to outbrave each
other into the turns, and we were ahead of
Rice, and then Rice spilled oil on the racetrack and David fell. I'm not too sure..."
Palmgren's memory may be accurate, as
Rice dropped out with a broken primary
chain and holed primary case on lap 29.
Palmgren and the Yamaha soldiered on in
the lead, looking strong right up until three
laps from the finish.
"Then it started to
miss," Palmgren says.
"I didn't know what
was going on, so I tore
the air cleaners off, figuring that maybe they
were clogged up. Then
I threw the gas cap
away
because
I
thought maybe the
vent had gone and
f%#$ked up. There
wasn't any sand to
worry about because it
had all been swept off.
Later, I found out that
there was nothing
wrong with the engine.
All I did was put a new
battery in it."
Palmgren survived,
holding off Triumphs
ridden by Nixon and
Don Castro for the
CYCLE NEWS
win. In doing so, he become the first man
ever to win an AMA Grand National flat
track race on a Japanese motorcycle.
Unfortunately, there was precious little
time to relish the victory.
"The thing that I remember most about
it is that the race was on a Sunday, and on
Monday night we raced at Indianapolis,"
Palmgren says. "We finished at Nazareth
and drove all night to get to Indianapolis.
My brother and I were running in the heat
race together there, and he was running
away from me. He went up top, so I went
up there to chase him, and that's when it
broke a rod. I quickly learned that it would
run between 105 and I 10 miles before a
rod would come out the cases, and you
could draw a circle right where it would
come out. I had Carrillo make me some
rods, and that solved that problem."
Put behind the curve when a rules
change updated the allowable displacement
to 750cc across the board, Palmgren went
winless against the Harleys and "kitted"
British 7S0s in 1971. A small measure of salvation came late that year when Yamaha had
Dan Gurney, a free-thinking and problemsolving racecar driver and designer with
world-class credentials, develop a cylinder
head for Palmgren. It changed everything.
"Before that, if the race was slow, I
could just make the main and tag on to the
back of the field," Palmgren says. "But after
they made me that head, I could run right
with Rayborn, and he had the fastest
Harley on the track."
Thus began Palmgren's association with
Gurney, a bond that would last 30 years,
with Palmgren a big player in Gurney's AlIAmerican Racer car racing concerns. As for
racing, Palmgren scored two more Grand
National victories aboard Yamahas in 1972,
paving the way for Yamaha's Grand
National titles with Kenny Roberts in 1973
and '74 - if for no other reason than by
showing everyone that a Yamaha could beat
the Harleys and the Brits. Palmgren continued racing Yamahas until he simply couldn't.
"The last year I rode them, we had
made camshafts that made it where I could
run right with the Harleys again, but we
were getting beyond the structural deSign
of it. You could run one practice session on
the mile and there would be cracks in the
cases. By the end of the day, they were
junk. We could get more power out of the
things, but all they would do is break quicker. There really wasn't any choice."
Palmgren reluctantly made the switch to
Harleys before hanging up his leathers and
steel shoe for good in 1979. He still follows
the flat track scene, and he has monitored
the progress of the Suzuki 1000 project.
"I believe that a lot of the basic package
is there, but it is going to take a lot of work,"
Palmgren says of the Suzuki. "If it [flat track]
is ever going to draw, you are going to have
to get other people involved. The Aprilia
ran good at Du Quoin, and I think that they
did a damn good job. It would be good for
them [new brands] to become competitive
in the series. It would help."
Scott Rousseau
3U YEARS A6U...
January 14, 1975
Dale Brown
appeared on the
cover after he beat
....'""'.0.0,""
A C. Bakken at the
ORA 20 Mule Team
200... The 1975 sea·
son kicked off at Saddleback Motocross
Park with the first
round of the CMC series. Showing up to
do battle was a host of factory riders,
some aboard new machinery. Tommy
Croft, Gary Semics and Rich Thorwaldson
all showed up for the race. Thorwaldson,
however, was the only one who took
home a win, which was in the 500ee Pro
class ... We tested the new Laverda 750
SF2. We liked the bike and found it to be
a huge improvement over the previous
years' bikes.
i!U YEARS A6U...
January 16, 1985
F:":~~~~~~ Two-time
f'I..I.;,r.;,:,;~ \l"I~;J1
National
Enduro champion
Terry Cunningham
showed up on the
cover aboard his
Husqvarna. Inside we
asked him about his
incredible 1984 sea-
'-"=====w
son where he
mounted a come-
back from injury that no one expected...
The first round of the CMC Golden
State National series got under way in
Madera, California. Eric Kehoe, Ron
Lechien and Broc Glover were the big
winners of the day, while Kyle Lewis took
top honors in the 80ee Expert class...
Harley-Davidson pulled the plug on its
dirt track racing program for 19B5, leaving team riders Randy Goss, Scott Parker
and lay Springsteen to fend for themselves. Today, however, Harley-Davidson
is going strong.
1U YEARIj A6U...
January 11. 1995
..
Three-time World
. , ........ Champion Freddie
Spencer set blazing._"_
"
Iy fast lap times at
FlIll~l:I~ the highly anticipated
Michelin Daytona tire
~
test. Once the test
concluded, everyone
couldn't wait to see
what he could do
when the season got under way... We
completed some testing of our own.
Inside was our annual 250cc two·stroke
shootout, and coming out on top was
the ever-potent Yamaha 'fZ250... We
took a trip to the Bologna Motorcycle
Show in Bologna, Italy, and found some
interesting bikes. One was a Muller 12Scc
two-stroke with an aluminum frame and
airbox. This bike was also almost entirely
designed by one German-born engineer...
Just three days after moving to America,
French rider Michael Pichon scored his
first win at Perris Raceway during round
fIVe of the GFI Dealer Series.
