XR '14 rotary -valve square-four which
tw o years later wou ld spawn the
RG5 0 0 customer bike. Measuring 56
x 50.5 mm and broadly based on th e
extremely fast but equally fickle RZ63
works 250cc square-four GP racer of
e x ac t l y 10 y e ar s earli er , des ign er
Makoto Hase's new 50 0cc missil e initially fo llowed in it s sm all er -capa city
an ce st o r' s tire tra ck s . It buil t an
eq u ally lurid rep u ta t io n du rin g it s
1974 dev elopment yea r, as Hase and
h is R& D team struggled to ma tc h the
bike's undou bted perform ance with a
sem bla nc e of re liabil ity . In fa ct, th e
XR 14 had finished secon d in its rac ing debu t, in th e 1974 Fre nch GP at
Cl e r mo nt F e rr a n d , whe n Sheene
en d ed u p j u st f i ve seco nds b eh ind
future Wo rl d C hampion Phil Read 's
MV Agusta at the flag .
But althou gh thi s debut result flat t ered to decei ve, as a successio n of
eng ine and ha ndling problem s blighted the b ike ' s de v el opment se ason ,
Suzuki had great hopes fo r the 1975
year. A c om p letel y re d esi gn ed ve r sion o f th e XR 14 w as di sp atched to
E u rope t o b e ente re d by the sma II
wo r ks t eam of fac t ory m ech ani c s':
on e of each of th e new bikes went to
Sh eene and Suzu ki's new recruit from
Yam aha, Tepi Lansivuo ri, for th em to
rac e the whol e season with . Th e tw o
o t he r s were shared b etween t h e
f avor ite sons of vari ou s l oc a l
i m p o rt er s, m ain ly Heron Su zuki's
Stan Woods and J ohn Ne wbold, and
Suzuk i It ali a ' s Ro bert o Gallina and
Armando Toracca .
"I LET HIM LEAO INTO THE
LAS T LAP. KNOWING I WAS
MUCH FASTER IN THE
LAST TWO CORNERS. "
-BARRY SHEENE
Attac hed to th e fact or y race tea m
that yea r was Heron m echan ic Mart in
Og bo urne, late r to become Suzuki's
c h i e f r ace e ng inee r in a 15 - y e a r
career with the wo rks GP effo rt. He
rem em be rs th e tribulations they su ffered in m ak ing th e XR14 co mpetitive
in it s second season only too well.
"T here were two mai n problems,"
