VOLUME 58 ISSUE 20 MAY 18, 2021 P117
rode nearly perpendicular to the
ground. The radius of the turn
was about equivalent to what
you'd expect on a Mile track, so
it was much tighter and seemed
steeper than Daytona."
It was very likely the first time
any of these riders had ridden
a high-bank turn. The Daytona
races went to the Speedway
in 1961, but the banking wasn't
used there until '64. Meadowdale
probably played a part in con-
vincing AMA officials that racing
on banking was at least work-
able, giving them the confidence
to go ahead with it at Daytona.
With its high-banked turn and
three-quarter-mile long front
straight, Meadowdale, built in
1958, was a very fast circuit, with
the motorcycles averaging over
80 mph on the 2.5-mile motor-
cycle configuration (the track had
other options as well that length-
ened it to as much as 3.3 miles)
during the 150-mile Nationals.
Looking at Meadowdale's
Monza Wall for the first time left
riders scratching their heads.
"It was a very hard track to
figure out," said Dick Mann,
a two-time National winner at
Meadowdale. "When we first
went to the track, we looked at
the Wall and didn't want to ride
on it. A lot of riders stayed near
the bottom in the first couple
practice laps, but eventually we
got up the nerve to ride up there
and found it was a much faster
line. You'd ride about midway to
three-quarters up the Wall and
your bike's suspension would be
completely compressed from the
G forces."
The other interesting thing
about that era in road racing was
the diversity of motorcycles. You
had Harley-Davidson KRs, BSA
Gold Stars, Triumph 500 Twins,
Matchless G50s and a few other
brands such as Norton. All were
allowed European-style fairings
for the first time in 1963. Some
teams went with them while oth-
ers continued without fairings.
The diversity was even more
evident in the 250cc class,
which now ran at all road-race
Nationals. There you had the new
Aermacchi-built Harley-Davidson
Sprint CRTT, Ducati Diana,
Honda 250 Hawk, Yamaha TD1
and various Bultaco, Montesa
and Parilla 250 racers. Yamaha
was eager to give its TD1 a strong
introduction into U.S. racing,
and it came along just in time for
the new road-race tracks that
were now hosting AMA Nation-
als. Some of the top racers were
Jody Nicholas celebrates his 250cc
Grand Prix win at Meadowdale in
1963 sitting astride his Yamaha TD1.
It marked the first National road-race
win for Yamaha in the United States.
and found it was a much faster
ers continued without fairings.
