A-Quick and Dirty Look at'
the Bikes that Won Daytona '
C.
b y Jack Mangus
Ph o tos by Bob Lenk, Bill Neill,
Gary Van Voorhis, an d Man gus
U
racers.
The fastest bike that you can buy . and it's even reliable . Photo co urtesy of "Auto By".
••.. t ri ck brake assemblies.
Noguch i shocks on TZ.
The d ifference between a T Z a'nd a TRJ B.
T ake form er Daytona 20 0 and
Combined race winner Gary Nix o n, th e
top Junior road racer in '7 2 and n ow
Expert J erry Greene, Japanese road rac e
ch ampion Yu tak a Oda, ' 72 Daytona
Junior ra ce winner Ronnie Dottley,
Nixon's teammate,and first y ear Expert
St eve Dalgamo, ro ad race specialists
Howard Lynggard, J eff Mar ch and
Graham James ; sixteen ye ar old .and
soon to be Novice sensation Jay
Ridgew ay, more N ogu chi prodified
Yamaha ro ad racers than you can co un t
on two hands an d y ou co me up with
Team Dirty.
Differences first spot te d o n Te am
Dirty's TZ's when co mpare d to t he air
cooled TR3 are , natu rally, th e rad iator,
water pump and "hosed" h ead . Internal
inspection rev eals th e wa ter jac kets in
th e cylin der bl oc k and an imp roved
crank assembly . Fro nt brake assemblies
o n th e 350's ranged from b ox st oc k
Yamaha TR3-TZ b rakes to p ar t ially or
almost totally m agn esium housin gs an d
innard s.
Noguchi rear sh oc ks were mounted
on Greene's b ike while the othe r team
mach ines carried the standard shocks.
Oda 's bike h ad received no ticeab ly m o re
det ail a ttention than had t he o ther two
T Z's shippe d fr om Noguchi. Titanium
bolts, drilled o ut to cut d own weight,
were used wherever possib le.
'
Tires ran ged fro m st an dard " rim
protec tors" to l ast year's Du nl ops wi th
eithe r the new Dunlop o r Goody ear to
b e mounted on ce the team arrived a t
Day tona .
Alo ng with th e sweat th at went in to
the physical prep aration of th e engines
m any o th erde tails had to b e atten de d
to . Pain ting of th e fair ings was del ay ed
by the lat e arr ival of sever al of t he bikes
the week prior to Speed Week . So while
midnigh t oil was b eing burn ed by th e
me ch anics and riders so too was it being
u tilized by a sign painter. Applie d to th e
fai rings in addition to th e rid ers' names
on the fairi n g an d Team Dir ty o n th e
,tail sec ti o n wer e Noguchi Sp ecial on th e
ta n k s, Sp ort s R id ers (a J ap anese
mo torcycle club ' he ad ed by Ta ne ha ru
Noguc hi that every J ap an ese road racer
worth y of th e title belon gs to) an d
Korean Air Lin es. When questioned
about the KAL on the fairing T o wn sley
smile d an d sai d, "We've been doi ng all
the airfreightiitg of Noguchi p arts ' and
kits on KAL and when we ship pe d th e
three T Z's last wee k we ap proached
th em an d in excha nge for their na me on
the three bikes t hey , airfreigh te d the m
free . Pretty good exchange as it save d us
al most $ 1,0 0 0."
Th e fairings on Dirty 's TZ's are the
J apanese GP wo rks fairings whic h d iffer
f ro m t he fai rings available in this
co untry t o purch asers of the T Z. Th ey
are narrower and have aluminum rather
t han fiberglass belly p ans.
Af ter unloading al l th e bikes t he first
"who brought it" qu estion was thrown.
The " it.. ,in trus case was a b ucket th a t
was n eeded to obtain some water to fill
the radiators. Afte r y ears of riding air
cooled motorcycl es th e en tire team
laughed an d all admitted they hadn ' t
th ough t to fill the radiators. While w ater
was used during th e da y Townsley
stated that f or D ay ton a's higher
t empe ra tures and ex ten de d running
coolan t would b e used.
First man out wa, Greene fo llowed
by a quiet Dalgarno who had raced a
Ni x o n s p o nso re d T ri u m p h three
cy lin de r las t year and had turned in a
spectacul ar o n th e longest st rai gh t at
Road Atlanta in p rac tice fo r last year's
Nati o nal road race program. Added to
the memory o f that getoff was the fac t
th at Dalgarno had n ever ridden a two
stroke road rac er nor had h e ever road
raced on a wet trac k. Od a, the Japanese
ace , was no stranger to wet tracks and
he foll owed Gre en e and Dalg arno ou t
and quickly started cutting fast laps.
Both Greene and Dalgarno ran th eir
250's fir st and th en ca me in and went
back out on the watercooled 350's.
After a handful of laps th e two entered
th e pit ar ea and b oth wer e bubbling
over. "Man, thi s thing 's a mi ssile, " jwas
Greene's first comme n t af ter removing
h is helm et. " It h andle s s o
b it ch in '--wo w-· w hoo e e --co me on,
Day tona. It jus t handles ; you can flop it
th is wa y an d that way and it just w ants
to go." Due to th e wet track lap ti mes
were slo w but wh en info rmed he was
turning th e co u rse in I minute , 50
s eco n d s Green e added, "Really ? I
th ought I was probably turning 2 :2 0 's
o r so me thing. Oh man , th is is so neat. I
though t I was co mi ng o ut here just to
run around an d h ave so me fun. I had n o
id ea I'd b e this jazzed."
Perhap s m ore jazzed th an Gr een e wa s
Dalgarnowhose ecstatic state could b e
detected eve n b ef ore he re moved his
Bell Star. "Far o u t! It's li ke pla ying a
piano" Yo u have to do every th ing ju st
right, lik e keeping her in t he p ower
band and d o the bra ke thi ng just right
but wh en yo u do--well-it just feels
gre at. This th ing is a road racer . ' Th eTriumph I rode last year was easier to
ride becau se y o u h ad ' suc h a b road'
power band and you could just roll on
p ow er if it fel t like it was going
sideways but this th ing-man , it just
handles so well . It 's ligh t an d it le ts y ou
know th a t it just wants to be laid over
in the com ers. I'll b e ab le to sleep grea t
tonight."
Dalgarn o , ru nning a b asi cally stoc k
TZ and usin g a red lin e of 10, 200 r's ,
reported hi s te m perature gauge stayed
righ t a t t he 70 degree centigra de figure.
T ownsley smiled and informed him th e
Nogu chi prepared TZ 's were running 80
to 8 5 degrees an d that his wo uld also as
soon as they wrenched so me mo re
horses into it.
Aliho ugh Team Dirty d idn ' t win
Daytona, th e bi kes are pretty simila r to
factory m achin es th at nailed do wn firs t
an d second an d, in the hands of
priva te er Jim Evans, took third als o.
Even th ough th is was the first ti me th at
th e new wa ter -co oleds have taken the
plunge in A merican competition , th ey ,
have. shown th ems elves to be plenty fast
d espite the 100 percen t displacement
di sadvan tage , Because th ey are a lso
apparen tly relia ble, they sho uld win a
pil e of ra ces thi s season.
