Cycle News

CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE T hey say history is written by the victors and such is the case in the world of motorcycle performance exhaust systems. Kerker pipes are still made today, but the company was purchased by longtime rival SuperTrapp in the early 1990s. When you read the "About" section today on SuperTrapp's website, Kerker gets a small para- graph and there's nothing of the original founder of the company, George Kerker. It's difficult to find a lot about George Kerker today via web searches, but fortunately he was such a conspicuous character, that those who knew him remember. Kerker was one of the wild men who helped get superbike racing launched on the West Coast in the late 1960s and early '70s. Road racing to that point was a proper imitation of Euro- pean GP racing, with tidy riders racing purpose- built full-faired and small racing motorcycles. Kerker and his fellow production racers busted the mold. They raced large, loud, gnarly-handling street bikes and got them around the corners anyway they could, even if it meant putting your foot down, sacrilege in the traditional road racing world. And then there were the wheelies, also a no-no to the traditionalist, but so much fun to do on these early superbikes. The fans loved it, which only served to further tick off the old guard. And then there was the legendary time when Kerker took a victory lap trailing his naked girl- friend on the back! Even the traditionalist had to smile at that one. As you might be able to tell by now, Kerker was a colorful figure to say the least. He was an artist whose medium was bending pipes. That led him into making custom racing exhausts for early su- perbikes, first for Moto Guzzis and Nortons, and later he built one of the early four-into-one racing pipes for the revolutionary Honda CB750. THE PIPE MAN P112 George Kerker at Daytona When he wasn't making racing pipes Kerker led the prototypical Southern California disco lifestyle. The early 1970s was an era in South- ern California where disco was sweeping the nightclubs. Kerker was a type of West Coast version of John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever! He and his girlfriend were considered two of the best disco dancers in SoCal and they regularly won dance contests. The scene was full of recreational drugs. They were considered fun, something to enhance the frivolous nightlife and George was certainly part of that craze. While many of his fellow racers of the early 1970s pulled into the race track driving an Econoline van with a greasy buddy sitting in the passenger seat, when Kerker drove up, you knew he was something different. He'd be driv- ing a split-window Vette towing his race bike on a trailer. He'd have a gorgeous girl sitting next to him and he often was wearing the same wide bell bottoms and long floppy collars he'd sported on the disco floor the night before.

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