Cycle News

VOL. 54 ISSUE 48 DECEMBER 5, 2017 P85 smallest of Honda's four-cylinder machines. Endi- cott made it up to second place until the final lap when Dick Fuller and Greg Hornot, both on RDs, passed Endicott to round out the top three. Inci- dentally, Endicott and a rider on a Harley-Davidson Sprint, were the only four-stokes in the race. In the AMA Heavyweight Production class, it was Yvon Duhamel leading from flag to flag on his factory-backed Kawasaki Z1. It was said to be the same motorcycle that shattered the 24-Hour World Record with an average speed of 109.641 mph that March at Daytona International Speedway. Steve McLaughlin, on another Z1, badly botched the start, but sped rapidly from the back of the field to finish second. Reg Pridmore raced his BMW R90S to third. Several riders in this first race, like Prid- more, McLaughlin and Cook Neilson, would later become stars of the series when AMA Superbike began in earnest three years later. Many people don't recall this event, but the Pocono (Pennsylvania) Road Race National also featured a production race in August of '73 and it was Duhamel winning again, this time on a Kawa- saki H2, a 750cc two-stroke triple, over the BMW of Pridmore and Hurley Wilvert, third on a Z1. It marked the only time a two-stroke would win an overall in an AMA Heavyweight Production race. The production race returned to Laguna Seca again in 1974 and this time the race actually made the cover of Cycle News, with a photo by associate editor John Ulrich, showing McLaughlin, Duhamel and Pridmore battling for the lead. In '74 McLaughlin didn't make the same mistake he had the year before and got a great start and put his Kawasaki Z1 to the lead with Duhamel (Yo- shimura Kawasaki Z1) and Pridmore (BMW R90S) in hot pursuit. The trio had a great battle going, but McLaughlin and then Pridmore's machines broke clearing the path for a second-consecutive Duhamel victory. In the Lightweight Production divi- sion that year, another future superbike star named Wes Cooley, took the win. The season-ending road race national at On- tario in October of 1974 also featured a production race where Reg Pridmore finally broke Kawasaki's domination by riding his Beemer to victory over the Kawis of Steve McLaughlin and Yvon Duhamel. Momentum in the class was building, driven in large part to the prominence production racing was getting from Cook Neilson and Phil Schilling's ex- cellent coverage in the pages of Cycle magazine, by far the biggest voice in the sport at that point with a circulation of nearly a half-million. In 1975, the handwriting was on the wall that production racing would become a national cham- pionship class when Daytona picked up the event for Bike Week. At Daytona, production racing was split into three classes for the first time and West Coast racers dominated all three categories. David Aldana put the Z1 back atop the podium, once again, by taking the overall victory in the 10-lap sprint aboard his Yo- shimura Kawasaki. It was a clean sweep for Kawa- saki at Daytona, with Bob Endicott scoring second on his Action Fours Kawasaki and Yvon Duhamel third on another Yoshimura Kawasaki. Interestingly, Rodney Pink took fifth aboard a Harley Sportster 1000cc. Cook Neilson topped the 750cc class and Bob Tigert the Lightweight division. Duhamel proved to be the king of pre-national superbike racing, winning the '75 Laguna Open Production race, this time on a Dale Starr Engineer- ing Kawasaki Z1 ahead of the BMWs of Ron Pierce and Gary Fisher. Interestingly, Dale Singleton, bet- ter known for his prowess on Yamaha TZs, won the 750cc class on a Triumph. Loren McCreary took the victory in the Lightweight class. By 1976 the superbike name was used for the first time, as the AMA Superbike Production class ran at all four AMA Road Race Nationals that season and the new championship was off and running. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

• Cover
• page111
• page222