It’s been a while since I published an old racing photo. This one was taken at Sydney’s Oran Park (now, sadly, a housing estate and, no, naming the estate Oran Park does nothing to lessen my anger). I am guessing it is 1978 as Roger Heyes on an XS1100 Yamaha appears in the same roll.
But the photo is actually from an Unlimited Improved Production race and it featured a fabulous dice between the late Jim Budd on the Phase IV Engineering Kawasaki and the late Roy Dennison on his Kawasaki 900.
The fact the both Improved and Production bikes are seen racing in the same race indicates the depth of talent back then and also the fact that a well-ridden proddy bike could still be pretty competitive.
The rider here is the late Neil Chivas (why have so many of the great riders of this period left us?) and it illustrates just how far over a proddy bike could lean when ridden by a brave and determined rider. The GS1000 was a real weapon back then and its arrival dented severely Honda’s claim to proddy bike bragging rights with their CBX 6 cylinder machine. Yes, the CBX won some races but it was heavier to lug around, thirstier and more expensive to maintain. As an aside, it seems absurd now with the price of good CBXs being what they are that riders flung them around the race tracks like they were just an ordinary bike.
The CBX also had fabulous ground clearance despite the width of the cylinders. At the crankcase it was narrower than Honda’s other superbike offering, the CB900.
But the GS1000 was a better bike for all the reasons listed above and it soon vanquished Honda’s 6 cylinder offering. Drawing on all the modern tech it could, it was narrow at the crankcases and was considerably lighter than the CBX. In terms of lean angle it equalled Honda’s offering and its only real Achilles heel was the clamp that joined the pipes to the headers. Lean it over TOO far and the clamp started to wear away.
Sure modern bikes achieve better lean angles but the bravery required to lean a 200+kg big bike over THAT far is still admirable.
Speedway tonight, I hope that the Speedcar feature race finishes like this picture, that would be cool.
