Point taken, Tom. And don't forget our own Tryg Westby, who had a very trick VFR back in the day.

But, as we all know, the VFR was a strange beast for racing. It killed in AMA Superbike, but arguably wasn't a huge player in club racing because of the things you mentioned and other things, too. I didn't fully understand Honda and the VFR's direction at the time, and yet I owned a 1987 VFR700 street bike for a while in 1988. Last year Bubba Shobert told me the VFR was a very comfortable race bike, which help make it easy to ride, and I concurred on the comfort level. It sure felt big, slow and heavy by comparison to the Yamaha and Suzuki (respecively), though. You could certainly make VFRs into good race bikes, as Shobert, Merkel, Rainey and other proved at the national level, but unless you had buckets of cash and an inside line to HRC, you were probably struggling to keep up in the club races, a few guys notwithstanding.

Bottom line is that by the time I started racing in late 1987, the FZ750 was basically obsolete (600, too), although a few still kicking around, and the VFR was almost completely MIA. FZRs replaced the FZs (in limited numbers) and Honda, well, Honda decided not to make 750s and concentrated on the (then) killer Hurricane 600s.

Aside from Tryg, didn't Darnell Dorsey or some of our current other members race them too? The only reason I mentioned Ronnie was because I think his VFR was as trick or close to as trick as Bubba's back then. Not much shortage of HRC parts on the Lundsford bike as I recall.

Man, the Hurricanes were aptly named in my opinion, but good lard were they smooth! I was never fortunate enough to own one of those, but I flogged a few that friends owned.

To me the GSXR was just a MONSTER back then and it took an extremely smooth hand to control one (this coming from someone who raced a ~40hp FT500 Ascot back then...). The 7-11 I rode that belonged to Kevin Ward was at Oak Hill and I made it on to turn one, up the hill, where I wheelied uncontrolably, and shut it down for the rest of the lap; considering actually cutting the track to get back to the paddock...

Those of you that owned/ raced the GSXR back then had some serious bawls IMHO.

The VFR was just a smooth torque monster to me. It was fast enough, had some grin factor with the ability to wheelie in the first couple or three gears, handled really nicely, and the brakes were REALLY good with some "green" or HH pads in there. I loved that bike, and I wish I never would have sold it to Eric Heddles so that I could buy my first SV race bike some 6-7 years ago.

Just to get Linz going on the FZ again... lol

http://forums.13x.com/showthread.php?t=241991&highlight=fz750

Bubba's VFR.... things I noticed were the swingarm was shorter, the front end was pulled up so close to the chin of the fairing that they had to cut the plastics for wheel travel. Special triple clamps, HRC exhaust and carbs etc....









Though I loved the VFR, Linz was right about needing inside connections with HRC to get the good stuff for it.... ultimately that is what killed the bike for club racing. I loved mine.... but I sure was glad when I got my first GSXR!!!

Tom: I didn't know you sold your bike to Heddles. I work with him (sort of), and used to ride some off-road with him. I saw that bike there one time and he was getting ready to get it gone. That was a couple years ago. I need to ask, but I may know the guy that got it from him.

Danny: The FZ was a nice place to visit, but I don't want to go back there again. Okay, I'm lying, actually. I'd love to have a nice one in the garage for vintage fun, but it's low on the priority list for me.

Yeah, Eric stole it from me! Actually I think I got the better end of the deal, but yup, that was mine. I had the fiberglass Cobalt Racing solo tail on it along with RC30 upper/ lower fairings, an extra set of carbs ('cause they were a pain in the azz and HARD TO FIND PARTS FOR). I tried to talk Lundsford out of his spare parts for my bike some 8 or so years ago and he wounldn't give up anything.

When Eric bought mine, I had already done the "F2 Conversion" and built up the front end with Racetech stuff, had the Fox Twin Clicker, 17" wheels front and rear (for modern rubber) and a bunch of other goodies. I think it would be a great bike for vintage racing, that engine is still strong and bullet proof (if it's in the same condition).

Yep, I know who has it now. He likely isn't going to ever do anything with it, so it could be yours again for the asking.

hmmmmm, send me the contact info if you can, or just sniff around to see what's up if you wouldn't mind.

Here’s another from the May 6, 1995 endurance race at TWS. This one more shot of the Valvoline Emgo Team Suzuki entry before the start of the race. I mentioned before that Michael Martin was one of the riders on the team at the time, and his brother, Richard (I think, but it might have been his other brother, Robert) Martin can be seen in the middle of the picture; he was a crewman on the team. Also in this picture is Keith Perry, the long-time tuner for the team. The 5 bike is the Arclight entry.






Here’s more from August 3, 1997. This is one of my favorite pictures, but I’m not going to tell why publically (although Chuckster will probably figure it out, though.) My teammate, Nick, having already run his stint on the bike, is giving me a little scoop on what I can expect when I get on the bike a lap or two from this point. I usually ran anchor on the team and tried to make up time if were down any towards the end of the race. On this day and in this race, we were down a lap when I got on the bike, and I couldn’t make any time on the leaders. So we finished second in the race, but that was good enough to wrap up the endurance championship for the season.






This my friend Andy’s 1988 GSXR750 at Oak Hill. This picture was taken in the spring of 1991. 770 was Andy’s sprint number (still is, I think), but 70 was the number we were going to use for the endurance race that day. Yep, big bike endurance at Oak Hill. We didn’t have too many big bike endurances races at Oak Hill because, well, the track and pits just didn’t get along too well with so many bikes on the track at one time. This picture is notable because not long after this, I crashed in someone’s oil in T3 on the first lap of the race (several of us went down, actually). See, I gave the bike a make-over during the off-season, and this day started the systematic destruction of my labors. I would continue to kill this bike over the course of the next few events. Anyway, the red flag came out and the race was restarted, but this bike was done for the day. I can’t remember what broke causing our DNF, though. I know that I got broke when I got whacked in the helmet by George Hipsher’s footpeg, though. At one time I remembered how many concussions I’ve had. Guess I’ve had one too many.






I didn’t take this picture, obviously, but I like it. This is a scan of a Cycle News subscription card from the late 1990s. I had this hanging on garage wall for years, and found it again recently. Name the four riders in the picture. It’s really not that hard, so go for it.

Cycle News photo...Should have been Roberts, Duhamel, Crevier, Hopkins...and I think the track was Loudon in 1999.