Rd Roadracer
RD Roadracer
YAMAHA’S LITTLE TWIN CAST A LONG SHADOW IN COMPETITION
You CAN’T TALK ABOUT THE RD350 without addressing its racing successes. More than a few aspiring GP and Superbike stars cut their teeth on Yamaha’s little Twin. Wes Cooley and Mike Baldwin raced RDs, as did a bushy-haired Louisiana kid who went by the nickname “Fast Freddie.”
Perhaps the most successful racer to graduate from the RD ranks was Eddie Lawson. The potent RD was one of the first “fast” roadracers Lawson ever rode. Several years ago at a Yamaha press junket, I bench-raced with Lawson about his early (and my final) days of racing. “I couldn’t believe how fast you guys rode those bikes,” the 500cc world champion told me. I had to chuckle, but Lawson was serious. In ’76, he was still learning about braking points and apexes on his RD, and had yet to swing a leg over a TZ250. Once he did, he never looked back.
But Lawson’s admiration for those experienced RD racers and their bikes was valid. In capable hands, a properly tuned, race-worthy RD350 or 400 often played the role of David against the larger, faster four-stroke Goliaths that in the mid-’70s formed the nucleus for the then-new Superbike class.
History being the best teacher, our first lesson should review the 1976 Laguna Seca National. The AMA’s Superbike class was in its formative years, and the racing was dominated by a stable of semi-factory Kawasaki Z-ls competing under the Dale Starr Enterprises banner. Toss in a bunch of privateers on lesser Z-ls, Honda
CB750s and BMWs, and you had the Superbike lineup. Almost. Also entered was an R5/RD350 hybrid built by a Southern California racer named Dick Fuller.
Fuller rode well that day, nipping at the heels of the four-strokes, and finishing fourth. Good thing, too. As Fuller told the story after the race, “I was hoping none of the top three would drop out. If they tore me down (during mandatory post-race tech inspection for the top three), I’d have been disqualified.” Superbike minimum displacement requirement, see, was 351cc-to discourage guys like Fuller from cluttering up the track on their “slower” motorcycles.
There was a west-coast race that legitimately pitted the little RDs against the one-liter superbikes, the Ontario Six Hour, held every April. In ’77, I teamed with my brother Alan aboard John Lassak’s RD350. Lassak was a talented rider, but his true gift was in squeezing every bit of power out of a two-stroke Twin. Lassak is semi-legendary now, but a large part of the roadracing community had yet to hear from him in ’77. They got an earful during the Six Hour.
With more than 80 entries, the AFM started the race in two waves: Open, 750 and 550cc classes were first, followed 10 seconds later by the 410 (us) and 250cc classes. Alan started the race for our team.
Despite the 10-second handicap, Alan
rode brilliantly, carving his way through a swarm of four-strokes. By the time he pitted 45 minutes later for gas and a rider change, we were seventh overall, and a full straightaway ahead of the next 410. For the next five hours and 15 minutes, we essentially cruised to fifth overall; only a trio of liter-bikes and a lone Ducati 750 beat us.
Lassak returned to the Six Hour again in ’78 with two hot-rod RDs-my brother Alan and Dick Fuller on one, Thad Wolf and myself on the other. Of 101 entries, Thad and I came home sixth overall, and Alan and Dick finished a few seconds behind us in seventh. We finished 1-2 in the 410 class, naturally.
I could go on indefinitely about my RD adventures, but you get the point: This diminutive Yamaha ranks among the greatest production-class racebikes ever. Though I never made it quite as far as Eddie Lawson, I won my fair share of races and class championships aboard RDs. But the biggest reward my RDs gave me are the memories, still polished, safely stashed away in the archives of my mind.
Dain Gingerelli
