Kevin with his current ride

"This is not my actual bike. This is similar to the 1973 Yamaha RD I started my riding career on. Crappy coils and I put it into the back of a Datsun 510. My god, it was quick and light. Purchased in 1976 for $750.00.

When I acquire a motorcycle, I go over it with great care. Inspecting, repairing and modifying as needed. The suspensions are always stripped and re-assembled after modifications and that means fresh oil in the forks, spacers, bushings and bearings as required. I always stripped the carbs and re-jetted as necessary. In some cases I even drilled out the old main jets. I never had a mechanical failure on the road even when things weren't working well. As I liked to ride hard and fast, everything had to be just so. All these bikes were cheap as I couldn't afford a lot.

This is similar to the 1976 Yamaha RD 400 I started my racing career on. Mine was white and once I modified it, it went like stink and the brake could launch you over the handle bars if you weren't careful. Purchased in 1976 for $1400.00.

The only picture of me on the race bike on a track day, 1977. This one had Michelin PZ1 and PZ2 tires, aluminum front fender and Redwing shocks and Ferodo brake pads and air caps for the forks, tapered roller bearings, swing arm bushings etc.

The 1966 Suzuki Hustler. It was clapped out but still great fun. I always like this look as it screamed the 1960's. The fuel gauge was a clear plastic vertical hose on the left side of the fuel tank in front to the chrome panel. There was a 2X4 under the seat holding it together with screws in the seat pan. I payed $350.00 for it I think.

The 1972 Suzuki T-250 (Hustler) , This bike was fabulously fun and once I put Michelin PZ2's on it I could run it at red-line all day and it stuck like glue. You had to wait a second for the brakes to work due to them being drum brakes but they worked very well. Once I ditched the stock handle bar for a super bike type things were a lot better. I paid $500.00 and it had 4000 miles on the clock.

The 1974 Suzuki RD350 I drove to Toronto and back to Winnipeg. I didn't count on the long days in the saddle along the shores of the great lakes in May. That was a really hard and cold (by the great lakes). At the end of a day in the saddle I hurt in places I didn't even know I had. It had drag bars and automotive coils as the OEM jobs sucked on the RD350's, Michelin tires and Ferodo brake pads. The ballast resistor failed coming into Toronto. On the way back to Winnipeg it's replacement was fine. I had a 1975 model as well which sorted out with air caps for the forks. Both for $750.00 each.

Suzuki GT500

The Suzuki GT500's wheel base was a bit longer than ideal and the turn-in was somewhat slow for my taste. When it was first introduced it was the first Japanese Super bike.

This 1978 Suzuki GT500 was a long legged mile eater which handled quite well but was not the fire breather I had hoped for. It vibrated every where accept at 5500 RPM which was the sweet spot, they all have one. I had a 1977 GT500 as well. I traded an RD for it.

A great experience and fun too. A rangy beast. Solid is a good word for it. It was made for the highway. The foot pegs were way too far forward and the seat was awful. It had super bike handle bars, Michelin tires, a black quarter fairing, K+N air filters and a fresh clutch. and Ferodo brake pads.

Honda CB400 and Kawasaki KZ1000

The 1977 Honda CB400 full Cafe. This was a beautiful handling machine with decent brakes but was too heavy and under powered. The quarter fairing got painted yellow. It had clubman bars, S+W shocks, mag wheels, a Kerker pipe, K+N air filters and a fiber glass quarter fairing Ferodo pads. Maybe I paid about $750.00.

This is a 1979 Kawasaki KZ1000. The barge was fast after all the modifications. I got it up to around 145 MPH. It was at the bleeding edge of it's handling envelope and the brakes really sucked. It was very sensitive to tires. It was a pig in the turns and couldn't lean over very far without grounding hard but it was blistering in a straight line. By the time I finished tuning it, it was pumping about 95 HP.

This one had a race fender, Telefix fork brace, super bike bars an oil cooler, a Hindle pipe, Marzochi shocks (over sprung), EBC brake pads, K+N air filters, an Ape clutch. It really needed two rotors up front. The seat was great. A very comfy ride. On a hard charge the frame frame flexed a lot.

1973 Yamaha RD350

The first time I got it onto the highway, I was astonished at it's acceleration and power given it's small size. The seat was as usual, quite awful and the standard bar and grips were equally bad. The grips were the weird ribbed kind that sort of resembled fish scales sticking straight out, they actually stung the palms of my hands. It felt a bit like stinging nettles after a few hours on the road. I got caught in the rain on the way to Minaki, Ontario.

I had never driven in the rain before and the Yokohama tires were bloody scary. Back in the city I ran into the back end of a Datsun 510 at 30 MPH and caught my right knee on the corner of the roof as I vaulted over the car and landed twenty feet in front of the car. Not a crisis, it turned out that I was one of those guys who was cool under pressure. Not bad for a "sensitive type".

Racing at the Gimili sports car circuit actually did separate the men from the boys as the cars would tear up the concrete on the insides of the corners and we had to learn how to drive around the ruts and pavement ripples. A short course at 1.5 miles around in the shape of a closed W. There was never a moment when you weren't working hard. There was a core of racers who knew how to get around the circuit and I learned a lot from them. I blew an engine or two before I figured out the mechanical aspects.

We would hump our crap down to Brainard, Minnesota to race on what was then the biggest , fastest closed circuit in America. Our American friends always seemed to have cash for all the go fast goodies we couldn't afford, and our stuff looked a bit ratty as we spent money on the important stuff not on the paint job. Money was that tight. We still would beat them on a regular basis due to the technical nature of the Gimili circuit because we had a bigger, more refined skill set. We could drive around most guys in our respective classes and out maneuver and out brake them, not by a lot, but enough.

There were some real talents down there and it was a pleasure to watch them work the circuit. The main straight went on forever and by half way down the straight the little RD's were puking their guts out with a baritone bellow and a ripping intake howl. I confess, I thought it was the sexiest sound ever made at the time.

Turn one was banked about 8 degrees and turn two was flat and tightened up. You could go full tilt through one and two but one looked like a concrete wall. The bike was well sorted out and calm as you please and I had to work up the courage to overcome the illusion of that concrete wall. Entering the turn at about 126 MPH was pretty thrilling. I entered high on the outside and used my inside knee as an air brake and I could feel the machine sucking down to the inside line and I would hold it low as long as I could. This set me up for turn two which was flat and a bit tighter. Hauled over like that I would drift both wheels right across the width of the course to the very edge of the track right on the painted line.

The Michelin tires had a reputation for sticking like mad but they could let go with no warning so a little faith was involved. Then on to turn 3, the hair pin. Thread the needle at the hair pin just right and you could make up time and out drive and handle the big boys and come out on the back straight having made up ground. Braking from 110 MPH to 20 MPH really made the front forks work for a living and excessive dive could be a problem. A machine set up right was not an issue.

You could stooge about the infield and there were a few different lines to take but mostly you stayed on the main line and marked your target. You could drive around the slow pokes. Between turns 6 and 7 there was a 6 foot drop over a fairly short distance and the suspension would unload right when you had to switch from left hand lean to a hard right hand maximum lean angle. Everything was fine until the machine passsed through the vertical axis and then the suspension unloaded. Some guys hadn't a clue but it didn't seem to upset the apple cart much. Right then things could be a smidge squirrelly but it was unsettling, not really dangerous.

The last real challenge was to get a good hard charge out of turn 8 as you past under the bridge to the infield. This concrete abutment, decorated with armco was a daunting sight at a speed of 80 to 90 MPH and more than one pilot grazed the armco with what ever was exposed on the left side.

The bigger bikes could haul through there and I didn't envy them as they came so close to a potential sad ending. One of our boys on a Kawasaki 900 Ninja ate the armco right there. Talk about a smack down! We were really worried about him. It turned out that he bruised every square inch of his left side and wadded up the bike pretty good.

On the way home we would stop at Perkins in Bemiji on our way north for supper. Our man showed up and boy did we rib him something fierce. I told him we were concerned about him, but only because we were afraid he had hurt his beautiful roman nose. We started to laugh and couldn't stop. Every time he laughed his whole body hurt like heck and every time he yelped we laughed harder. Frank was a good man.

The above remarks are from a 5 hour endurance race conducted in the rain. It was miserable. We ran an RD400 Daytona model. It was a sweet setup. My bike was our backup. Rain is the great equalizer. We each did 2, 40 minute sessions. I always liked running in the rain because you had to pay special attention to traction and with the big iron, the power of these freight trains could put you on your ass fast and you were carrying more mass. On the small bores everything could be felt through your bum, feet and hands. Just learn to drive around the deep puddles, ha!

I had a bad ankle sprain a week old and I just taped her up and hobbled about. It was my right ankle and I couldn't flex it, but didn't care because who use's the back brake anyway. I used it that day. If I had taken my work/race boots off between sessions I would never get the boot on my right foot on again due to the swelling. We were wearing panty hose and baby powder under the leathers stay loose and warm. Hey, it worked!

By hour four a lot of the big bore crowd were retiring due to blown motors, thrown chains, electrical problems and some asphalt eating due to traction problems primarily. It was wet you know. One of the lads was running a Triumph Trident triple and it started running badly in hour 4 and you could hear her dying and he finally pulled in as she died. They pulled a spark plug and the thing was so encrusted with powdered aluminum you couldn't see the the center electrode, yikes! If it weren't for blue and red loctite the thing would have fallen to pieces. A good machine in the right hands in it's day.

One final bit of strangeness, we had practiced our pit stops about a dozen times and had it down so no worries there. We had a trick fuel filler. We had a metal fuel tank on a six foot stand with a standard fuel filler hose with and standard nozzle, nothing too special until you noticed the air filler stem and cap welded to the top of the tank. We pressurized the tank with a bicycle pump! We could fill a bike with fuel in under 3 seconds max. Of course it was insanely dangerous because if any part of the unit failed the tank would spray fuel under pressure throughout our pit area incinerating the lot of us. We had a bag of marshmallows handy just in case. After that little stunt the organizers banned the set up and rightly so.

I think the term "Crazy Canucks" was used on more than one occasion.

The final outcome was that we finished first in class and third over all I think. The boys let me accept the trophy for the team which was a special treat as it meant they thought I was good enough to do the job and I showed them I could. I gave a little speech about team work, sportsmanship and mentioned how we all appreciated the mutual friendships of our American hosts. I'm good at that sort of thing I guess. God knows how many kegs we all went through that night but tomorrow was Sunday and the sprints.

Our American friends were on balance a great group of sportsmen when that really meant something. I met many fine competitors and remain in touch with some of them even today. They were good fellows well met.

Kevin Waugh

I was unsentimental about the bikes because my attitude was " this is a tool so just use it as hard as you can" and I did, typical racer thinking. When the liquid cooled machines came on the scene the air cooled machines quickly became obsolete. Money is always tight for the racer and I was no exception, I couldn't afford to upgrade to an Yamaha RD350LC so I quit racing and moved on to other things but I never lost the bug.

This, however didn't stop me from being a two wheel speed freak lunatic. My poor parents!

Some thoughts about the psychology of motorcycle racing...

I had a chat with an old racing friend last week and he related how the economy was hurting his business. As a small American business owner, (I can relate) he is being hit hard. I find that it is important to clear ones head before the event (any event really) or just when you are dealing with a heavy load psychologically. I wanted to give him an anchor which he could directly draw on from his personal experience a state of being of immanence, that is, completely in agreement with reality. This is important to a motorcycle racer as it is for any sports man who wants to win and excel. One must subsume the ego. I think most racers get this part and how important it is to find a way to reach this mental place. Having done so is a moment of supreme enjoyment.

Most guys who really enjoy riding will at some point glimpse this place. Last year on the Ninja with my buddy on a GS1150 BMW we went on very fast ride to Ingolf Ontario in September we found our selfs in the zone if you like. The zone being that place where there is no longer any separation between you, the machine and the world. All you are is the guidance system and the your focus is so intent that it is as though you are in a beautiful tunnel. We encountered some of the best curving and twisting roads in my experience. We did stop to marvel at the the fall colours on that warm fall day. This is as close to a meditation as a racer gets, I think.

Regardless of the outcome, this is the place one starts from.

Pre-grid.

You wait, calming yourself, clearing away the detritus of an untidy life. You feel the sun's heat on your back through the leather. The helmet visor is up and you feel the air move against your cheek. You think, my lips are dry, yet you are salivating like crazy.

Surrounding you are all the others, their machines making a low soft rumble as they idle en mass. Relax you tell your self, do the work. This is your job at this very moment. Easy, your shoulders are tightening and your thighs clench. Once more you think, let all the emotions fall away, calm, relax, I' m glad I had a pee. There they are, the butterflies. Of all the things you dislike, you dislike these the most. Even when the rider next to you gives you the thumbs up, you feel alone, your used to it. You return his smile but at this moment you are preoccupied. This waiting sucks.

You breath slowly and deeply, it helps you wash away the emotions and anxiety, those things don't matter now. Nothing else matters now. It's too late for doubt. Where is the center? I need the center, you think. There are two threads of sweat flowing down the back of your neck and you feel a tiny chill. Finally it comes, the quiet, as though you are entering a large empty room and feel the echoing silence on your skin.

Now, your chest feels warm and it seems to spread across your trunk. Good, I'll be alright now as the calm over takes the paradox's of your life. This is not a paradox. Your legs and shoulders are loose and your no longer feel as though a steel rod has replaced your spine. You relax your arms and your hands gathered in your lap palms up resting on the tank. You feel the cool painted steel shell of the fuel cooled tank through the backs of your racing gloves. Your hands feel cold. Now is the time. Now you are empty. Nothing matters except this. You wait.

I will write a bit more about this sort of thing, ( The Zen of the act of racing motorcycles) which can really be applied to any activity. These would be just little pieces and could be a little series of short descriptions of such topic's as:Attenuation and adrenaline.Man, machine, mind.The chase.The edge.The pump.The flaw.Post race pit.I often found this, the most difficult part of racing as I was full of brain chemicals I had to find ways cooling down and switching off.

This material might be slow in coming but I am interested in pursuing the project just to see what comes out.

The other stories about riding the old iron are still coming. In order to do this kind of writing I find that I need blocks of time to think it through and craft the language.

Kevin.