Strangest bike raced at a WERA event...

Those Honda MB5s were such cool little bikes. A guy I went HS with rode one to school every day.

 

I rode and crashed a Bimota KB2 GPZ550 powered bike in '83. Unavailability of 16" slicks lead to all 3 of us endurance racing it that year to throw it down at some point. I crashed after locking the front wheel in turn 1 a few hours into the Pocono WERA 6 hour, but the owner J.R. Howell had already crashed on the first lap. Charlie Finney crashed it out front of the '83 Blackhawk Farms WERA Endurance National, in turn 1. I eventually bought it, but after riding it once at IRP, decided to sell it and race 600 Ninjas in '85, winning the Middleweight Superbike Endurance Championship.

I raced the Team Wanker Prototype RB framed KZ1000 powered bike at two WERA National Endurance races in '84. Team founder and Rockingham 30-hour winner Mike Murphy, Ed Kayes, and the original builder of the one-off bike Charlie Finney won the overall WERA Endurance Championship on the RB in either 1981 or '82, (I can't remember now.)

 

Strangest I can remember? Yamaha XV920s, Honda VT500s (which if it wasn’t shaft drive would make sense), Hayabusas (27 feet long and turned like an F350), FJ1000/1100/1200, RS500 (perfect but worth a small fortune). . .

Sean, who was that dude that had a Paton 500 GP bike? Can’t remember if he actually raced it.

 

Who was that Doctor or Dentist that raced Moto Guzzis? I remember it being out in the AMA twins class but it was usually at some WERA Formula USA events. Might have been a MG Daytona (but Le Mans sticks in my brain) and I think the owner was out of PA.


there’s the answer to the question: any moto guzzi.

 

Dr. John Wittner, from PA.

 

The Ludwisgen (sic) brothers built some unique frame up bikes in the Southeast back in the 90’s. Clubman and D Super mostly. Mongo might remember some of the configurations.

 

A race Goldwing you say... that could be a fun project.

 

Three years ago a guy brought a 1991 norton rotary engine bike to the WERA event at Barber and ran it in Ron Raven's exhibition class. The bike had been factory converted and raced in England for a long while before coming to the US.

Also at this event and ridden on the track was the FZR750R that had been raced by Jimmy Filice.

 

The turbo brothers from the,,90's

Can't remember their name

 

Lots of crazy stuff from fusa that probably ran at wera

 

is that the Rad Greaves one or a different one?

Rad’s bike was something else with Elf and Cosworth and Yosh having their hand in it… it was for the Formula Extreme class when the displacement must’ve been unlimited… I think it was over 1400cc in its last configuration… he was quite the personality…

I don’t know if he ever raced it in Wera but I think he hit 200mph at Brainerd, a first back when Superbikes were still 750cc…

He came to Grattan bragging about how he was going to set the track record… he finally did only for someone to embarrass him on a little R6 it was fast but wouldn’t turn… I don’t know if it was the bike or the rider that couldn’t turn

 

The EBSCO bike was different. Endurance spec. Rad’s bike was worked to the gills. Heavily modded frame, works level forks. .
. Shit, I think even the Suzuki logos were works level.
For awhile, wasn’t Rad sponsored by an Indian tribe?

 

I posted a pic I found online… it says GSX 1651 R wth?!? Guess that’s bigger than the 1400 I thought it was

 

yeah… Jacirillo (sp) Apache…

Rad thought he was black though… which is funny because I was friends with his Mechanic Leonard Love… Lenny was a cool cat that happened to be of African decent… he had some issues with some racist hicks when his son was racing at the Grand Rapids arena cross years later… I thought motorcycle racing was immune to that shit but west Michigan hicks showed me different

I was glad I was there to back him up it was about to get stupid…I was doing Superbike promos for FUSA… I think it was Tripp that threw the douches out… Lenny and his son had a good race after that thankfully

 

That looks to be one of Rad’s bike. ELF was one of his main backers for awhile. I want to say they chopped the bike in half, shortened it and welded it back together.
Rad wasn’t black. I thought he was whiter than me.

 

https://magazine.cycleworld.com/article/1986/7/1/drjohn-and-the-guzzi-gang