These are in no particular order.

Mounting the original TZ bodywork. At this point I was converting my streetbike to a club racer. As a newbie I did not know any better and put lots of time into making it pretty. That lasted two weekends. Crash.

Check out the Racers Supply sticker. Old School! Metzeler CompK tires worked really well on the track with these light bikes.

1996 Daytona results from Cycle News. We were the highest placing RD in the race, finishing 6th. The other Yams ahead of us were all TR's, which are real factory racebikes.

NHIS 1993 I try racing for myself. I make RD's look small

My '77 KZ1000 superbike replica. Built this one over a 15 year period.

Pete owned this TD2 based mongrel that we also raced. This bike is super light, it felt like a bicycle after pushing the RD. With its radical piston port design it was very pipey and much more difficult to ride than the 350. It also had period-correct factory exhaust pipes with no silencers at all. When I'd give him a push start in the pits people would wince and and scowl. It sounds like two unmuffled chainsaws tied together at full throttle. It was easy to spot him on the track when he rode it.

Here we are at the award ceremony at the 1995 Vintage Weekend at NHIS. This is the combined car and bike event, a really big show and a great time for vintage motorsports enthusiasts. That was a good weekend for us, as you can see by the number of awards we won. Pete manages to look cool and collected like a real racer and I am giddy with excitement. The big turnout and fancy setting are not typical of the bike only events. The car guys are generally a much more well groomed bunch and they have the champagne to prove it, along with things like rare porsches and real Indy cars from the '60's and '70's, and great big 18 wheelers with elevators to haul them with. We sleep in vans with dirty mattresses and drink warm beer. Note that I am wearing my special RD Tuners fanny pack. It contains a two fresh plugs and a plug wrench, a must in the hot pit while gridding up. It can save your race!

Some of the tools it takes to do the kind of work I describe in the porting section.

What most RD racers (above the age of 40) started on. I built several of these out of basket cases a few years ago and had fun riding around the neighborhood with my son and nephew.