Some History
My brother Fred and I have always been aficionados of all things relating to motorcycles. When school let out each day, we didn't worry about things like homework - we headed out to ride.But these days I live in Maryland and he lives in Spokane, Washington. As such, it's hard for us to share that hobby together anymore. This is how our motorcycle paths crossed once again.
Many years ago, the Spokane Raceway Park (previously owned privately) was sold to Spokane County and was renamed Spokane County Raceway. It became public property and individuals were able to book time on the track for a fee. That was in 2008.
Fred, whose roots were firmly planted in the Spokane performance motorcycle scene, saw an opportunity to help others get into his sport. He began hosting track days at the newly acquired race track and did so for a number of years.
As his family grew he began to run out of time for running track days. So he passed the torch to his friend Darrel who now runs Inland Speed (http://www.inlandspeed.com).
Fred and I used to use our VCR to record Grand Prix races on TV - sometimes waiting up until 2am - so that we could watch them over and over. Those were the days of Kenny Roberts and Wayne Rainey (Fred's first born child, by the way, is named Rainey - just to give you a picture of how much we love this stuff).
I remember going to the library to check out Keith Code's "A Twist of the Wrist" as a middle schooler. This probably goes without saying, but for as long as I can remember it has been a dream of mine to ride a motorcycle on a race track.
A few years ago (2013 - the summer before I my fateful New Year's Day crash) I was out west visiting my family in Spokane. As luck would have it, Inland Speed was hosting a track day the weekend I was in town and Fred, ever generous as he is, had a bike in his garage and a discounted entry fee to the track day waiting for me.
The bike was a 1985 Yamaha RZ350. You may know what that is, you may not. If you don't, let me sum it up: for two years Yamaha produced a lightweight, two-cylinder, two-stroke street bike. They were popular in the day because they were the closest thing a layman could get to riding a true Grand Prix motorcycle. They had virtually no power until you revved them to about 2/3 of their rpm range, and then they took off like a proverbial bat out of H - E - double hockey stick.
The RZ350 is a now cult classic. Like I mentioned, it was only sold in the US for two model years: 1984 and 1985. Parts are scarce and finding one in decent repair is almost unheard of anymore. I don't know how Fred found this one, but I suspect it had something to do with his connections in Spokane. It was definitely used as a track bike of some kind - it was already safety wired.
At the track, suited up in a borrowed set of leathers, I remember the nerves, the smell of two-stroke fuel/oil mixutre burning, and the riiing-ding-ding-ding of the motor revving. It was like a dream come true on many levels.
In my excitement, I ignored the fact that I only had 19psi of air in the front tire and took to the track. I followed a track spotter for two laps until he flagged for me to go ahead. I took off like a shot and within three corners, my under-pressured front tire let go and I low-sided in the middle of a sweeping right-hander.
Not much worse for wear, I sat in the ambulance while a nurse looked at the tiny scrape on my pinky knuckle where my glove had worn through.
The RZ was a mess - not damaged very much other than some scrapes on a side casing, a small dent in the gas tank, and some rash on the right muffler, but the two-stroke oil reservoir plug had popped loose in the fall and had spilled oil all over the frame. I spend the next two 30-minute sessions wiping it up and borrowing a bicycle pump from the Canadian guys in the paddock next to me to make sure I didn't make the same stupid mistake again.
Here's a short video of my last track session after the accident/clean-up:
More than two years have passed since that bucket list item was crossed off. While I was visiting my family again over Thanksgiving last year (2015) Fred said to me something like, "How do you plan to get your motorcycle home?"
I wasn't sure what he was talking about.
"The RZ. It's yours if you want it. Just let me know how you plan to get it home." Uh, what? I mean, loaning it to me for a track day is one thing - giving it to me is quite another.
Long story short, a couple of weeks later my wallet became about $500 lighter and a shipping company rolled the RZ off a trailer into my driveway.
In short order, my kids helped me name the bike Rizzo.
Rizzo hadn't been ridden (probably even touched) since he was rolled into Fred's garage after I rode it last, and you can see in the pictures the condition he was in when he was rolled off the truck into my driveway.
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| Right-side view. I inflicted all of the damage seen from this angle. |
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| Left side view. I didn't do any of the damage to this side. It was dropped by another friend before I crashed. |
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| Broken steering damper. A metal tab on the frame broke off ... |
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| My inspection sticker prior to taking Rizzo on the track. The initials SJB are those of a childhood friend that was inspecting all of the motorcycles that morning. |
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| I fairly-well cooked the tires. It hasn't been ridden since it rolled off the track that day, so all of those chunks of melted rubber are mine. |
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| Sven and Rizzo - brothers from another mother ... |
The Project
Even before Rizzo arrived in Maryland, I was already combing the internet to see what types of upgrades/customizations are typically performed on an RZ. It appears that people are split on this topic. Some think that the RZ was a piece of art when it was made and that every single one left on the planet should be restored to its immaculate original condition. Others believe they are a good base for something extraordinary and should be upgraded with parts from more recent models.
Since original parts are fairly hard to come by these days, I have decided to go with the 2nd option.
The first thing I wanted to change were the skinny tires. The restore-minded crowd complains that putting on wider tires will ruin the handling and make it less flickable. Having lost traction once on this bike, I prefer to have some extra meat between me and the pavement to flickability - so a quick look on Craigslist yeilded an ex-FZR600 racer's shop where he was selling a complete front-end from an FZR400, regarded by many to be the best handling production motorcycle ever made - and are also hard to come by recently. I had to drive to Shrewsbury, Pennsylvania to pick up the parts.
If I'm honest, though, the trip to Shrewsbury was worth more than just the rare FZR parts - the guy selling them runs his own shop with all kinds of parts in a back room. Specifically, he also happened to have a full carbon fiber fairing that looked as if it was specifically made for Rizzo. He received it from a sponsor that told him it was from a YZF750 - but it was too narrow to fit even his FZR600. I made a deal with him to create a simple website for his shop in return for the fairing. I'm still working on it, but here's a link to that site:
I'll add some pictures of the front end when I get a chance. It's going to take some machining to get the triple clamp to fit on Rizzo.
Being the impatient man that I am, I almost immediately wanted to make I could get Rizzo to start, so I poured some gas into the tank and tried to kick it over a few times. The strong smell of gasoline told me that something was wrong and I noticed that gas was leaking all over my garage floor. At first I thought it was coming from the fuel petcock or the carburetors, but it was actually dripping from the bottom left edge of the tank itself. Close inspection and a sander showed that there were a few small rust spots in the tank ... grrrr.
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| Small rust holes in the gas tank |
These holes can be patched of course, but it's an additional expense that I hoped I wouldn't have to incur. My Katana had the same issue, so at least I have some experience with performing the work if I opt to do it myself. I've also heard that radiator shops can often do the repair by filling the holes with a weld or with solder.
While I'm on the topic of fueling, one thing that annoyed me was that Rizzo has two different keys - one for the ignition and one for the gas cap. Since he won't ever be left out of the garage, I opted to remove the locking mechanism on the gas cap. It still uses spring-loaded tabs to hold the cap in place, but I no longer need a key to open it.
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| Gas cap with the locking mechanism in place |
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| Gas cap with the locking mechanism removed (see it on the table to the upper-right of the gas cap). |
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