I built this silly fast Yamaha street bike into a roadracer by taking half of a TZ750 and grafting it onto my RD350 bottom end, the result being a TZ375, or something like that. There was a lot of cutting and welding but in the end, it was done and the bike ran and was really, really fast. Fast by about 145mph at Willow Springs raceway. Not bad for a 1973 350, built-up in 1980.
My friend, Mark, wanted to race it, Ok, and ended up burning a hole in the piston and scoring the cylinder beyond repair. He found a replacement from a guy south of us named Don Vesco. I went down to his shop in Laguna Niguel, CA and entered into Nirvana, or the mechanical doppelganger thereof.
You see, Don was the tuner for Kel Carruthers, former world champ from Australia, winner of Daytona, and once upon a time, the worlds fastest motorcyclist at Bonneville. His streamliner was in the shop, this one a Kawasaki and we talked speed for quite some time - he went 318 in it. Me, a bumpkin from SD and he a sophisticated, unassuming guy just trying to make ends meet.
The picture is with his dual TZ750 'liner, he went 250+ in it. Art Friedman photo.
Talking together was amicable, over much too soon and I didn't ever get back to talk to him more before he moved his shop again even further south and his death too soon after.
In his quiet way, he showed me how classy a smart mechanic cum engineer could be with just a small amount of ingenuity, some hard work and a brain that worked.
I'm running up to 20 patents now and the unwitting encouragement he gave me is something I'm sure today he'd laugh and say "...only 20?"
Godspeed Don.
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