OUR BIKES
stands out in particular was the Yamaha YZ490 . The ‘ air hammer ’ was a beast , a fourspeed two-stroke that was totally comfortable pulling clutch starts in top gear in a wet paddock . Just select top gear , give it full throttle and dump the clutch . The YZ would just f *# K off and trench as long as need be . A funny story from that time , but a bit sad for the man concerned though ... At a Bushriders ’ MCC TT the start line was along the road fence , facing away obviously , down the paddock . The 500 class was lined up and across the road a pie cart had set up . Well , the gate dropped , it was a sunny midwinters day and a bunch of 500 two-stroke riders dumped their clutches . Now until this point all was fine ... the 250 class had fired a bit of roost on to the road , but that was it . But wet
Pahiatua farmland and 500cc two-strokes are probably the best possible combination for quality roost ! Well ... roost blasted over the fence , over the grass verge , right across the road and in to the pie cart ! The poor pie cart had serious mud blown on to the inside back wall about three inches deep , and a fair bit had dropped in to the fish and chip vats as well . I don ’ t think the poor owner had made a single sale yet and now he had to pack up and head home for a mega clean up . Me being me , of course , well and truly saw the funny side and simply questioned his intelligence for setting up there in the first place . In fact , prior to our start I vaguely remember Pete Galpin and I discussing how much roost we thought it possible to fire across the road . We ’ ve grown up a bit since then ... I think .
48 KIWI RIDER