1983 Freeth McIntosh Suzuki
This machine was built at the same time as the Bathurst Replica road bikes in 1983 , this McIntosh Suzuki took second place at Bathurst in 1984 after Rodger had taken a year away to finish his PhD in Astrophysics at Auckland University . The Bathurst Replica road bikes are identical to this . Ken says Rodger picked this particular frame out of the ones he had in the workshop before he ’ d added brackets for batteries etc and it became the race bike . The others got brackets and became the Replicas – so , these really are true racereplicas . Powered by an air-cooled GSX1100 motor , it had to be downsized to 1000cc due to Aussie rule fiddling . Ken thinks it lost a proportional amount of power , somewhere around 10 %. Back in NZ the bike was generally run full size as 1135 or 1175cc . At the time Rodger had a display board claiming it as having 150hp … because Dave Hiscock was claiming his had 140hp . This bike was in a big crash at Gracefield , Wellington , and much of the running gear was used to build the 1985 single shock machine . Much later , with original parts from Rodger ’ s widow , Ken rebuilt the bike . The motor was rebuilt with the original cylinder head , carburettors , his original cams and the same Yoshimura pistons Rodger had used when he built the motor originally . It was dyno ’ d on Brett Roberts ’ dyno at 144hp at the rear wheel , so would have been making over 150hp at the crank . It originally ran on 18-inch rims , but was fitted with 17-inch wheels when the bike was restored .
KIWI RIDER 57