Written by Roger Gowenlock
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WRITTEN BY ROGER GOWENLOCK THE 1960’S FACTORY TEAMS YAMAHA’S GLORIOUS GRAND PRIX HISTORY THE 1960’S FACTORY TEAMS BY SAMPLEROGER GOWENLOCK First published in 2009 by Roger Gowenlock Copyright Roger John Gowenlock 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including scanning, recording, photocopying or any other informa- tion storage or retrieval system with out written permission from the copyright holder. A Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The British Library St Pancras 96 Euston Rd London NW1 2DB +44 (0)870 444 1500 Cataloguing-in-Publication data Gowenlock, Roger John Yamaha’s Glorious Grand Prix History The 1960s Factory Teams 1st ed. Includes DIY index ISBN 978-0-9563044-0-7 1. Yamaha motorcycle. 2. Yamaha motorcycle - History. I. Gowenlock, Roger. II. Title First published as a hard copy; Limited stocks left; Available from [email protected] Yamaha’s Glorious Grand Prix History The 1960s Factory Teams. 1st Edition Printed 2009 Edited and laid out by the author Front Cover Picture The picture on the front cover was taken by the renown motorcycle racing photographer, Dutchman Jan Heese and features Phil Read & Bill Ivy on their 1968 Yamaha RD05A V4s riding to team orders at the 1968 250cc East German GP before the proverbial hit the fan at the next round in Czechoslova- kia and all hell was let loose. Back Cover Pictures. These were taken bySAMPLE the author at the YCRT appearances at Spa 2004 and Brno 2006.The other picture credits are one page 6. 2 Contents Forward by Ferry Brouwer 4 Preface 5 Acknowledgements 6 Chapter 1; The Introduction 7 Chapter 2; The 1964 250cc World Championship 11 Chapter 3; The 1965 250cc World Championship 50 Chapter 4; The 1966 125cc & 250cc World Championships 95 Chapter 5; How to Win the Most Points & Yet Lose the Title 144 The 1967 125cc & 250cc World Championships Chapter 6; How to Lose Friends and Alienate People 199 The 1968 125cc & 250cc World Championships SAMPLE Chapter 7; Yamaha’s Honda 6 Beater; The 250cc RD05A V4 251 3 Yamaha’s Grand Prix History Forward Forward by Ferry Brouwer Writing History with History What a privilege it was to have experienced the sixties and early seventies right from the Grand Prix paddocks. The older I get, the more I realize that these were special times, never to return. Am I sad? Not really, because new history is made everyday and I am proud that I am still able and allowed to add my part to it with the Yamaha Classic Racing Team. Through the years my heart was and always will be with the brand of the three crossed tuning forks and that is why I have really been looking forward to this publication. Let me explain. A lot has been written about road racing, bookshelves are full on the subject, but alas, only a piti- ful few with the real story. Many writers forgot the context of the Sixties, a period in which the world changed and racing changed with it. Yamaha introduced revolutionary, two, and even four cylinder two strokes shaking off the very unjust image of copy cats. The screaming two strokes came to stay and as always the winner knew why he had won, the loser why he had lost. Yamaha had the guts to fight against almighty Honda who in 1964 entered a profes- sional, very complete Grand Prix racing team. Yamaha came over to Europe for just three events (Isle of Man, Spa and Assen) and left but Phil Read deserves the credit to push through and conquer the world title. How could Saarinen become world champion in 1972 on a Yamaha that the late Barry Sheene said was no good? The ink black tragic of the death of Renzo Pasolini and Jarno Saarinen on the Monza track in 1973 or the question- able story of the 1971 championship winning Fath Yamaha. But what is the relation between these events? The plain truth is that Roger Gowenlock was able to get to the bottom of the facts of these occurrences. Not satisfied with exist- ing history writing, Roger was thorough in his own fact finding and scientific analysis. I was deeply impressed when Roger sent me his initial scripts about some of these topics. At last, a writer with an open mind, not biased by commercial interests or existing publications as so often is the case. With my classic racing team I try to make history with history, I know that Roger is writing history about history with this publication. Hence I am convinced that you will enjoy this book as much as I surely will! Ferry Brouwer Note from the Author Ferry Brouwer was a Yamaha factory mechanic in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1968 he helped to prepare Phil Read’s 125cc and 250cc water-cooled, disc-valve V4s and when Yamaha withdrew their works teams he joined Phil Read’s private team in 1969 and tuned his Yamaha 250cc TD2 and 350cc TR2 production racers. Ferry’s tuning extracted a 15% to 20% increase in the power from the standard 250cc TD2 machine which was comparable to the output of the factory RD56 disc-valve twin. At the 1969 Italian Phil Read rode the TD2 to defeat 250cc World Champion Kel Carruthers who was riding the factory four-cylinder Benelli and Phil broke the 250cc and 350cc lap records that had been set by Mike Hailwood on 6-cylinder Hondas. In 1970 on his TD2 Phil broke the Brands Hatch lap record that he had set in 1968 riding the factory RD05A V4 whilst duelling with Bill Ivy. In 1972 Ferry rejoined Yamaha as a factory mechanic and prepared bikes ridden by Jarno Saarinen and Chas Mortimer. After the tragic death of Saarinen in 1973 he left Yamaha and set up the European HQ of Arai Helmets in 1983, from which he retired as MD in 2008 to concentrate on his Yamaha Classic Racing Team. For a number of years Ferry had collected classic racing motorcycles and organised the 1998 Centennial Classic Assen TT. Around 2005 he decided to concentrate on classic Yamaha racing motorcycles and has built up a very impressive collection covering the 1960s and 1970s, with the jewels in the crown being the replicas of the 1968 Yamaha 125cc RA31A and 250cc RD05A V4s thatSAMPLE he built from scratch. The bikes are being paraded throughout Europe to revive the memories of those exciting times and show those not fortunate enough to have witnessed this epic era at first hand, something of what they have missed. The YCRT website address is; www.yamaha-classic-racingteam.nl Roger Gowenlock 4 Yamaha’s Grand Prix History Preface Preface The search for pictures to illustrate this book was not and the editor very magnanimously released me from straight foward because I believe that the nature of the our agreement. Then my local printer made the break- work required that at least one picture for each race was through when they told me about some free software necessary to bring it to life. When I first laid out the (cutePDFwriter) for converting documents to the PDF chapters in a very amateurish way in Microsoft Pub- files necessary for printing. I used Microsoft Publisher lisher, I used scans from the weekly motorcycling pa- to lay the book out because it was familiar to me, even pers and had no idea whether any of them would still be though it was meant primarily for smaller documents available. One of the problems was that the ownership such as leaflets and brochures. From my experience of these titles had changed down the years as Motor Cy- there is a lot of unnecessary mystic in publishing and the cle (magazine) merged with Motor Cycling (paper) to traditions that go back to the limitations of the printing become ‘Motor Cycle with Motor Cycling’ (paper), dis- press and they seem reluctant to embrace the freedom carding the “with” shortly afterwards , then finally being and flexibility of the digital age. known as Motor Cycle Weekly before folding in the 1980s. I heard stories of pictures not surviving poor You will find no fancy graphics in this book, just a storage conditions and even just being thrown away! simple plain layout that is intended to make it easy to read and none of the arty-farty publishing tricks of the My first port of call was to Mortons Media (Classic trade just to attract attention or sentences highlighted in Racer) as I had been told that they had acquired the large print for those too lazy to read the whole page. I rights to the images published in the aforementioned hope it will become a reference book that you will find titles. Their archive was not on line then and two trips easy to use and want to come back to on a regular basis. were required to Lincolnshire to go through their boxes I was told that it should have an index at the back but of photos. What struck me was that I saw very few nega- this is not a traditional book and with it divided up into tives, just photographs and the former were in Nic Nicks individual races this is an index in itself. However, even TT negative books. At first I was a little disappointed I cannot remember important milestones, so I have put a because I only found about half of the pictures that had blank lined page at the back so the reader can a make been published in the weekly papers.