Author Rhys test rides Chas Mortimer ’ s Isle of Man winning TZ350 at Ruapuna 1978
M otorcycle road racing has a long and enviable history in New Zealand , and much of the machinery that has been used for this purpose over the years is often on display at classic meetings . Many of the bikes have been meticulously restored , and some of them are still raced today . Classic enthusiasts still thrill to the sound of Featherbed framed Nortons , AJS Boy Racers , and Velocettes . But , of course , classic bikes are not all about British machinery anymore . In the 1965-66 season Hugh Anderson brought back to New Zealand , and raced , a 125cc nine-speed two-stroke twin-cylinder Suzuki . At the Tourist Trophy meeting held at Pukekohe that year , he won the Lightweight 250cc race , then the 350cc Junior , and finally
narrowly failed to win the 500cc race in a sprint for the chequered flag against a machine with an engine four times as large . Japan had fired the opening shots in what was to come . Now , a little more than half a century later , many Japanese race bikes have become classics .
COMPETITIVE ON TRACK It seemed that anyone wanting to be competitive on the race track in the early 1970s had to have a TZ Yamaha . These 250 and 350cc two-stroke twins proved to be too quick and agile for the four-stroke singles that had dominated racing in New Zealand since the Second World War . At the Wanganui Boxing Day races of 1973 Dale Wylie took the honours on a 500cc Suzuki , followed by Trevor Discombe , Ginger
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