YAMAHA PRO-AM
Twenty-five riders on identical, free motorbikes, unleashed on a race track in front of a national TV audience. What could possibly go wrong?
Stuart Barker looks back at this legendary race series.
“The Pro-am series was mental and we got up to stuff that you’d never get away with in any other racing class,” says, Niall Mackenzie.
“We used to dab each other’s front brakes going along the straights, pull on the pillion grab rail of the rider in front to get a tow, and even hold our own front forks to make a more aerodynamic shape on the bike; in fact, anything to gain another one mile an hour on our rivals. It was brilliant fun and helped by the fact that no one took it too seriously.”
Mackenzie is, of course, speaking of the one-make Yamaha Pro-am series, which ran on British circuits from 1981 to 1984. There have been plenty of one-make championships over the years, from the Triumph Speed Triple Challenge to the Virgin Yamaha R6 Cup, but none have quite captured the imagination of bike fans like the Pro-am which, as its name suggests, featured a mix of professional and amateur riders all on identical Yamaha RD350LCS, with the keys for the bikes literally being picked out of a hat at each round to ensure parity.
The series made stars of the likes of Niall Mackenzie and Alan Carter, and it produced some of the closest, and maddest, racing ever seen on British circuits – and all, thankfully, in an era before penalty point systems and 'long laps' for irresponsible riding were invented.
Only recently retired as Powered Vehicle Director for Yamaha Europe, Andrew Smith was involved in the series from the outset and explains how the idea originally came about. “We'd been looking at a number of motocross events, where most of the bikes were standard, and
wondered about doing a one-make Yamaha series. Then we thought, why not try that in road racing? It was then decided that if we were going to do that, it should be done to launch a product and what better product was there than the Yamaha RD350LC? The concept was to find new star riders based on talent, not on money. We wanted to find the new Barry Sheene. But how would we find out that a rider's speed wasn't based on money? The gap between being a road rider and a racer was enormous so we said, ‘Right, let's break all that down and give everybody an equal chance and let's see who is the best’.”
The RD350LC had been launched in 1980 so the timing could not have been better, and the series proved to be a brilliant way to demonstrate just how good the new bike was – even in the bog-standard trim they were raced in. “The bikes were straight out of the box with some decent tyres on and that was it – off you went,” says multiple race winner and future 250cc Grand Prix winner, Alan Carter. “We weren't allowed to touch a thing. All you did was turn up, pick a key out of a hat, and raced. The only thing they allowed was an option for a short and long gear lever to allow for people with bigger feet!”
“They had a few mods to make them more suited to a racetrack, but they were not exactly performance enhancing,” adds Mackenzie. “Naturally, lights and indicators were removed and the sumps were wired up and racing number plates fitted. To reduce front-end patter, 20mm spacers were inserted into the forks and the air-filter elements were junked to allow the engines to breathe more easily. The gear change system was changed to one up and five down like a proper race bike, and the footrests were moved higher up to allow more ground clearance. But that was pretty much it and riders were not allowed to make any further modifications themselves, even if we had the time, which we didn’t.”
All 25 bikes were supplied to the riders free of charge by Mitsui Yamaha. Unfortunately for the importer, it had to cover the crash bills, too – and they weren't small. “The spares budget was probably the biggest part of the financial commitment on behalf of Yamaha,” admits Andrew Smith. “But we eventually renovated the bikes back into road-legal trim and sold them through dealers or sold them off as track bikes. They were sold as ex-pro-am bikes because that gave them added value – even though people knew that they'd been ridden extremely hard and had probably had the occasional crash.”
Riders had to be between 18 and 23 years of age so there was no shortage of youthful enthusiasm at work – and no shortage of innovative techniques to try to gain the smallest advantage over an opponent. “If you put your arm down on the fork it meant you could tuck your head in tighter against the clocks and you would notice the speedometer going up by about 1 or 2mph,” says Mackenzie. “It was German Grand Prix rider Martin Wimmer who started it. He raced in a one-off Pro-am World Cup race at Donington – which I won, incidentally – and all the other British riders and myself copied him after that. But sometimes he would also put his right leg up flat over the pillion seat to make himself even more aerodynamic! I thought that must have been some weird German trick and it didn’t take off in quite the same way as the old fork leg trick, but each to their own. Because the bikes were relatively slow compared to proper racing bikes, there was so much time on the straights to mess around. So when you already had your arm outstretched on the fork, it made sense to stretch it a little bit further and pull the guy in front back a bit! Sometimes we even hit each other's kill switches in practice, which would cut the other rider’s engine completely dead. Pro-am was definitely a full contact sport!”
The series was often televised on ITV'S World of Sport, introduced by Dickie Davis and, on occasion, commented on by the late, great Barry Sheene, so the competitors received huge exposure at a time when there wasn't much bike racing on TV. It also brought them to the attention of team bosses both at home and abroad. And the prize money was good, too – the winner of the series in 1982 received a handsome £15,000, which equates to about £60,000 in today's money.
Apart from Mackenzie (who went on to become a 500cc Grand Prix star and triple British Superbike champion) and Carter (who became the youngest ever winner of a Grand Prix when he won in France in 1983 at the age of 18), the Pro-am series also kick-started the careers of Kenny Irons, Rob Mcelnea, and a certain Damon Hill. The 1996 Formula 1 world champion's first interest was bike racing and he competed in the Pro-am series on several occasions.
The RD350LC was superseded by the RD350 YPVS in 1983 and, while the Pro-am series could easily have continued using those models, it had served its purpose as far as Yamaha was concerned and was dropped after the 1984 season. The RD Cup continued for several years afterwards but never received the same attention as the original series.
The Pro-am championship may have cost Mitsui Yamaha a whole lot of money – mostly in crash damage – but the publicity it reaped for both the RD350LC and the brand in general was beyond price, as Andrew Smith explains. “Yamaha was more than delighted with the success of the series. It's difficult to say in racing how many bikes you sell on a Monday because you win on a Sunday, but if any race series led directly to bike sales on a Monday
then I think it was the Pro-am Series, although I can't put specific numbers on it. But the dealer feedback was fantastic. It was a costly operation but it was a win-win situation for everybody involved.”
Despite many attempts to repeat the success of the most famous of all one-make race series (the Yamaha R6 Cup, which ran from 2003 to 2008, arguably came closest), none has ever taken off quite like the original and Niall Mackenzie thinks the credit for that belongs to the RD350LC itself. “The RDS were so light that you could change your line mid-corner and they were pretty good on the brakes too, so they made for great racing, and I think that’s why the series was such a success where other one-make championships haven’t done so well. Big, heavy bikes like Triumph Triples just aren’t suited to close racing. Pro-am was the maddest race series ever held.”
“I think it worked so well because they were just such standard road bikes being ridden by young crazy kids,” adds Alan Carter.
Like most riders who took part in the series, he has nothing but fond memories of it, some 40 years down the line. He sums up the Yamaha Pro-am series in his own inimitable style. “All the lads who raced in the series were pals so we'd have a few pints, try to screw a few birds, and race our motorbikes. I mean, what more could you want from a weekend? It was like the pinnacle of life!”