Kawasaki 1975 onwards
It took Kawasaki a while to genuinely grasp the commercial value of racing successes in Europe but by 1975 they’d appointed Stan Shenton (ex Meriden Triumph man) to run the official works Kawasaki team. Shenton signed Barry Ditchburn and 1972 Senior IoM winner Mick Grant and the latter rewarded his boss with another TT win in the Classic Unlimited race with a 109.82mph lap on a Kawasaki KR750. Other than the older 125 twins and fours, Kawasaki’s successive race bikes had been heavily based around production road-going machines and the KR750 was no exception. It borrowed heavily from the Mach IV, H2, 750 (1972-1975) which, ironically, was dropped from the sales lists that same year. The firm had realised that in order to remain a dominant force they would need to design their race bikes from the ground up. Using road bike motors as a starting block eventually severely limited the race bike’s development; what happened next was groundbreaking.
For the 1976 season Kawasaki launched a pair of two-stroke twins the like of which had never been seen before on a GP grid. Utilising the disc valve set up that had proved so successful for Suzuki and Yamaha almost a decade before, Kawasaki unveiled both 250 and 350cc twins, but with a twist – the cylinders were in line behind one another in tandem formation. As might be expected, all of 1976 was to be a learning curve for all involved, but the following year proved the concept’s worth. Grant would take a pair of victories at both Assen in Holland and Anderstrop in Sweden; he would also again win the Classic TT for Kawasaki, this time upping the lap record from 109.82 to 112.77mph… Team Kawasaki was going places at last.
The year 1978 saw the team sign up South African Kork Ballington, who immediately made devastating use of the in line twins by hoovering up both 250 and 350 world titles in the same year. And it wasn’t just Ballington working his magic on the new twins either. New Zealander Gregg Handsford and West German Anton Mang were also able to make the 250 and 350 fly. Mick Grant was still making the best of his now ageing KR750 with another Classic TT win, averaging an astonishing 114.33mph with a timed 191mph top speed on a bike as basic as they come.
The bikes would continue to be successful for a number of years with Anton Mang taking the 1980 250 World Championship, with Kork Ballingtom second and France’s Jean-François Balde third. Mang and Balde would also take second and third places respectively in the 350 Championship. In total, KR twins would go on to take eight world titles and all using just the insanely simple, yet scientifically researched disc valve as pioneered in the 1950s by MZ.
Even if the commercial future of the two-stroke was now very seriously in doubt due to environmental concerns, three of the major Japanese factories were still banking on the stinkwheels concept as GP winning tackle. And the premier, 500cc class was where most of the glory lay. Having abandoned the H1-R and its descendants, Kawasaki had been working behind the scenes on an allnew 500 that borrowed heavily from the KR twins and also doffed its hat to Suzuki’s hugely capable RG500 square four. In essence, the resultant KR500 was a doubled up KR250 with mirrorimaged carburettors and disc valves on the right-hand side of the heavily angled forwards square four. The bike ran as an entity from 1979 through to 1982, but never really lived up to the hopes of its designers. Arguably, the R&D team back in Japan tried to introduce too many changes at one time and the KR500’s monocoque aluminium chassis was probably a step too far. Its swansong and only title was the British Shell 500 Series, with Kork taking the prize in October 1982. From 1983 there would be no more two-strokes from Kawasaki and no more GP racing – the Green Meanies had had their day!