A further tribute
Outrageous is not a word associated with Neville Doyle but the wheel-spinning, wheelieprone H2-Rs, the racing versions of Kawasaki’s 750cc two-triples, were all that, and more. It took him two years to turn them into something more like himself.
Born in rural Victoria in 1937, he progressed from riding a pony to school to apprentice mechanic at a local garage by age 16. At 17 he was declared Best Apprentice Motor Mechanic by the Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce. Instrumental in raising the profile of Kawasaki in Australia, the Team Kawasaki Australia operation he headed stayed at the forefront of racing for almost two decades. All this on a shoe-string budget which saw him preparing the machines, organising race entries, accommodation and driving the team van across Australia to events. As a ‘branding’ exercise, TKA was a major success for Kawasaki in Australia: by the mid-1980s the Big K had displaced Suzuki for the number three position in the Australian motorcycle market, behind Honda and Yamaha. The list of Neville Doyle’s considerable achievements for Kawasaki is too long to detail in the space available here.
This writer has many memories of the man; his quiet, thoughtful approach to racing, and the media. Neville could be a wily fellow, particularly when answering reporters’ poorly-framed questions. In late 1978 the English motorcycle press was claiming Doyle had a 500cc two-stroke square four in Australia that he was helping develop for the Japanese factory. So the REVS’ editor phoned him to ask if he had a “500cc two-stroke square four” he was helping develop. “No,” was his response. A month later, the Poms were at it again. Again the REVS editor asked the question. “No,” was his response, “we do not have any engine of that configuration.”
REVS Technical Editor Brian Cowan, initially sceptical of the original English claims, later theorised that perhaps Neville did have some special Kawasaki engine in his workshop. So the REVS’ editor re-framed the question: “do you have a racing two-stroke engine of anywhere between 490 and 750cc of any configuration in your workshop?” “How soon can you have a photographer in Melbourne?” was his response.
That is how the March 30-April 12, 1979 issue of REVS carried a world exclusive on what Cowan described as a “trapezoid” motor, a “staggered” inline 750cc four with the left and right-hand cylinders staggered forward of the centre pair, with separate crankshafts. No doubt Doyle had had a lot of input into this engine, which was why Kawasaki entrusted him with it. Development had ceased when Kawasaki learned the FIM was dropping the F750 class for which it was designed, at the end of 1977. Doyle fitted it into a modified three-cylinder KR750 chassis but with rider Gregg Hansford contesting the 250 and 350 World Championships as well as selected F750 races, development time was non-existent. The engine had huge potential but in the KR750 chassis, resonant frequencies were such that Hansford was unable to race it. Thus the rarest Kawasaki race bike quietly disappeared.
Doyle headed Kawasaki racing in Australia from 1973 to 1988, when the operation was taken over by son Peter. Neville continued with KMA as Technical Services manager until his retirement in 1997. ■