PIP HIGHAM
Pip on meeting a few legends….
Iseriously doubt that either of you, my precious two readers, has ever seen, or even heard of the mysterious ‘Mifuni’. Only in existence for a brief period in the summer of 1977 it bore a striking resemblance to a GS1000 and dominated ‘street’ class racing at Santa Pod and took a clean sweep at the Elvington Records Weekend (records which mysteriously, like the Mifuni itself, vanished at a stroke one gloomy night). I owned and rode the ‘M’ bike and had more fun than is strictly legal on it. I learned quite a bit and enjoyed every minute. Riding it turned lamp posts by the roadside into picket fences: at full tilt it consumed juice at the rate of about six mpg. Fast forward a few weeks and the Mifuni howled off into the dark night, never to be seen again, only to be replaced by Hamamatsu’s finest GS1000. Our first event was at The Royal Garden Hotel in that Kensington where I occupied a comfy spot in ‘steerage’ showing the intricacies of my little bike to dealers and assorted press bods by day, and doubling up as security (ha) guard by night. Outwardly it looked like I was a fully paid up member of the Suzuki family but if I’m honest, I was always a bit of a purple sheep in their line up. A tyre shredding, noisy, ruff-out leathers wearing mischief monger, how can I put this? A bit like a Nils Lofgren figure backing up their Brighouse and Rastrick Band. Suzuki used our dragstrip adventures in their ads for the GS, I was made up. Things went from one GS and some Zeds in ‘Street’ Class to a shedload of GSS the following year. The writing was on the wall, plain as a poncho on a penguin, the GS was here to stay. I’m not ashamed to say that my inspiration was ‘TV’ or Terry Vance, he and Byron Hines (yes, that Vance & Hines) had created a very effective GS1000 when they did their stint with the inimitable Russ Collins. I popped over to see them at Russ’s shop in Torrance LA (Russ Collins Engineering) a trip I’ll never forget. Russ, complete with ‘ceegar’ and cowboy boots was like nobody I’d ever met. He’d fallen off, no he’d crashed his triple engine Honda, The Atcheson, Topeka and Santa Fe at Akron Ohio two years previously and the scarred engine pod sat, with an acrylic top, right at the side of his desk, that’s what I call a focal point! Undeterred, Byron put together the replacement for he called ‘The Sorceror’. He did this by hewing several huge pieces of ‘aluminum’ and ‘titanium’ into works of engineered art to form the basis of the new V8 motor. Soon after my visit, Terry and Byron set up on their own nearby. Their success continues to this day based on the riding ability of Terry and the self effacing cubic talent of Byron. After RC’S demise in 2014, I love the typically modest tone of Byron’s take on the RC period: “RC Engineering was a pretty good place to be in the 1970s. We were just fortunate to have been in his wake.” That’s modesty personified. To get an idea of the skill and vision incorporated into Byron’s work there is a much coveted award given annually by the NHRA for ‘Best Engineering’. In the 1970s Byron didn’t just win this once, he scored it twice, in 1973 and 1976: no individual has ever matched this before or since. While the idea of a 750bhp bike might not appeal to everybody it established Byron’s credentials as a rather exceptional engineer, to say the least. But the bike didn’t just look amazing it also went rather well, the AT & SF was the first scoot into the sevens in 1973 but the Sorceror took Collins to a 7.3 second pass at an ‘oh so close to 200’ (199.5 actually) at Ontario Motor Speedway in 1977. To give an idea of the total dominance enjoyed by Russ and Byron at that time, it was 11 years before that accolade was wrested from their hands, 11 years, that’s the length of time it took Suzuki to get from a Super Six to the GS750! At that time in California tuning shops like RC Engineering and Vance & Hines were hugely important to the likes of Honda and Suzuki. I suspect that Honda, based on their prominent position on Russ’s bikes contributed significantly to the build costs of the Assassin, AT & SF and the Sorceror. I also know that when Byron built the next generation bike for Terry at V&H, Suzuki created some ‘one off’ crank-cases for it, and they do not come cheap. Ker-ching!