My Uncle Jerry had a 1965 250cc Yamaha Big Bear Scrambler, and he was cool enough to let me borrow it to go to a basketball game one night. We all had bikes back then, but the biggest of the lot was Tommy Joe Davis' Yammer 125. I felt like one of the big guys that night. I took a few of my friends for rides on it. One of them, Terry Potterton as I recall, got a little extra thrill. I took a curve about two clicks above my skill level and showed him the ditch. Told my uncle that a car ran me off the road.
A while later, I had a friend that lived about 5 country miles down the road from me who had a Yamaha 305 Catalina. The first two stroke twin I ever saw with expansion chamber exhaust (not like the one pictured). He had done some other mods to it, but I was too dumb at the time to remember what he said he had done to it. It was freakin fast for it's time and place in the world, Northern Arkansas Ozarks, right in the middle of Hillbilly land. When I was outside waiting for the school bus, I could sometimes hear him fire that bastard up getting ready to go to work. Yes, it was loud!!
The local Yamaha dealership in Golden Missouri had a Yamaha 250 Ascot that they had modified for drag racing. There weren't any organized scrambles or any other motorcycle racing around there at the time, so drag racing was the only gig in town. They had a pretty impressive array of trophies that they took home with this bike.
that TT bike looks extra great.
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