Throwback Thursday: Romero Launches Factory Yamaha at Peoria
Larry Lawrence | August 30, 2018
Throwback Thursday: Romero Launches Factory Yamaha at Peoria
In this week’s Throwback we travel back 44 years to the 1974 Peoria TT National. This photo shows Gene Romero launching the factory Yamaha XS 650-based flat track machine over Peoria’s famous jump. Yamaha’s vertical twin flat track bike didn’t always have the power to run with Harley-Davidson’s XR750 on the bigger tracks of the AMA Grand National Championship (thus the effort by Yamaha to develop a TZ750-based flat tracker), but the XS was a great weapon on the more technical tracks like the Peoria TT. In ’74 Kenny Roberts ran away with Peoria on his XS. Romero meanwhile, was sidelined early in the event with mechanical problems with his bike, but not before Cycle News East editor Gary Van Voorhis captured this great shot of Romero and Yamaha in flight.
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