Have you ever raced COPS?

They do that here, just don'y do anything really stupid

 

raced a cop once

In 1972 I worked for a Kawasaki dealership in Buffalo, New York and was breaking in the first H-2 ever delivered to Buffalo. The H-2 was a 750 cc two stroke triple cylinder rocket that was and still is one of the fastest motorcyles ever. Too many people died on them so they quit making them after two years. The 74 version was seriously detuned. I ran a 72 into the tens with only deleting the air cleaner, jetting, a slick and wheely bar. The story goes like this. I was cruising on Interstate 90 east towards Rochester and stopped at a rest area to use the rest room and get a cup of coffee. When I came out there was a New York State Trooper eyeing the bike. We shot the breeze for a few minutes and then he says he heard about them and that they were fast but he wanted to know how fast and would I show him. I'm thinking if I do I go to jail but how do you resist the oppurtunity? I told him to get going (in his 70 Fury I with the 440) to give him a head start to the next exit while I put on my leather and helmet. He takes off, I catch and pass him with in a quarter mile of the on ramp and wait for him at the next exit. He could not believe how fast I disapeared in the cloud of blue two stroke smoke from the pipes. He asks if he can drive it and I let him. He came back and said it scared him and he would never ride one again. They were extremely peaky and were very hard to control because the front tire would raise soooooo fast in 1st and 2nd if traction was good. Any way thats my story.
Mikey

 

I posted this a while ago (when I first joined) so I'm only gonna give you guys the short version. Buddy of mine has a 1967 firebird convert. At the time it was powered by a 350 out of a 70 corvette and an m21. One night on francis Lewis blvd (about 8 years ago) he and I were in the car racing stoplight to stoplight with a 1972 charger. At about the fith light we lined up at (one block north of Deli Biz, in front of the exxon station for those who know the area) the charger all of a sudden tucked in behind us. We were a little confused until a blue and white 109th precient caprice pulled up next to us. Seeing as we had the top down, my buddy and I slunk down real low in the seat and pulled our hats low to avoid being recognized. Then the caprice tosses us a couple of revs, we look over and there are two young uniformed officers in the car smiling. One of them goes to rool down the window and when it gets halfway down the light changes, the caprice reves to the moon the driver drops it into "D" and the caprice smokes them 50 feet though the intersection sideways. We didn't move a muscle and the light changes back to red. The guy in the charger pulls up next to us and "says, that didn't just happen, did it?" . We chat about it untile the lght turns green again and we pick up where we left off with the charger....stoplight to stoplight.

I hate to be an jerk about this but being one of the few kawasaki triple enthuasists on this site (there are two others), but they didn't stop making the h2 because it was too dangerous, they stopped making them because the federal government wouldn't allow a 750cc two stroke to be imported into the county. They only allowed the 500cc h1 to be imported in 1976 and than after that 2 stroker street bikes over 350ccs in this country were dead. They made the h2 from 1972-1975 and the 74 and 75 were slightly detuned (timing and jetting mostly) but still extremely fast. The bike was dangerous to novices and was called the widowmaker, but I think the reputation was severly overstated. The kawasaki turbo ninja made in the 80's was actually moe dangerous, and a modern rc51 has a higher motrality rate than the old triple. Still it is a really cool story and thanks for sharing, I love old kawasaki triple street racing stories.

 

As a former owner of a Yamaha RZ-350, let me tell you I would just LOVE to get a 750 3 cyl some day! As you stated, that bike is still alive and well with a good following of owners on the internet.

I'll never forget the day I picked up the RZ350. A friend of mine had a Honda 500 Intercepter and he just kept asking me why I was looking at a 350. I explained to him that it was a 2 stroke but being in engineering school, this meant nothing to him!

Well lets just say that Honda didn't have a prayer!!!

Ken

 

Ah the RZ-350

Had one of those ( called an RD350LC -YPVS in Europe) , loved it. 6:00am in the morning on the way to tech school back in Ireland . Sitting at a light up pulls up a bike cop, think it was a cb750 . It sounded it had a hole in one of the mufflers. Anyway I look over at him and said , want to race he said ok . He had me off the light , hard to keep RD's on two wheels off the line, anyway I got up to him around 100 , no real winner. Anyway he went left to exit , gave me a wave . What was neat was the other side of the road ( one of the few freeways in Ireland at the time , was chock full of traffic into the city center. Wonder what they were thinking :grin:
Cheers
Justin

 

just don't come back here to Buffalo mike. the cops arnt fun anymore

 

Back in the day here in Portland at PIR Raceway we hold the late night drags in the summer, doing 1/4 mile. The Portland Police gave us folks a chance to pull up to the line against them, I personally did not but had a few buddies step up and both won. The Police cruiser was a newer Z-28 with few mods but the cop only won I believe one race against a Honda. One of my friends raced him with his 94' Z-28 with a few more mods done to it and it was no match, and my other friend raced the cop in his 00' Mustang with a few bolts ons and again no match, sorry copper. :3gears:

 

thats sounds like it mustve been some fun.

 

Oh it was, and they do it every summer, hopefully when I get my car done I can drive it down their and blow the cops' doors off.