CW 40 Years Ago: January 1976

Senior Editor D. Randy Riggs, after riding an AMA-banned Yamaha TZ750 dirt-tracker: "If you and I, the spectators, are denied the chance to witness these magnificent motorcycles in action on the racetracks of this country, this AMA group has not only cheated us, they've robbed us blind." Kenny Roberts, after racing said TZ at the 1975 Indy Mile: "They don't pay me enough to ride that thing."

CW founder Joe Parkhurst, covering the first Four-Stroke Motocross Nationals at Carlsbad International Raceway: "That's right, you can even talk at this race, even standing at the starting line when 30 bikes go off. If nothing else, a four-stroke motocross is easy on your ears." More from Parkhurst on the event: "Lots of dirt, Pit tootsies parading about. Lots of hair."

Staffers, waxing poetic about Kawasaki's legendary Mach III 500, while testing the "blanded-down" KH400 Triple: "Back in those performance-oriented days, all you needed to sell streetbikes were blazing quarter-mile times."

And finally, editors were nearly thwarted at the now-defunct Riverside Raceway when sampling Harley-Davidson's RR250 two-stroke roadracer: "By the time we arrived at the raceway, the fog had rolled in, and all we could do was wait for a break in the weather before starting our test."

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