TOPIC:

Street Fighter LTD wrote:

Street Fighter LTD wrote: Welcome to January. Happy New Year Too !!!!!!!
I hope you all like our new Bike of the Month
S1 Bikes are a rare breed and that is what we are starting off the year with .
Wayne is our member who owns the only S1 in OZ.
Thanks Wayne for sharing
Dave

BUMPPPPPPPPP

The rarest of the rare when it comes to Kawasaki motorcycles. ONE OF 28 THAT WERE EVER MADE!!! Wayne forgot to tell you that his S1 is one of the two S1's that went to South Africa to be raced there!!!! So that makes it even rarer than most S1's.

Most people here on KZr don't realize how rare this bike really is, nor do they really understand what they are looking at!!!!! Too bad because this bike and the rest of the remaining S1's are the Holy Grail of Kawasaki motorcycles!!!!!

Congrats Wayne!!!!! You got my vote for next years Bike Of The Year!!!! NOTHING can even come close*

*Now if someone has one of Yvon DuHamel's H2r's or Anton Mang's KR250's that might beat this bike for Bike Of The Year, maybe!!!!

Thanks Bob.
People should know that it was you who put me onto this bike, and I imported the bike from Canada where both 'South African' bikes have lived for the past many years, and hasn't been started or run for at least 25 years.
Oh, and its generally held belief, that there were 30 made in total, and only 27 remain in various condition from missing a lot of parts ( in a car yard shed in the States ) to a rusted POS ( sold early last year at a jap auction house, missed out on that one with too low a bid ) to the one which was sold on Ebay in 2013, which was the most complete bike I have seen. Mine was missing some vital S1-only parts, but I have since found them and in the process of restoring mine.
Hell, even the S1 in the Kawasaki museum in Japan isn't a complete bike - the bike there is privately owned, on permanent loan to the museum by the owner ( cheap insurance for the bike..... ).
There are a LOT of copies/replicas/fakes of the S1, I think more copies of the S1 than copies of any other bike made!!!

Thanks for posting Wayne
I was keeping my promise to you of non disclosure
You have one very special bike
Thanks again for sharing
Dave

I watched this S1 get totalled right in front of me!!!! And it was not even moving!!!!

Road America 1982. First S1 that was totalled!!! I know of another S1 that was totalled on a race track too.



The swing arm pivot area and pivot bolt was shoved through the engine case till it hit the output shaft gears!!!!

I remember the story you told about this accident in an earlier post Dr. Gamma.
A rookie driver smashed into the rear of this S1

I still have my program from that weekend but I can't find 201 , was he a privateer?

201 was Ernie Kicklighter from Florida. That was only the second race of that S1!!!!

And this engine was sold ( overseas I believe ) to a guy who put the internals into a set of 'J' cases and restamped the cases with the original S1 serial numbers......... think he had to get a new CR gears too, that swingarm pivot really did a lot of damage, as Bob said. Am I remembering right, Bob, from what you told me - the guy who hit the S1 up the arse was from overseas and thought they had 2 warm up laps, not one, came flying over the hill to the start line, and everyone was griding up and clobbered the guy basically at full noise, sending him and the bike flying through the air!!! Do I remember right, master?

opps - got that wrong then didn't I???? He was a local, think he should have known better, shouldn't he??

The guy that hit him was one of those french speaking furriners from Canada. He was late getting going on the warmup lap for one of the Superbike heat races Sunday morning. Guess he thought there was two warmup laps. He crested the hill on the main straight WFO, saw all the bikes gridded for the start, hit the brakes, and lost control of his Tz750. His sliding bike just missed Roberto Pietri's foot by inches who was in the last row, then by bike #261, and then hit the back of the S1. It knocked the rider and the bike 15 to 20 feet up in the air!!!! The AMA told him to pack his $hit up, and NEVER come back!!! I heard the furriner never even apologized to Ernie Kicklighter for what he did!!!!

And totalled not one, but 2 great bikes in the process!!!! It was amazing that no one got seriously hurt, I can see why the AMA told him to go back to where he came from as quickly as possible!!! Surprised the other local riders didn't take him out the back of the pits and teach him some proper racing etiquette.... LOL!!! Probably didn't apologise the Ernie because Ernie would have had to change his family name from Kicklighter to Kicktheshitoutta!!!!!
Thanks for giving us the full story again Bob. Surprised you didn't jump the fence and grab a few 'loose' parts....might have been handy when you bought your S1 for the following year!!!