Many times Yoshimura R&D acts as motorcycle roadracing's very informal historical marker. Having been around in the US for over 35 years (and another 15 or so in Japan--Pops Yoshimura was in the WWII Japanese air force) one can easily gauge how long an enthusiast has been following racing by asking them who the first Yoshimura rider is that they can remember.

For some, "old" Yoshimura riders are Thomas Stevens, Tom Kipp and Fred Merkel from the early to mid-1990s. For others, it's Jamie James and Scott Russell in the late 1980s.

Before that, some recall the late Wes Cooley winning two Superbike championships on Yosh-powered machines in the early 1980s (Don Sakakura was his "touring mechanic"). However, largely, modern day Yoshimura racing memories end there, even though Yoshimura was fully active in US racing for most of the 1970s with riders like Yvon DuHamel, Ron Pierce, and Steve McLaughlin.

Very few remember when Yoshimura was actually called "Dale Starr Racing" and the firm primarily raced Hondas—CB750s and later those cool little CB400Fs on the West Coast or when rider Jimmy "Rabbit" Chen raced on his CB350-based Yoshimura Honda at Daytona in 1970 or 1971. In this era 350 four-stroke motorcycles were allowed to race against 250 two-strokes in the AMA's then Lightweight class.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but the shot below of the late-1980s GSX-R750 Yoshimura Superbike easily speaks ten times that. In racing circles there’s a phrase that has summed up both machines and moments for decades: “It’s Yosh.”

Look closely and you’ll see why. From hurried welds to an oil cooler wedged right under the rider’s arm, from a fuel tank with its dents hammered out to the liberal use of zip-ties holding bits together—this bike is pure, unapologetic Yoshimura.