Despite the mysteriously musical sound of a Kawasaki Triple, rich in indecipherable overtones, I was not bewitched. On April Fools’ Day, 1969, two friends and I opened a Kawasaki-Triumph dealership in Arlington, Massachusetts.

Triumph was releasing its long-overdue four-stroke pushrod 750 Triple—the Trident. Kawasaki would shortly diverge abruptly from its disc-valve two-stroke twins, A1 and A7, to build the much simpler piston-controlled intake H1 500 cc in-line Triple.

We were all roadracing enthusiasts and intended to race something. I phoned Triumph to inquire about Trident race parts.

This made sense because for years Triumph had supported American racing with a wide range of race parts – cams, pistons, oversize valves, and information. They had even offered complete race engines for a time. There was a long tradition of successful home-built racing Triumphs on both dirt and pavement.

Laughter came through the phone. Yes, the racing parts were in the parts book, but only because AMA rules required it.

No, those parts were not for sale—AMA didn’t require that any be sold.

Next I called Kawasaki. Yes, the H1-R is for sale at $1500. May I take your order?

Our racing future was thus decided.

A lot of motorcyclists were puzzled or offended by three cylinders. The odd number was too odd.

Not too odd for Count Agusta, who in 1963 set his race team to work adding a 3rd cylinder to their two-valve 250 twin. He surely knew that the success rate of making a small engine bigger was vastly greater than it was for sleeving a 500-four down to an overweight 350. When MV first went 250 racing they took two approaches. One was to combine two 125 top-ends on a common crankcase—powerful but heavy. The other was to enlarge their successful 175 Italian Championship single as much as possible—in this case, to 203 cc. That handy little 203 won races.

The Count’s men thought three cylinders odd, but they also valued their paychecks. As a later offshoot, a 4V head was made for the new 350 Triple. This was the origin of the great 4V MV Triples that would win 67 350 and 500 Grands Prix in the hands of Giacomo Agostini. It took time to reach 500 cc, but the steps along the way were light, handled well, and with engine and rider well forward they could be throttled-up early.

Oh, but those are four-strokes. OK, in 1938 Detroit Diesel released its 3-71 two-stroke Diesel. And in the early-to-mid 1950s the vast (then) DKW firm in Germany raced a 350 two-stroke Triple, cleverly made narrower by swinging its middle cylinder forward, easing the space competition between adjacent cylinders.

Kawasaki in the 1960s was planning its entry into the big-bike market with two possibilities:

To enlarge the 350 twin A7 to 500 cc.
To avoid the problems of bigger two-stroke pistons by using three pistons of a smaller size they had experience with.

As bore increases, piston area exposed to combustion increases as bore, squared. This means if you double the bore you must somehow deal with four times the heat entering the piston. A-7’s bore & stroke were 62 X 56. A 500 Triple’s dimensions could be something like 60 X 58.8. Pretty close.

The air-cooled Triple was chosen for production as H1, plus a roadrace version, H1-R. The ignition was on the left end of the crank and the primary drive gears on the right. The engine was wide but not impossibly so.

Three things made them successful:

Simple design-for-production.

They were the fastest-accelerating bike on the market.

Riders could afford them.

On summer evenings, our H1 customers would gather in the dealership to enthusiastically describe their smoke-offs of the former Kings of the Night—Harley Sportsters and Triumph Bonnevilles.

Suzuki had a two-stroke 500 Twin running in European GPs, which they soon switched from air-cooling to water. Why? Its larger 70 mm pistons. Experience with that twin later (1972) emboldened them to design a water-cooled 750 Triple for production – GT-750.

Kawasaki did not have the benefit of taking part in the great classic era of Japanese GP racing, 1960-1967 so they had catching-up to do. I was young and ignorant so ditto.

We went to Daytona in 1970 and crashed, then visited our rider in Halifax hospital. At a later Canadian event – further humiliation. Our bike was beaten by John Clark on a 35 hp Vincent 500 Grey Flash of the late Coburn Benson.

I learned how to stop cylinder studs from breaking, and how to stop first pinion in the gearbox from pitting (I phoned a helo' operator who told me, “We just go get a case of Esso Hypoy-90 gear oil”). It stopped the pitting.

We needed an experienced rider. I’d met English rider Cliff Carr at Daytona and wrote to ask if he’d like to ride our 500 in ’71. He came to the US and we did 26 meetings that year. There were wins in Canada and in AAMRR club racing. Cliff won Kawasaki’s contingency $$ in the latter. In AMA nationals we were weak—fast, then stop. We solved problems and learned how best to operate.

Now we had experience. With Kawasaki’s release of the 750 H2 Triple, I wanted to know if there would be an H2-R. When it became clear that a “selling-bike” would not be built, we had to build our own. We knew that stock con-rod needle bearings only went 50 miles before failure, I would have to make needle cages and find better rollers. It was an adventure—machining the roller pockets on a dividing head, having the finished parts silver-plated, assembling and trueing the crank. Fortunately the close-ratio five-speed from the H1-R was a drop-in, but to bring tooth-to-tooth gear loads down to a survivable value I’d need to use the H2’s faster primary gears. And make bits to join them to the excellent H1-R dry clutch, with its 10 sintered copper friction discs.

Our first success came at Mosport, Ontario. Ducati had sent over Bruno Spaggiari with the bike on which he’d just finished 2nd behind Paul Smart at Imola. Cliff left him far behind. That felt especially good because we’d been at Imola with our home-built and had been certifiable nowhere men.

Seeing that carbon was accumulating at the top of each cylinder’s four transfer ports, I knew what it meant: the exhaust ports were opening a bit too late. Up they went, a millimeter each. More power. The detailed carburetor needle taper information in the Sudco catalog allowed me to find needles that could fatten up our mid-range. Surprise and delight, they worked.

Our blink of short-lived fame came at the Ontario California 250-mile AMA national at the end of that season. When the second 125-mile leg began, Cliff took the lead and pulled away.

Until the big-end rollers gave up from surface fatigue damage. Paul Smart went on to win the race and the $32,000 payoff. I felt a pang over lost possibilities, but more important to me was knowing we had built something that could lead.

Earlier, Bob Hansen had protested Suzuki’s head as different from stock. They counter-protested—the divided-exhaust-port cylinders (A-Type) Kawasaki were using weren’t stock either.

Now Kawasaki had the problem of how to get competitive performance from stock-casting B cylinders. I knew how. Hansen put me on a JAL flight to Japan for fascinating days talking with engineers.

I was told I was wrong in some small detail, so I asked for measuring equipment, which supported my view.
They summoned the next-biggest engineer. Finally, the top, Mr. Otsuki. I did not want to offend this man.

I said to him, “You have tremendous responsibilities in this important corporation—so many things to think about. I am just one person, studying this one cylinder.”

Years later, Tom Houseworth (working with Ben Spies at the time) told me about having questioned the 5-valve concept at a meeting in Japan, saying, “I had to eat lunch all by myself the rest of that week.”

Mr. Otsuki spoke to an aide and box lunches were brought. I was given two.

We never had the big success that so often seemed so close. The next year (1973) at Laguna Seca, on the first lap it was green Kawasakis five abreast—like a crazed PR fantasy. Then there were four. Then three. At the end, it was Gary Nixon on Erv Kanemoto’s bike, and Cliff second on mine.

I had learned so much in three years of three-cylinders. Unlike at university, I had at last learned things I passionately wanted to know.