Yama Tracker
YAMA TRACKER
SPECIAL SECTION STREET FIGHTERS
Forget Jackson Pollock, here's our kind of modern art
DAVID EDWARDS
WE'RE SUCKERS FOR STREET-TRACKERS HERE AT Team CW, especially those conjured up by Richard Pollock in his "man-cave," a converted two-car garage in suburban San Diego. But is a street-tracker a streetfighter?
Yes, and it’s not too much of a stretch. See, street-trackers— basically flat-track racers with lights-are close kin to America’s first customs, the cut-downs of the ’20s and ’30s, and the bob-jobs of the ’40s and ’50s. As their names suggest, those bikes started as fully dressed civilian or military machines but were soon shorn of excess bodywork, a move that increased performance and set a style, all on a budget. That, in a nutshell, is the streetfighter ethos.
Pollock, doing business as Mule Motorcycles (www.mule motorcycles.net), is best known for his Harley-powered ’trackers, but he’s a big fan of the Yamaha XS650 parallelTwin, too. In production for 16 years, from 1969 to 1985, it’s both enduring and endearing-plus, pumped-up, Championframed flat-track versions carried King Kenny Roberts to his two AMA Grand National Championships.
“The project began, as most do, with a mental picture,” says Pollock. “This was a rerun of sorts in that I’ve already done a couple of the 650 street-trackers but felt that I could improve on the previous ones. Simpler, smoother and a bit more seamless.”
Starting point was a stock Yamaha XS frame, neither the lightest nor the prettiest piece. Pollock cleans things up and pulls in the steering head for crisper handling. More drastically, he cuts the entire lower cradle out of the frame!
“XS engine cases are so strong there’s no problem using the motor as a stressed member in the frame," Pollock explains. "All motor-mount plates are remade in chrome moly, and there's Grade 8 ream-fitted hardware throughout. My standard practice of dishing all the bolt heads and then cad plating gives the `high-function' look I really like." Matt Bryant, one of Pollock's coterie of fabricator friends, made the rectangular-tube swingarm and bent up a rear up frame loop to fit the Champion dirt-track tailsection. Both rims are 19-inch Suns, right off the racetrack, but powdercoated black chrome, the front 2.75 inches wide, the rear 3.5. Tires are genuine Dunlop race issue.
Before being bolted into its rehabbed home, the engine was taken apart and treated to a Shell 750cc kit, a hotter cam, heavy-duty racing valve springs and a pair of 34mm Mikuni carbs. Cases were powdercoated a metallic gray and the cylinders were sprayed with an iridiumhued high-tech ceramic coating borrowed from Formula One brakes, meant to draw heat out of the metal. Nice finishing touch are the billet cam-end caps, engraved with the Mule logo. Exhaust is a custom stainless-steel assembly built just for this bike. Mark McDade, another talented pal, fabbed up the tapered muffler inserts.
Pollock is an inveterate eBayer, which is how the 1989 Yamaha FZR1000 fork assembly, complete with four-piston calipers, ended up on this bike.
“All components required extensive refurb but cleaned up beautifully,” he says. “The front rotors are Ducati 900SS. Mule billet triple-clamps keep it all in place while a Sportster headlight assembly keeps the rider from driving blind at night.”
Another online score, the gas tank looks familiar and out of place at the same time-and it’s not just because of the RD400F Daytona Special paint scheme and stickers from a TZ250 roadracer.
“On my first two XS projects, I used aluminum Harley XR-750 tanks. Expensive (new $1000) and not Yamaha!” Pollock explains. “So for this 650 and another three I have in the works, Fm using 1975-76 YZ400 motocross tanks. They’re a Yamaha part, they’re aluminum and can be had on eBay for under a hundred bucks in decent condition. A couple of small mods with the mounts and petcock bungs, and you’ve got yourself something that looks good enough to be fitted on a Ron Wood Norton!”
Mr. Wood, known for his super-sanitary builds, would no doubt consider that a high compliment.
